Anssi Vartiainen I think the only thing keeping Walt Disney from rolling in his grave due to this film is the fact that at least it is a sign that his company was still trying out new things, learning new ways of animation. Because as a movie it doesn't hold up at all.The first mostly CGI-animated film - the backgrounds are mainly live-action - to be produced by Disney, it tells about a young iguanodon dinosaur named Aladar, who gets taken by predators, but eventually ends up on an island inhabited by a conspiracy of lemurs, which end up adopting and raising him. But then a meteor forces them out of their island and looking for a safe haven known simply as the Nesting Grounds. Along the way they meet other dinosaurs, get chased by predators, learn things about compassion and perseverance, et cetera, et cetera. If the plot sounds a lot like The Land Before Time mixed with some Tarzan, it's because it's exactly that. It's not trying to be subtle about it.Furthermore, it's a dull movie. None of the characters are all that defined beyond a characteristic or perhaps two, which means that you don't really care what happens to them. Though yes, there's Zini, the self-titled Love Doctor Monkey, but he's more annoying than anything else. The romance is supbar, Aladar's rivalry with Kron goes nowhere, the story barely has an arch and the ending climax doesn't feel like one, because the movie has barely set any stakes. Plus, it looks dull. Though the first act on the lemur island is actually not so bad. At least then we had colours. But as soon as they leave the island, it's nothing but shades of brown and grey for the rest of the film. I shall repeat that. Nothing but brown and grey. Nothing.To the film's credit, the actual animation has aged pretty well. Having the backgrounds be live-action helps a lot and the dinosaurs look mostly okay even still. The opening shot of Aladar's egg being carried around is very impressive and the lemur island part of the story is not so bad.I don't like that this is part of Disney animation canon. It was added retroactively in order to give Tangled the status as the 50th Disney animated classic, but it's an ill fit. Its story has no ambition, its characters are lackluster and all in all it's a very forgettable experience. It's everything a Disney classic should not be.

Python Hyena Dinosaur (2000): Dir: Eric Leighton, Ralph Zondag / Voices: D.B. Sweeney, Julianna Margulies, Ossie Davis, Joan Plowright, Alfre Woodard: Family film that operates like a computer generated Land Before Time. It regards time gone by and introduces Aladar who was raised by monkey-like creatures after his egg went through a difficult moving process. After a fireball destroys the island Aladar and his primate friends depart and seek life elsewhere. They join a herd that ventures for a nesting ground but first must cross a desert. Yar leads the herd with the attitude that only the strong will prevail. Aladar resists this rule and assists a brontosaurus named Mera and a triceratops named Emar who are old and weak. Clichés abound with violence inappropriate for the intended age group. Overwhelming with convincing full scale dinosaurs reduced to stereotypes voiced by D.B. Sweeney, Julianna Margulies, Ossie Davis, and Joan Plowright. Alfre Woodard voices Plio who cares about her family and is basically as dull as every other character in this film. Directed by Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag who makes a great effort to bring these creatures to life but the screenplay is quite simply boring at best. The digital images are lively creating the reality of such creature but unfortunate the screenplay never becomes as overwhelming and awesome as the creatures that inspired it. Score: 4 / 10

felix-bergman I honestly don't see why people are so upset whit this movie. Yes, there is talking dinosaurs, but how are you supposed to understand them otherwise. Mute dinosaurs walking around wouldn't be interesting at all and remember, this is a kid's movie. And yes, the animation might not be as good as in Jurassic Park, but this is a fully animated movie, JP used a mix of animatronics and CGI inside an otherwise live action movie, and in a interview I saw, Spielberg (or if it was a special effects guy, I don't remember) said that they would use the animatronics when ever possible and only cover up rigs and refine movement with the computer 'cause the CGI models looked like crap in comparison the robots. And yes, the story has been used before, but so has the story in most films we're watching today, only in varying degree and in different mixes and it's not like Disney is known for their originality story wise. As good as everyone of their Classics are based or inspired by other works.Personally I love this movie. The CGI is still good, and at times more realistic than many rushed animations we see today, the characters are fun to follow, unlike Land before Time were they were unbearable and made me hate the movie (even as a kid the first one was never my favorite) despite a similar story to Dinosaurs', which I by the way like, and the moral of it is a really good one.

Neil Welch The problem with Dinosaur is not in the execution, which is first-rate. It isn't with the anthropomorphisation, which is fine (if a little cutesy at times). It isn't with the inter-species harmony (who knows? Symbiosis is a wonderful thing).No, the problem is that it is essentially a reworking of The Land Before Time, a movie which delivered the story of the long march across arid wastelands to find the fertile breeding grounds with traditional hand-drawn animation, and did so rather better than Dinosaur does. Dinosaur has a rather nifty crashing comet sequence and light relief / parent substitute lemurs, and maybe that's enough. Personally, the execution of the movie was so good that I thought it needed to be in service of a better movie.