Dinosaur (2000)

An impressive 200 million dollars, and 5 years of work, were spent in the making of Disney's first fully CGI animated film. All this money and all this time were well spent, if you think in terms of the magnificent visual spectacle "Dinosaur" is, yet it seems that the thoughts of the filmmakers were all on that, so the storyline does not live up to the visuals, and the movie is actually pretty uninteresting, or rather, presents nothing new or noteworthy as related to other less noticeable Disney films. Disney was, of course, in major decline, Pixar riding high, and with the dawn of Blue Sky's "Ice Age" or Dreamworks' "Shrek" coming just around the corner with a new type of animation and storyline-model more "up to date". Disney's "Dinosaur" has brilliant CGI effects, the dinosaurs are truly extraordinary and very believable creations, the backgrounds are incredibly real, and many actually are. Forests, skies and lakes were filmed and superimposed into the digital world to create a marvelous palette. But then the story is simple, worn out and full of holes. It starts with a dinosaur egg being lost. It is found by a tribe of monkeys, who raise Aladar as their own. Here a series of things start to go wrong with the picture. Did dinosaurs co-exist with monkeys? Are there any other species on the planet? The movie only shows dinosaurs and the monkeys! What is the plot consequence of the dinosaur being raised by the monkeys? There appears to be none that the movie shows. After Aladar finally meets the other dinosaurs, when he has grown to full size, his behavior is not a single inch different. He is not surprised, he does not need to explore his new identity, he behaves exactly like if he had been a dinosaur all his live. Anyway, little into the picture, huge chunks of asteroids destroy the surface of the earth and kill almost all the dinosaurs. And then the movie becomes a sort of "Land Before Time". Aladar, his monkey friends, and the dinosaur herd they meet all head for a valley that supposedly is still green and alive. As all the earth seems to be transformed into a desert after the meteor shower, it is strange that the dinosaurs know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this particular valley is unaffected. Did they hear it on the radio? The villains are the meat-eater dinosaurs that go after them, and Kron, the self-imposed leader of the herd, who is a false villain (like the one in "Up"). What he does is actually nothing wrong, but the movie presents it with an evil connotation, just so that he can be the villain. Actually, Aladar does much of the same things, he just phrases them differently, so he is the hero. There is also, off course, a love interest. Anyway, at 75 minutes, "Dinosaur"'s plot is surprisingly unsurprising. Disney had, at that time, used us to much more intelligent ways to appeal to both children and adults, even though after "Hercules" it all started to go south. Fortunately, Disney is back on its feet again. See "Dinosaur" for its fantastic visual effects. Show "Dinosaur" to a child, because he will enjoy the imagery immensely. But adults will find little more in "Dinosaur". It's the 'Avatar' syndrome. A hell of a lot of fabulous special effects. A lousy story, fit only for 6 year olds (who haven't seen other Disney's or Land Before Time).