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Description
Show: 2013 Movie
Episode: N/A
Year: 2013

Writer(s): John Collee
Director(s): Neil Nightingale, Barry Cook

I think I may have found the cinematic equivalent to Doggy Poo! I'm dead serious: this movie looks spectacular! It has some of the most real and texturized CGI I've ever seen involving dinosaurs to really make you believe you're in the Cretaceous Period! It doesn't go for using obvious dinosaurs or calling Pteranodons “dinosaurs” either! This has all the potential to be one of the most beautiful looking documentary style films ever made, if not for one major problem: FOX BENT IT OVER AND FUCKED IT TO DEATH!

Ok, that's a big exaggeration right there, but this movie was meddled with horribly before it was released to theatres, very very late into production I might add. You see, Walking with Dinosaurs (no relation to the BBC documentary series, even less so with the meddling) was decided at the last second that voices should be added in for the dinosaurs as a way to draw kids to this movie. That is one of the stupidest and most ill-conceived mistakes for a film I have ever seen! It's obvious by the fact that their mouths don't really move with the dialogue that these dinos weren't meant to talk at all! I think they wanted to make it so we're hearing their thoughts, but that's just dumb.

One movie that can easily be seen as a superior counterpart to this, believe it or not, is Disney's Dinosaur. Yeah, that CGI movie from 2000 Disney made without Pixar that looked really uncanny even for its time and was as boring as tar. Much like this film, it was decided that Dinosaur’s dinosaurs should talk as a way to better interest kids, and like this movie, they were going to have them talk without moving their lips because apparently, making dinosaurs conceivably talk was hard for them; the then CEO Michael Eisner wouldn't have it! He said that it would be a massive failure for Disney to do this! And yes, it is a failure on the part of most any studio to try and pull this. As weak as Dinosaur was, I can respect it enough for its production as Disney's first CGI effort without Pixar holding their hands though.

Instead of coming off like a serious documentary like the live-action framing device will have you believe, this movie desperately wants to rip off films such as The Land Before Time and Ice Age! They went far enough to give our main dinosaurs some kind of voiceover to try and give them a one-note character of some sort. But seeing these realistic dinosaurs "talk" doesn't sound or even remotely look right; it manages to delve into the uncanny valley without looking terrible. It has the potential to be something beautiful, but ends up being one of the most awkward DreamWorks knockoffs ever made. Honestly, John Leguizamo's character Alex is the only character whose voice doesn't grate in my ears; considering he also voiced Sid in Ice Age, that surprised me. But the fact that Patchi's voice actor also did Alvin in those horrible live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies doesn't surprise me.

I can't pay attention to the great amounts of detail put into the actual animation with all the obnoxious voice work. And judging by the wonky sections of animation, it's clear it tried to change up what the film was to be way too late to matter. What should be an impressively made documentary is a standard black-and-white morality shlockfest in nature. Non-anthropomorphic wild animals, especially dinosaurs, don't have concepts of good or evil; I mean, you can make that work, but this movie was clearly meant to follow realistic animals on some level with the rule of survival of the fittest in mind. 15 minutes in, and I could tell exactly where the story was going with its forced romance. It isn't as bad as Delgo, but it's irritating nonetheless. If I wanted to watch The Land Before Time, I'd watch The Land Before Time!

This movie is a fascinating anomaly if I do say so myself. Its flaw is very easy to fix, but that flaw practically ruins the entire experience. The whole voiceover thing is so bad that the 3D Blu Ray included a version called the "Cretaceous Cut" which removed all the chatter. But, of course, this version isn't ON the standard DVD and Blu Ray I got! Aside from some wonky animation here and there, I might've found the movie average, maybe even good, without the forced plot and dialogue. I ain't getting a 3D TV and Blu Ray player just to see a not terrible version of an at best awkward and stupid film. Oh and spoilers: They all die! Well, what did you expect from a movie about Late-Cretaceous dinosaurs?

