Walking With Dinosaurs

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS

Directors : Barry Cook & Neil Nightingale

Year : 2013

Genre : Animation

Rating : *1/2

 

When I was a kid, I had a deep obsession with dinosaurs; an obsession fueled by the groundbreaking BBC computer generated documentary series 'Walking With Dinosaurs'. Released in 1997, the 6 part series used state of the art CGI to tell fascinating and sometimes terrifying stories about the prehistoric beasts and as a result, the show would go down in history as one of the most influential and critically regarding programmes ever to air. So imagine my surprise and joy to learn that the same studio who bought us the awe inspiring visuals of the show was utlising it's talents to bring us a full length movie about dinosaurs. It has been quite a while since the fabled monsters of 65 million years ago graced cinema screens and it was about time that they were bought back to us in all of their roaring glory.

Sadly, whilst it's visuals and landscapes are just as breath taking and impressive as the TV show, 'Walking With Dinosaurs' turns out to be a crippling disappointment thanks to completely unnecessary voice over work and a narrative that is mundane to the point of patronising. Telling the story of a young Pachyrhinosaurus ( a beefed up triceratops basically) who rises against all odds to become the leader of his massive herd, 'Walking With Dinosaurs' completely recycles the plot from the equally rubbish 1999 Disney film 'Dinosaur' and throws in for good measure a boring story, dull characterisations, a terribly out of place soundtrack, a needless love story and badly written and poorly delivered jokes from the likes of Justin Long (who was hired due to his stellar work on 'Alvin & The Chipmunks'!) and the so irritating I want Michael Madsen to run in and cut my ears off vocal talents of a Latino accented John Leguizamo.

 It is blatantly obvious watching the film that the decision to add an American voice cast was made very late during the production of 'Walking With Dinosaurs' as none of the dinosaurs mouths move whatsoever. Who in the world thought that a voice cast was a good idea? The reason why the original TV show was such a massive cultural phenomenon was that the producers and directors wanted to teach families about dinosaurs without resorting to audience pandering or pathetically juvenile storylines. The way in which the film tries relates to kids is by adding in as many poop and fart jokes as is humanely possible; the textbook way to turn adults off almost immediately.

Visuals and landscapes of this calibre and creativity of this quality definitely do not deserve such mediocre and perfunctory storytelling attached to it. It is an insult to the artists who spent hours upon hours to bring such vitality and imagination to the screen, it's an insult to the legacy of the original show and it is an insult to the intelligence of it's audience. If you want to teach your children about dinosaurs, show them 'Walking With Dinosaurs', 'Planet Dinosaur' or any of the other brilliantly made and genuinely interesting documentaries, not this unbelievably bad waste of time that does nothing to educate or even entertain.