Grade: C
Entire family: No (only small children will like it)
2013, 87 minutes, Color
BBC Earth/Evergreen Films/Fox
Rated PG for creature action, peril, and mild rude humor
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV copy
Bonus features: C
Trailer
When Fox got back into the animation game in 1994, I and probably half the world envisioned the kind of spirited competition the studio gave Disney during the Golden Age of cartoon shorts. But that hasn’t materialized. After the promising theatrical debut of Anastasia, only the Ice Age films and Rio could be called hits.
The problem isn’t the animation, which has been accomplished and, at times, jaw-dropping. It’s the concepts and the writing, and there isn’t a better illustration of that than the film version of Walking with Dinosaurs, which was released in theaters as Walking with Dinosaurs 3D. Produced by BBC Earth and Evergreen films, this animated feature has gorgeous CGI artwork and effects and tells an interesting-enough story, even if it does lumber a little too close to Disney’s Dinosaur (2000). But Fox bought the distribution rights and decided that instead of a voiceover narration like the TV series that spawned it, they would make the dinosaurs talk in order to better connect with audiences.
Bad move. So bad, in fact, that BBC Earth must have balked, since the 3D combo pack includes a “Cretaceous Cut” that allows you to watch the film without the unnecessary live-action frame story that the Fox brass tacked on, and without the talking characters.
The addition of wise-guy narration, a goofy tone, and juvenile humor (sometimes the scatological sort) turns this animated feature into something only small children will enjoy. And that’s a shame, given how accomplished the CGI work is. Gradations of color within dinosaur skins really give them a believable complexity, and representations of fire and water are every bit as accomplished as what we get from Disney. BBC Earth cranked it up a notch in producing dinosaurs that look real as can be and move even more fluidly than they did in the TV series. The mammals and birds aren’t as accomplished—more animatronic looking, really—but they don’t surface in the narrative that often. I wish I could say the same about dumb writing. More