Dinosaur

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This may take the cake for the boldest statement I've said on this blog, but here it goes... Of the entirety of the Disney animated movies out there that I have seen, this is, hands down, the single most unimpressive and forgettable product they've ever cranked out. At the time of its release, I saw it in theaters and remember being thoroughly impressed with how solid the animation was. But that's really all it had going for it. Otherwise, things were pretty basic, and it took from a bunch of other stuff.

As time went on between then and now, I've never really given 'Dinosaur' a second thought. As a matter of fact, I damn near almost forgot it even existed at one point. So many modern classics have popped up in the Disney library since, so it has been very easy to get sidetracked. It does honestly make me wonder how many are reading this who are pretty much in the same boat. This is one of those movies that came and went and no one paid much attention to it. However, it was respectfully Disney's big "animation show-off" feature of its time. For 2000, this looked pretty amazing.

The film hits the ground running, quite literally, as a Carnotaurus burst onto the scene, looking for a meal. The Carno wrecks an Iguanodon nest, sending a lone egg on a journey to an area inhabited by prehistoric lemurs. A family of lemurs adopts the small dino, and once hatched, they name him Aladar (D.B. Sweeney). The family, consisting of father, Yar (Ossie Davis), daughter, Plio (Alfre Woodard), and granddaughter, Suri (Hayden Panettiere), take Aladar in as one of their own, and Al grows alongside Suri over the years.

During a lemur mating ritual (yes, you read that right), in which Plio's brother, Zini (Max Casella) fails, a meteor suddenly strikes the Earth, which wipes out the island of this lemur "orgy", forcing Aladar and the rest of the lemur family to flee to the mainland. The family eventually runs into a herd of displaced dinosaurs heading for the communal Nesting Ground. This herd is led by another Iguanodon named Kron (Samuel E. Wright); your average egotistical not-good but not-bad jerk character, who sends the family to the back of the line.

There, they befriend an old Styracosaurus named Eema (Della Reese) along with her dog-like Ankylosaurus, Url, and her Brachiosaurus friend Baylene (Joan Plowright). Eventually, there is also tension between Aladar and Kron when Kron's sister, Neera (Julianna Margulies), comes into the picture. All the while, travel continues and results in a movie about Dinosaurs trying to get to some kind of (almost) paradise while having to duck and dodge predators and undergoing real-life, relatable situations. Does that sound familiar to anyone? A Don Bluth movie that gave Disney some stiff competition when it ran alongside 'Oliver & Company'?

Anyway, it will come as no surprise watching this today that, overall, it's pretty underwhelming. For its time, the CG animation was a little bit ground-breaking. When you look at this and consider 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within' (the film I personally consider to be the leap from full-length "cartoonish" CG to full-length "realistic" CG) being released a year later, it's easy to see what the big-screen draw may have been when this first came out. But I daresay it has faded into obscurity as nothing really more than a stepping stone for animation. Other Disney titles surround its future and past as much more memorable classics we've grown to love. I'm sure this one has its audience, but I can't say I'm one of them. I'll stick to 'The Land Before Time'.

2/5

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