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Who can resist dinosaurs? They're big, scary, mysterious, and easy fare for cinematic spectacle. Small wonder Disney gave us Dinosaur (PG for animal violence), an expensive, uneven computer-generated prehistoric fantasy. The movie opens with great images of reptilian scenery, then promptly goes downhill. A baby dinosaur named Aladar is raised by a group of lemurs before a crashing meteor destroys their home. So they go off on a quest for a new place to live. The group joins up with a herd of dinosaurs on a long trek to find new nesting grounds. By this time the movie has become much darker and tedious. The journey is long and water is scarce-and dinosaurs that stumble along the way are left for dead. So Aladar speaks up for the slower members in the back of the pack, giving this movie an "everybody matters" message. Dinosaur is 180 degrees from A Bug's Life, missing the cheer of Disney's usual animated fare. Thankfully, Disney also left out the dippy faux-Broadway music numbers. The studio clearly thought it had an easy formula for success and stumbled along the way. This movie could have (should have) been much, much better.
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