#juliana margulies

Dinosaur (movie review)

Oh Disney, how could you fail us so!   Building up our expectations with that fabulous trailer, showing us clips of that brilliant animation, hinting at an epic to come.  But “Dinosaur” is no epic – it’s a 75 minute highlight reel, with all the cliché’s of a potentially good movie spliced together into an insipid melodramatic crapfest.  Though the spectacular computer animation holds up to expectations, “Dinosaur” seems to be simply a vehicle to show off the technology – kind of like an action movie full of explosions and car chases but no plot, except targeted at the kiddie crowd.

“Dinosaur” tells the story of Aladar (voiced by D. B. Sweeney), an Iguanadon raised by a family of Lemurs.  Forced to flee with his adopted family after a meteor shower destroys their home, Aladar falls in with a herd of dinosaurs migrating to their nesting grounds, led by stereotypical bad-ass Kron (Samuel E. Wright).  Along the way he befriends an aging dinosaurs Eema and Baylene (Della Reese and Joan Plowright respectively), falls in love with Kron’s sister Neera (Juliana Margulies) and rises to challenge for leadership in the herd.

“Dinosaur” is a revolution in animation, combining computer graphics with live backgrounds seamlessly.  While the technology isn’t quite all the way there, the results are still impressive, with a level of depth and detail never before seen in animation.  As a vehicle for breakthrough animating techniques, “Dinosaur” is almost reminiscent of “Toy Story."  But as an all-around movie, "Dinosaur” never comes close to that brilliant piece of work.

While “Toy Story” was a masterpiece of technical wizardry, it succeeded primarily on the strength of its story and its emotionally rich, engaging characters.  Unfortunately, these are “Dinosaur’s” biggest weaknesses.  All the characters have the depth of cardboard cutouts.  Even protagonist Aladar never shows any emotional depth, changing from timid but friendly kid to strident leader at just the right point in the script but with no prompting or emotional development to cue it.  Even his relationship with Neera seems to develop simply because it’s the obvious, cliched thing to happen.  The story has lots of heart but falls way short on the exposition; things happen simply by convention rather than believable necessity.

Usually, Disney movies succeed where other kiddie movies fail by hooking in the parents as well with tight stories and strong characters, but “Dinosaur” never rises above the level of the average Saturday-morning cartoon.  Indeed, as a parent I’d be ashamed if my kid couldn’t see what a shallow movie “Dinosaur” is.  

originally written 5/19/00