User reviews

Dinosaurs have long proved a source of fascination for human beings - the notion that magnificent lizard-beasts used to rule the world we now live in... well, it would almost be the stuff of science-fiction, except it's just pure, unmitigated science. Walking With Dinosaurs: The 3D Movie - created using the same technology pioneered by BBC Earth for its classic 14-year-old dinosaur documentary - has decided to go fully into the realm of fiction. The result is wildly uneven, featuring spectacular animation but a laboured script that only occasionally manages to rustle up some interest and laughs.

Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) is the runt of the pachyrhinosaurus tribe. Small and clumsy, he seems fated to play second fiddle to his swifter, meaner brother Scowler (Skylar Stone) for the rest of his life. He's even thwarted in pursuing Juniper (Tiya Sircar), the girl of his dreams, when his brother wrests control of the tribe. As Patchi struggles to find his destiny, his tribe keeps strictly to their migration schedule - one which routinely takes them through a literal valley of death ruled over by their world's fiercest predator: the Gorgosaurus.

In visual terms, Walking With Dinosaurs is an undeniable treat. The gorgeously-animated dinosaurs, seemingly photo-real, have been transposed onto lushly-shot live-action footage of New Zealand and Alaska. As Alex (John Leguizamo), our winged Alexornis host, swoops over the rolling terrain, it's almost possible to believe that dinosaurs still roam the Earth.

What works considerably less well is John Collee's uninspired script. It's clearly targeted at children, but in an almost insulting manner. Alex's narration manages to be funny every once in a while - a particular highlight being his discussion of the Gorgosaurus' miniscule forearms (reminiscent of its T-Rex cousin). But, in the main, the dialogue between the dinosaurs is flat and comes close to silly, while Karl Urban and his young charges wander in for a few pretty pointless shots used to book-end Patchi's narrative.

This might work quite well for the very youngest of children, but adults and anyone above the age of ten might find themselves wishing ardently for the animation to be allowed to speak for itself. It's certainly rendered in impressive enough fashion - there's plenty more soul and depth in the eyes and actions of these great beasts than in their words. As it turns out, there might be some merit to watching Walking With Dinosaurs as a silent movie: it was originally conceived as such before the powers that be decided that it had to be rendered more kid- and family-friendly (i.e., more accessible).

There have been some truly great dinosaur movies made in our lifetime: ones brimming with action and tension (Jurassic Park) and others that deal particularly well in humanity and heartbreak (The Land Before Time). Walking With Dinosaurs tries for both and ends up with neither... although, to be fair, it does march along in mostly inoffensive fashion. Just don't expect too much from its narrative.

The overall story is one of a misfit runt overcoming obstacles as he grows up. We've seen the story before, nothing new. CGI is impressive and they even had enough sense to include footprints the dirt, so it seems more like the dinos are grounded, more real. It was hard to tell if the background was CGI or real life film w/ dinos added. The studio decided to frame the dino story with a modern day teenager not wanting to see his uncle in Alaska. Totally unnecessary, didn't need it, wasted time. Each time a new dinosaur entered the story, the movie did a freeze frame, the dinos name and an explanation of the name was give. Very disrupting. Then the dinos would use that name to refer to that dino-as if we would call each other Homo Sapien. A lot of the dialog was a bit too cute with references back to the modern world. I took my kid, he liked it, but that was probably because it was a movie about dinosaurs regardless of content. I found it mildly annoying. Strickly kids fare.

The film Walking with Dinosaurs has tremendous potential. It tells the story of Patchi (Justin Long) a Pachyrhinosaurus as he struggles to make his way in the dinosaur world. Patchi is brave and kind and despite being the runt of the litter has an incredible knack of survival in an extremely treacherous environment. The digital animation for this film is second to none and the dinosaurs are literally brought to life right in front of the screen. We saw it in 2d and it did not make much difference. My two and four year old loved it and I think a little boy obsessed with dinosaurs would love it even more. I was a little disappointed with the script finding it clichéd and predictable at times. Some stories lacked development but it did give me an hour and a half of rest whilst my girls sat enthralled. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

The most obvious departure of this 3D feature spin off from the acclaimed BBC series with the same name on which it is based is the fact that the titular dinosaurs actually talk. Well to be honest, talk might be a bit of an overstatement seeing as how the characters' mouths don't actually move much; rather, what we have is an attempt to humanise these dinosaurs for a young target audience, which in the minds of the filmmakers, means fitting Disney-fied dialogue into the picture.

