Shared Darkness

Impressive animation is undercut by a steady stream of insipid chatter in Walking With Dinosaurs, an animated family adventure adapted rather awkwardly from a more academic-minded BBC Earth small screen series of the same name.



The film is bookended by the superfluous wrap-around story of a bored teenager, Ricky (Charlie Rowe), who’s glued to his iPhone while his paleontologist uncle (Karl Urban) tries to get him interested in The Learning. This is no fanciful The Princess Bride, however. For starters, Walking With Dinosaurs simply ignores the fact that its set-up runs counter to the fact that most kids are fascinated by its titular subjects. Then there’s the fact that its writing is, well, not as clever as it fashions itself.

The story within the film is filtered through Alex (voiced by John Leguizamo), a cocky prehistoric parrot who relates the story of Patchi (voiced by Justin Long), a runt-of-the-litter pachyrhinosauras who lives in the shadow of his brother Scowler (voiced by Skyler Stone) and pines with some obviousness for Juniper (Tiya Sircar). When the future of his heard is threatened, however, Patchi is forced to mature, and make some big decisions.

Long, who has a playful and expressive voice and plenty of experience with voiceover work, tries his best to keep audience sympathies at a steady boil. And Leguizamo… well, one basically knows what they’re getting when he’s hired to lend voice to a headstrong bird. But the incessant banter of John Collee’s script — its self-satisfied and self-conscious qualities, and penchant for scatalogical jokes — handcuff and cap its age-appeal, turning Walking With Dinosaurs into a very bland and unsatisfying work. This is a shame, since visually the movie is on occasion quite striking, blending together computer-generated animated creatures with practically photographed landscapes from New Zealand and Alaska. If only its filmmakers trusted in its potential audience a little more, and respected their intelligence, instead of trying to spoon-feed them bromides and dumb jokes.

Housed in a regular plastic Blu-ray case with a complementary cardboard slipcover, Walking With Dinosaurs comes to home video in a two-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, inclusive of a digital HD copy of the movie, playable on smart phones, computers, tablets and televisions. Its DTS-HD 5.1 master audio track captures a nice range of foleyed effects work, and its 1080p, 2.39:1 widescreen presentation gives nice platform to some vivid, striking visuals. Optional subtitles are also included in a robust array of 10 languages — including both Russian and Ukrainian, which could conceivably bring together some Eastern Bloc bootleggers, right?

In addition to the requisite chapter stops, bonus features include an “ultimate dino guide,” which provides overviews of almost a dozen different dinosaur species featured in the movie, each running a couple minutes long. There’s also an interactive map, which allows for youngsters to click and identify different species, and (presumably) test their learning. A trivia track and trailer are included too, along with a rather wince-inducing “Orange Carpet Dino Rap,” featuring Benjamin Flores, Jr., of The Haunted Hathaways. To purchase the combo pack via Amazon, click here; to purchase via Half, click here. Or if a local brick-and-mortar establishment is still your preferred retailer, by all means, go that route. C- (Movie) C+ (Disc)