After his home is destroyed, an orphaned dinosaur raised
by lemurs joins a herd on their way to a plentiful valley. ACTION/FAMILY
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Dinosaur (2000)Directed by Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag
Written by John Harrison and Robert Nelson Jacobs Starring D.B. Sweeney, Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, Ossie Davis, Max Casella, Hayden Panettiere, Samuel E. Wright, Peter Siragusa, Joan Plowright, Della Reese |
Dinosaur is one of those movies that most of my generation remembers watching at some point in their childhoods, but can't tell you anything about it now. It's an immensely forgettable film, despite a strong score from James Newton Howard and a gorgeous CGI spectacle that looked great in 2000 and hasn't aged all that horribly. The film's biggest problem is how generic and uninteresting the plot and characters are. The dinosaurs' designs are so basic that they all kind of look the same, and the plot is pretty similar to The Land Before Time, but without the memorable characters. This film was made entirely to show off a new form of CGI. Everything else was secondary and you can tell.
Our hero is Aladar (Sweeney), an orphaned dinosaur who was raised by lemurs. When a meteor shower destroys their home, Aladar and his lemur family join a trekking herd of herbivores who are on their way to their nesting grounds. The herd's leader Kron (Wright) is a dick, and that's about it. Aladar falls in love with Kron's sister Neera (Margulies), and becomes a leader when he stumbles onto an alternate path to the valley. There's very little conflict in the film, apart from Kron just being a dick and the various T-Rex knockoffs that pop up occasionally. Dinosaur is a weak effort from Disney, eclipsed that year by the far superior The Emperor's New Groove. This film has an eternal home on Disney Plus, so you can watch it if you want. But it's nothing special and I'll probably forget most of it in a week or two. |