As scripted by 'Happy Feet's' John Collee, the kid-friendly plot follows the template of a coming-of-age story where a young Pachyrhinosaurus named Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) grows into a leader over the course of a long migration. His companion and buddy happens to be a prehistoric parrot that goes by the name of Alex (voiced by John Leguizamo), who forms the bridge between the opening modern-day sequence - featuring a cameo by Josh Duhamel - and 70 million years back where most of the action unfolds.

Cast as timid and socially awkward, the film introduces Patchi as the runt of the litter, easily distinguishable from the rest of his siblings by a hole on the right side of his frill following a close shave with a predator as a kid. A change in the weather patterns prompts his herd's migration by his father Bulldust, which sets into motion a chain of events that will have Patchi eventually claiming the honour of leading the herd. It isn't just his inner strength that Patchi will discover by the end of the journey; along the way, Patchi also finds a romantic interest in the form of Juniper (Tiya Sircar), a fellow Pachyrhinosaurus he experiences love at first sight with.

As far as children-oriented pictures go, the story in this one is on many accounts too simplistic. There is some attempt to inject dramatic tension by setting up Patchi's rivalry with his brutish older brother Scowler (Skyler Stone), but it is hardly compelling stuff. Same goes for the storybook romance between Patchi and Juniper, which to no surprise builds to a happily-ever-after ending. In fact, much more entertaining is Patchi's loquacious friend and ally Alex, whose non-stop chatter consisting of all sorts of puns makes him the undeniably most engaging one of the lot.

Truth be told though, little would be lost if directors Barry Cook and Neil Nightingale had simply done away with the formulaic story. Simply put, the visuals are stunning, seamlessly mixing CGI with breathtaking backdrops in Alaska and New Zealand to transport its audience back in time into a world when dinosaurs ruled the Earth; and the experience is even more awe-inspiring captured on film using the cutting-edge cinematographic technology which James Cameron had employed for 'Avatar'. Seeing as how tacked on the dialogue feels to the visuals of the movie, one can't quite help but feel that the filmmakers should simply have stuck with the original's documentary approach.

Of course, Nightingale is no stranger to that; as the creative director of BBC Earth and the producer of countless other nature documentaries, he is more than well versed in the language of non-fiction. Unfortunately, he seems to have given freer rein to Cook, whose background in animated features like 'Mulan' and 'Arthur Christmas' has resulted in what is essentially a live-action Disney cartoon about dinosaurs. In spite of the occasional educational cards sharing the scientific names of the dinosaurs and their general dietary preference (whether herbivore or carnivore or omnivore), there is no shaking off the feeling that the charm of the original series has been largely lost on its journey to the big screen.

Not that the US$85 million dollar production is without merit - like we said, the combination of computer animation and live-action is never less than impressive and captivating, demonstrating the leaps and bounds by which technology has advanced since Steven Spielberg first enthralled the world using animatronics in 'Jurassic Park'. On that account alone, it should more than be a fascinating watch for the kiddies; grown-ups though will have a harder time immersing themselves into the lifelike world, ultimately challenged by the artificial dialogue and even more clichéd plot.

Well I like millions of others love the idea of learning about dinosaurs, from children to the elderly there is just something fascinating about them. I am far from a palaeontologist, my love has come from having toys as a kid, TV shows and the Jurassic Park series, so I was so excited to see this film.

I'm not sure why but I assumed a film being released on Boxing Day would be a guaranteed classic, boy was I wrong. I wont spoil the so called "plot" of this film, as I don't think that's fair to people who want to see it.

The positives are there though, the animation and the effects are genuinely beautiful and the fact there were elements of learning in the movie is a nice added bonus especially for children. The first annoyance I had and this may sound a little cheap is that I didn't and most wont recognise any of the dinosaurs in this film, they look familiar but none of the "classic" or "well known" dinosaurs are here.

The dinosaurs do have voices, but unlike any good animation film they didn't have vocal movements on the characters, all of it was dubbed over the action and sometimes it was hard to work out who was actually talking, that was my biggest complaint, something I felt was a lazy move by the creator.

The plot is horrendous and extremely dull, it would have been a good hour show on the television on the discovery channel if the voices weren't there. None of the characters are that interesting and they make a very lame attempt to make the lead come across endearing and someone who you want to back for success, sadly he isn't, the film has poor character development and most of the characters are one dimensional and very irritating.

