Walking with Dinosaurs (2013)

Great Film overall

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There are some animated movies that have breathtaking animation and gorgeous backgrounds but everything else about the film is just awful that I feel that the film was a missed opportunity. Sadly, "Walking with Dinosaurs" is yet another one of those movies. This is a movie that has some fantastic visuals provided by the studio Animal Logic, but the story and the characters are absolutely atrocious that I certainly cannot recommend it. I'll get into why in a little bit, but here's what happens in this movie.After a pointless live action introduction with Karl Urban playing a paleontologist, we are told a tale about when a group of Pachyrhinosaurus dinosaurs living in the Cretaceous era migrate back in forth every winter through the Alaskan wilderness. In the film we focus on three young dinosaurs named Patchi, his brother Scowler and their friend Juniper along with a bird named Alex and how they go on a crazy journey including get lost in the wilderness and even having to watch their parents get killed by a Gorgosaurus. You may be now wondering why I haven't put in the voice actors yet and the reason why is because I don't consider them voice overs as much as inner thoughts from the characters provided by Justin Long, John Leguizamo, Tiya Sircar and Skyler Stone. The dinosaurs don't talk as their lips don't move yet we still hear their voices as if they're psychic. There's a huge reason why this doesn't work but I'm going to talk about the visuals first.The animation in this film is gorgeous. It has some fantastic live action backgrounds and the animation for the dinosaurs looked great as well. The dinosaurs are all impressively rendered and I was amazed at how well detailed they were. It's really a pristine movie to look at. Too bad there wasn't a mute button for this movie because I would have used it had I had the chance. The voice over work is so annoying and juvenile that it really sinks the movie. From what I've read, the film was supposed to be have no voice over work or narration at all and was supposed to be told visually yet the stupid executives at 20th Century Fox forced the director to include voice over work in order for the children in the audience to connect with the dinosaurs. That was a terrible move. By doing this, we have to listen to some awful juvenile humor read by actors from Fox's other family movies that it's difficult to relate to the characters and I honestly struggled to get through my viewing. One joke about how Alex and Patchi argue of how the dinosaur fell into the river and how the film actually rewinds to the same scene was so unfunny that I actually almost gave up watching the film. I'm not even kidding. This film is so unfunny and juvenile I nearly gave up. Even the educational element of this film falls flat. To teach kids about certain dinosaurs, the film pauses itself whenever a new dinosaur appears on screen and has a second grader read off the text information about the dinosaur. That also really annoyed me.Annoying is the best word to sum up "Walking with Dinosaurs". Despite it's breathtaking visuals, the voice overs added to the characters as well as the failed attempts to educate the audience failed spectacularly resulting in one of the most annoying animated movies I have ever seen. If I were to grade those two elements separately, I would give the visuals a perfect ten but everything else a one. Though in average, I think a two seems about right. Hopefully, there will be another edit of this movie to remove that juvenile audio because I certainly would want to see a more adult version of this movie. Until then, I'm sticking with "The Land Before Time".

I felt like watching a simple lighthearted movie and Walking with Dinosaurs fit the bill. It was nothing revolutionary but it was enjoyable enough. The scenes were quite lovely and the CGI was pretty well done. The plot on the other hand was pointless and kind of non-existent. There were a few moments where it held my attention but I would have liked a little more effort from the creators/script writers.Another negative is the clumsy voice overs. Although I don't believe it's hard to decipher which character is talking like some of the other reviewers but it does feel a little lazy. You either make an animated movie or an educational one. You can't take some of the aspects from both and cram them together. It just comes off as sloppy. Overall not bad.

Jacob's Review: I am an enormous dinosaur fan and I share this fanatic behaviour with a close friend. When we heard news of a Walking with Dinosaurs movie, the child in me got excited. I was utterly obsessed with the television documentary and a film adaptation seemed like a good idea at the time. However, I didn't hear an abundance of positive descriptions about this movie. So when I entered the theatre I braced myself... We could not have made a greater mistake than paying $20 each to go see this movie. The animation was spectacular but that was the only truly great attribute. For years many directors have been attempting to tell a prehistoric story simply through visuals or narration and this film's trailers depicted it in that light. It turns out that as an after thought, voice overs were added and a prologue with some dweeb teen who hates dinosaurs. He is then confronted by a bird voiced by John Leguizamo who can communicate telepathically. The bird begins to tell a story about a herd of ancient behemoths and the journey of three lost Pachyrhinosaurs. The voice overs are atrocious and all they ever talk about is fart, vomit and poop. It is really distracting when something is supposed to be taken seriously but is juxtaposed with this immature attempt to be humorous. It was as if the producers thought that children's attention spans wont last long if there isn't lines like "get your butt out of my face". As a stroke of genius they put this in because that's all kids care about isn't it? Screw this film. This movie is annoying and weak. Don't feed this to children. 3/10

It would have been a tall order for the movie to be as good as the ground-breaking TV series, which is still one of the most awe-inspiring series I've ever seen, and it shouldn't really be expected. Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie(or Walking with Dinosaurs 3D as named on IMDb) isn't as good certainly, except this is not in a good way. And it's more that it's a very bad film on its own than being a disgrace to the series. The incidental score is dynamic and the gorgosaurus discussion is amusing, but the general consensus is that the best asset(for one the only good one) about Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie is the animation. And I cannot disagree, it's nothing short of brilliant complete with some of the breath-taking scenery of any movie seen recently. Unfortunately it's a shame that the animation is as good as it is because it really deserved a much better movie, which has so many irritants that take away from what should have been better left as an experience. The story did have some relatable themes on paper that didn't come through on film, structurally it is very thin and formulaic. Which doesn't seem a bad thing as long as there was something engaging, which unfortunately here there isn't. There is far too much freeze-framing introducing characters which really interrupts the flow and is sometimes done for no reason and the book-ended live-action sequences are completely irrelevant. There was no need for the narration, voice-overs and dialogue, which were also very poorly done. Well actually, the movie would have benefited from a narrator, but this narration is way too over-used and doesn't educate at all, a lot feels like padding and some of it has nothing to do with what's happening. The voice acting only succeeds in making the characters sound and act dumb, with John Leguizamo at his most annoying and Justin Long voicing a character so blandly written you cannot engage with his plight. The script is similarly awful with over-reliance of "lowest common denominator" toilet humour that will insult anybody's intelligence, no matter whether they're an adult or child. While the incidental scoring is good, the High School Musical-ish pop songs feel ridiculously out of place. Because of all these irritants, any sense of wonder or naturalness is completely lost, and we also have a lack of danger, tension or excitement in the predatory parts that should have a sinister effect and emotional parts that feel shoe-horned in and manipulative. The characters are completely lacking in personality, with the predatory characters having no sense of threat thanks to the writing. There are some good messages here somewhat, but they are delivered heavy-handedly. In conclusion, it's a real shame at how much a disappointing and irritating mess Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie was with the visuals being as brilliant as they were. 3/10 Bethany Cox