Hey guys! Gerawallstar here and I am here to review Disneys first CGI film ever made which is their 39th animated feature called Dinosaur, which was released in 2000. When this film was released, it made over a successful $350 million at the box office proving the world that CGI is the force to be reckon with. However, it received mixed reviews from critics. In all honestly, this film is a mess.
Story:
The story is about a young Dinosaur named Aladar who is raised by lemurs while he gets lost with his herd after a meteor strike, so he and a couple of other dinosaurs find their way to the nesting grounds. This sounds familiar doesnt it? Before I get on a rampage, I will admit the best part of the movie is the full 7 minutes where it is nothing but silence and full of beautiful atmosphere. When I saw this in the trailers, I was blown away. It blew me away when I saw the film two decades later. Unfortunately, once the lemurs started talking after the first 7 minutes, the film goes downhill really fast. This film featured dinosaurs and lemurs talk, and it infuriated me throughout the film. This is the reason why I hated this film. If you think I’m exaggerating, well I’m here to tell you that this film originally was going to have the dinosaurs silent like in Fantasia, unfortunately dumbass Michael Eisner decided to have the animals talk at the last minute. And that ruins a lot of potential that the film was going for. Not only that, the films story is boring and derivative from other movies like the land before time. Yeah, the story in a nutshell had great potential but fails miserably. I give the story five stars.
Animation:
On the bright side, the animation is amazing. For Disneys first CGI film, the CGI looks great for a 2000 film even though it’s dated. The dinosaurs are animated very well. The scope of the film is breathtaking ranging from the waterfalls and the meteor strike. The score by James Newton Howard is unbelievable. The score being used in the 7 minute mark with the visuals makes the score stand out. If there is one flaw with the animation, then the flaw is that we don’t see enough of the amazing visuals from the trailer and meteor strike. All the film consisted of the majority of the runtime was the dinosaurs walking in a boring desert. It really hurts to see so much potential being wasted. I give the animation nine stars.
Characters:
Oh boy, do these characters suck. Let’s start with Aladar. Aladar is a boring and forgettable protagonist. Baylene is boring. Neera is a generic love interest. Pilo the so called “love monkey” is really annoying. Carnoataurs is a plain villain. The voice performances are also very obnoxious with the characters being loud and saying cringey dialogue like “love monkey” and “Jerkasaurus”. The only good thing I can say about the characters are the voice actors and actresses in their roles as these characters. Despite having annoying performances, they did do a good job with their roles as the characters even if the characters themselves are vanilla. The characters are bland. I give the characters three stars.
Verdict:
Dinosaur isnt a bad movie with how i am presenting it. It has great animation and a impressive opening. But it does have annoying characters and a bland story. So much potential being ruined by one stupid mistake from the executives makes this movie fall into mediocrity. I give this film five stars out of ten. 5/10.