I loved watching the dinosaurs and found some of it educational, but this film would have been better without the poor voices and done as an experience of the amazement that dinosaurs bring rather than a very poor story. Kids wont enjoy the story any better, I'm a huge kid film fan but this is just not a good watch.

I'd recommend buying this when its in the bargain bin in a local shop and watch it without sound, just to appreciate the effects and the wonder of that era.

What a waste of potential!!!

Cannot compare this with the 1999 BBC documentary series, this is a family movie, or I can also say, a children movie.

Made with mixture of real location filming and CGI, I think children who loves dinosaurs will like this movie.

I was quite relieved that they didn't make the dinosaurs mouth move while they talk, I prefer it this way, when their mouths stay still when they talk to each other.

Many people say that Hollywood ruins the awesome BBC documentary, but I'd say it's just another movie. And the BBC documentary is not so good anyway, in my opinion.

So, enjoy watching with your children. But be careful, some parents might find the fight scenes too violent for children under 5 years old.

Walking with Dinosaurs could be a good documentary movie if it wouldn't be ruined. I can't understand how anybody in Hollywood got an idea to order a good quality documentary film from BBC then go and ruined it with stupid idea to film totally unnecessary beginning and end to it, write a idiotic script and hire few neighborhood kids to read it over the film. If the idea was to make a children movie where dinosaurs speak, I'm sure the dinosaurs were animated to speak. Now the result is totally mish mash. It feels like somebody got an idea to record documentary film from television, then film with a home video camera totally unnecessary beginning and end to it. Ask 6-years old child to write a script and then dub the whole film with neighborhood kids and then send it to worldwide theatrical distribute. I can't understand how any Hollywood studio could spend 80 million dollars to this and release it to worldwide. If the budget were 8 million and it was released straight to DVD, Then I could understand it. Now this is totally underestimate film audience. I wish I could get my money back. I give one star for beautiful animation, not anything else.

So I took my 5 year old to see this film today and it really was a let down. My son loves dinosaurs and was really looking forward to it but you could tell he was getting bored of it as was I. Usually he will quite happily sit through a whole film at the cinema and just be completely engrossed in it but the story for this film is so terrible that it couldn't seem to hold his attention at all.

For a film called walking with dinosaurs I expected there to be loads of dinosaur species in it but there were very few and there were none of the most well known dinosaurs like the t-rex, much to my son's disappointment.

I really just found it boring which is such a shame as it could have been such an amazing film, I mean it was absolutely beautiful (hence the 4 stars) but I do wish that I hadn't have bothered.

All the people lamenting that this isn't the Walking with Dinosaurs documentary should probably just go back and watch the documentary. Admittedly the script could have been more polished, but I think the dialog helped make it more accessible for younger school age children (I viewed the voice-overs more as a translation since they left the original sounds in). My daughter is already interested in paleontology, and she really enjoyed the possible back-story to fossils she's seen. I also enjoyed how each species was introduced, and how many were accurately portrayed with feathers. And of course the animation was fantastic.

I'll give the script a 4 and the gorgeous melding of NZ/Alaskan scenery and animation a 10, for an overall 7.

I'll be short: Great 3d animation wrapped around a stupid script that even kids found to be idiotic. There... I was a big fan of the show, and had great expectations about this movie. After seen "land before time" and "dinosaur" I expected this movie to raise the bar, both technically and in the narrative department. Wrong. The animation is top notch, not discussion, even better that "dinosaur" that was very good already, but when it came to the screenplay, and those dialogs, man, that was painful to watch. I mean, I saw kids yawning in the theater. A story may be simple, but never boring. Dialogs may be sparse, but entertaining or funny. The dialogs here where just plain dumb, boring and cliché. 5 out of 10 for me.

Very nice animation but this is for very small children. The dialogue is inane. There's upbeat fluffy songs. There are even poop jokes. It's pretty juvenile stuff. The voice actors are annoying, particularly John Leguizamo. That doesn't surprise me as he is one of the worst people pretty much ever. I agree with another reviewer who said they should have made it without the animals talking or think-talking. It would have worked much better and might have appealed to a broader audience than those still wearing diapers. I'm surprised they put so much effort into the animation just to make something so slight. If you have little kids or if you have suffered a concussion recently, this is an innocuous little picture you might enjoy. The rest of you, try to watch it with the sound off.