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 7
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 0
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 6
Disturbing Content: 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 0
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 0
Character Derailment: 0

Final Score: 23/100 *It could've been decent

Walking With Dinosaurs is owned by Fox, BBC Earth and Evergreen Film.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314

Description
Show: 2013 Movie
Episode: N/A
Year: 2013

Writer(s): John Collee
Director(s): Neil Nightingale, Barry Cook

I think I may have found the cinematic equivalent to Doggy Poo! I'm dead serious: this movie looks spectacular! It has some of the most real and texturized CGI I've ever seen involving dinosaurs to really make you believe you're in the Cretaceous Period! It doesn't go for using obvious dinosaurs or calling Pteranodons “dinosaurs” either! This has all the potential to be one of the most beautiful looking documentary style films ever made, if not for one major problem: FOX BENT IT OVER AND FUCKED IT TO DEATH!

Ok, that's a big exaggeration right there, but this movie was meddled with horribly before it was released to theatres, very very late into production I might add. You see, Walking with Dinosaurs (no relation to the BBC documentary series, even less so with the meddling) was decided at the last second that voices should be added in for the dinosaurs as a way to draw kids to this movie. That is one of the stupidest and most ill-conceived mistakes for a film I have ever seen! It's obvious by the fact that their mouths don't really move with the dialogue that these dinos weren't meant to talk at all! I think they wanted to make it so we're hearing their thoughts, but that's just dumb.

One movie that can easily be seen as a superior counterpart to this, believe it or not, is Disney's Dinosaur. Yeah, that CGI movie from 2000 Disney made without Pixar that looked really uncanny even for its time and was as boring as tar. Much like this film, it was decided that Dinosaur’s dinosaurs should talk as a way to better interest kids, and like this movie, they were going to have them talk without moving their lips because apparently, making dinosaurs conceivably talk was hard for them; the then CEO Michael Eisner wouldn't have it! He said that it would be a massive failure for Disney to do this! And yes, it is a failure on the part of most any studio to try and pull this. As weak as Dinosaur was, I can respect it enough for its production as Disney's first CGI effort without Pixar holding their hands though.

Instead of coming off like a serious documentary like the live-action framing device will have you believe, this movie desperately wants to rip off films such as The Land Before Time and Ice Age! They went far enough to give our main dinosaurs some kind of voiceover to try and give them a one-note character of some sort. But seeing these realistic dinosaurs "talk" doesn't sound or even remotely look right; it manages to delve into the uncanny valley without looking terrible. It has the potential to be something beautiful, but ends up being one of the most awkward DreamWorks knockoffs ever made. Honestly, John Leguizamo's character Alex is the only character whose voice doesn't grate in my ears; considering he also voiced Sid in Ice Age, that surprised me. But the fact that Patchi's voice actor also did Alvin in those horrible live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movies doesn't surprise me.

I can't pay attention to the great amounts of detail put into the actual animation with all the obnoxious voice work. And judging by the wonky sections of animation, it's clear it tried to change up what the film was to be way too late to matter. What should be an impressively made documentary is a standard black-and-white morality shlockfest in nature. Non-anthropomorphic wild animals, especially dinosaurs, don't have concepts of good or evil; I mean, you can make that work, but this movie was clearly meant to follow realistic animals on some level with the rule of survival of the fittest in mind. 15 minutes in, and I could tell exactly where the story was going with its forced romance. It isn't as bad as Delgo, but it's irritating nonetheless. If I wanted to watch The Land Before Time, I'd watch The Land Before Time!

This movie is a fascinating anomaly if I do say so myself. Its flaw is very easy to fix, but that flaw practically ruins the entire experience. The whole voiceover thing is so bad that the 3D Blu Ray included a version called the "Cretaceous Cut" which removed all the chatter. But, of course, this version isn't ON the standard DVD and Blu Ray I got! Aside from some wonky animation here and there, I might've found the movie average, maybe even good, without the forced plot and dialogue. I ain't getting a 3D TV and Blu Ray player just to see a not terrible version of an at best awkward and stupid film. Oh and spoilers: They all die! Well, what did you expect from a movie about Late-Cretaceous dinosaurs?

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 7
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 0
Lackluster Writing: 8
Annoyance: 6
Disturbing Content: 0
Unnecessary Cruelty: 0
Rancid Morality: 0
Low Production Values: 2
Unfortunate Implications: 0
Character Derailment: 0

Final Score: 23/100 *It could've been decent

Walking With Dinosaurs is owned by Fox, BBC Earth and Evergreen Film.

Animated Atrocities is from

Regulas314