Saw this movie on New Years Eve with my family. At first I thought they were playing the wrong movie. Well it wasn't. Paid extra for the 3-D what a waste of my time and money. I feel like someone should have paid me to see this. What's even worse is that no one knows until they are in there seeing the piece of crap. All the trailers conveniently leave out the fact that there are real people in it and that some dumb bird is going to be taking during the entire movie. Just shut up for goodness sake Patchie. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR TIME ON THIS ONE. I am not sure it will even be worth the money you pay when it comes to red box. Maybe if this were shown on PBS for free it would be tolerable. Just felt so betrayed by how this movie was portrayed in trailers. Very sneaky way to get people to pay to see this film. Don't try to trick an audience into something other than what the movie is.

I used to love this movie when I was a kid, but that's probably because it's about dinosaurs. Let's start with some positivity this movie is gorgeous, the animation is stellar. The story follows the cliché story of an underdog. Now cliché isn't always bad but when you can predict the ending of the story in the first 20 minutes then there's something wrong. Something I would've liked is having no voice actors in the movies. I think having the dinosaurs normal grunt and noises would've made the story a little more enjoyable. "Walking with Dinosaurs" is a gorgeous looking movie with a plot that is lacking.

I've watched this movie with my son, aged of 9. He has been playing the game of the same title on PS3 with the wonderbook, so he already knew the protagonists and some parts of the story. But anyway he enjoyed the movie, I agree with some comments I've read, it should have been silent, and the fact they are giving the scientific names and signification of the dinosaurs cut the rhythm of the movie, and I'm not sure the kids will remember it later. Yes it also reminded me Disney's Dinosaur which was a wonderful animated movie, but anyway I can understand that with the new technological tools we got nowadays they wanted to make a new movie about dinosaurs, and we can say the animation is really good. We write this review as grown ups we are, but we someway forget that the movie had been done for children, my kid saw Dinosaurs, when he was 4 he liked it, but doesn't remember it at the point to tell me "Hey mum this one wasn"t as great as the other" He enjoyed the movie, this is not the best animated movie on Dinosaur ever, but at least they tried and the graphic part is successful, If your children love dinosaur, just don't think to much and let them watch this !

In this movie, the dinosaurs talk, and it's so weird when compared to the hyper-realistic CGI. This film also has very unfitting music. If you removed the voiceovers and replaced the music, this would be an actually good film. If I ever rewatch this movie, I'm gonna have to remove the audio, replace the music and sound effects, and remove the scenes with the humans, and the paleontological analysis scenes. And yes, there's a version called "The Cretaceous Cut", which removes the dialog and human scenes, but it still has the unfitting music and paleontological analysis scenes.

This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more. This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more. This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more. This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more. This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more. This Movie is Good, but not the story. I just like the Visual FX of this movie, like the Dinosaurs, or the Mountain and many more.

This film educates you well about life of dinosaurs. The animation is realistic -- you feel like you're there with the creatures. Very accurate information.

A lot of people are complaining about the bird commentary, saying it was irritating and unfunny. Ever think it's to keep the kids entertained? Anyway, I found the bird amusing! The story has a reasonable, engaging plot to it that keeps you watching and therefore learning!

Would recommend a watch!

Great follow up to BBC's series

I initially shrugged off this BBC production as unworthy of a visit to my local multiplex, but with a decent trailer and an excited child, I changed my mind. I shouldn't have. Although not completely dire, this quasi-lesson in prehistoric creatures is dull and repetitive. Following a Rhino-type dinosaur named Patchi (voiced by Justin Long) from birth through to adulthood, it's predictable, episodic and melodramatic, squandering any potential it may have had with a story that could've been interesting and meaty whilst being educational. The animation of the beasts – inserted into real shots of a lovely New Zealand backdrop – is better than you may expect, however the choice to have the voices sounding over the top of the action (ie, their mouths aren't moving) is distracting and at times unintentionally humorous. Despite my boredom and negativity, my seven year old daughter seemed to enjoy the experience, but I'm sure this was heightened with popcorn and soft drink.

If you see this expecting a grown-up style documentary, you'll be disappointed. It's clearly made for a very young audience, and I think they did a fantastic job in that regard.

The animation was fantastic,it was quite educational, it had characters that the kids fall in love with, and it wasn't too long. My 6 year old has been on a real dino-kick all year, and she was on the edge of her seat for this entire film. She even thought the humor was hilarious. If you like watching your kid really enjoy something, take them to this film. If you want something for the entire family, including grown ups, then you're better off with something else. I see the negative reviews, and I can't help but think that a lot of folks just have the wrong expectations.