Speckles: The Tarbosaurus (2012) User Reviews

Would have been much better without the annoying narration

[Rectangular_businessman · 5/10 · 27 January 2014]

The first time I saw a trailer of this on Youtube, I thought it was something related with that "Walking with Dinosaurs" movie from the year 2013. Anyway, this wasn't anything particularly memorable, having many predictable clichés from other movies about Dinosaurs:

I guess the Disneyfied plot and anthropomorphic behavior exhibited by the dinosaurs in this film would have been more tolerable if it wasn't for the incredibly annoying voice-over narration, which constantly explains the viewers what is already happening on screen. Besides of being obvious and redundant, it makes all the most dramatic and intense moments of the plot to lose its effect, feeling more like a forced attempt to make the story more kid-friendly. And that is a shame, because there were a couple of genuinely interesting scenes which had the potential to made this movie something much more interesting than it actually turned out to be.

A Decent Dino Movie

[Revizargy · 6/10 · 24 July 2013]

I stumbled across this movie on YouTube. I decided to watch it because there was nothing better to do. 128 minuets later, this is what i have to say about it: Not bad.

The movie does, of course, have flaws. I counted about four obvious factual mistakes. But what this movie does well is the animation and story. To some, there's no story. But it tells the life of a Tarbosaurus named Speckles (Weird name choice). There are no events that are useless. They're all important to the story. What people seem to have the biggest issue with is the voice-over. It doesn't need to be there. The movie could have gone without Speckles talking. I didn't find it too annoying at the adult stage. But dear god, the baby stage!

The first parts with the baby can be annoying. But if you get past that (and it's not that long), you'll find yourself enjoying the movie. The movie can be very serious. I feel that it takes inspiration from the movie Dinosaur (2000), and it shows. If you can stomach the kid, then it will be worth watching.

A kiddie dinosaur movie when it could have been better

[mike-ryan455 · 4/10 · 30 December 2012]

Tarbosaurus was one of those movies where the technology was excellent but the movie wasn't. Right now, IMDb is running 3.8 points on this, and as I am a lover of dinosaurs I was merciful and gave it that much.

The movie comes from South Korea and their animation was really good. Their sound effects were generally good too. Unfortunately they ruined it all with an overly anthropomorphic set of cutesy characters. Oh, the fun dinosaur family. Single Mom, oldest son, younger two daughters and then the little boy. Oh how cute.

The dinosaurs were also far too intelligent. Note the boulder being used as a weapon against the ankylosaur. Tool using dinosaurs, come on! The motivations were not logical for predators. They took unnecessary chances and they wasted opportunities.

For a movie out within the last few years, they also messed up a lot on Dinosaur facts. They put the movie at 80 million years ago and have velociraptors. The velociraptor found were from 75 to 71 million years ago. The velociraptors also had big feathers on their arms. They showed them with a "mohawk punk rocker" bit of feathers but that's all. Worse yet, they showed protoceratops and pukyongosaurus. They were from the EARLY cretaceous, tens of millions of years earlier. They said the torosaurus (like a triceratops) broke off its horns and showed them as hollow. The "horns" of ceratopsians were solid bone, not hollow horn.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. They were so close but they blew it.

A respectable watch.

[Blueghost · 23 May 2013]

It's hard for me to review this movie as it's allegedly a sort of quasi- children's film with some very harsh elements of prehistoric life shown. As such the film has this kind of odd intent of wanting to show how competitive life was during the age of dinosaurs, but at the same time inject a kind of family friendly children's fair to the whole thing.

So it is that we see Pangea as seen through the eyes of Speckles, the Tarbosaurus, a breed of Tyrannosaur, as he and his family struggle to survive the the very unforgiving environment of the late Cretaceous period, where supersized hyper-predators hunt and prey off of equally gigantic sauropods. We are spared the bloodshed, but not the hunt and the bite.

And this is kind of the odd thing about this movie; all the violence is there, but not the explicit element that makes violence so abhorrent; shedding blood. Which, for a children's film, is a good thing, but one is hard pressed to gauge the violence as the actual attacks and bites are shown, as well as dinosaurs (friendly, non-friendly, and hapless prey) are shown dying, attacking, or being attacked.

That's kind of the duel edged nature of a movie like this. The film makers put in the presence of a family, even a romance and the rebuilding of a family to give the film a kind of life that we mere humans can relate to, but the reality of the dinosaur era was that the "monsters" often so referred to by scientists, were, in reality, truly monsters. They were predators that knew only one thing; they needed to kill to eat. when you go to a museum and see the skeletons of creatures of epochs long since gone, we tend to marvel at them from a distance and then put them out of our minds. But if you really thought about those times, and what the behaviors of the creatures that lived back then would have been like, it should make your shiver a little. There was no more violent time to be alive than to be a dinosaur in the mix of a predator prey relationship.

So the film is successful in presenting an honest look at dinosaur lives, and doesn't pull too many punches to deliver us a children's tale. The film is, on its own level, a resounding success. But I wonder if it was wise to make such a film in the first place, one where we see dinosaurs killing other dinosaurs. Then again I thin of all the Westerns I saw as a child, and all of the gunfights and all of the actors and stunt-men who played people getting shot in those movies and TV shows, and I think perhaps I'm worrying too much about this film.

All in all it's a decent watch. I'm still out to lunch on deciding whether I'd let any of my children watch it. So I guess my best advice to any parent reading this review is to watch the movie yourself first, and then decide whether you think your young one can handle the action in the film.

Then again, remember, hey are dinosaurs, creatures that lived a long time ago, and are thankfully gone (mostly anyway).

Give it shot, and see what you think.

Overall a decent movie.

Great dino animation but nothing else works. ::Spoilers::

[hauntedmyst · 2/10 · 26 June 2015]

The animation in this movie is outstanding. Sadly, that is the end of what's good about it. It's told from the point of view of Speckles, the youngest dinosaur in the pack and that is the main problem. They put a tremendous amount of work into creating a incredible graphics, a photo realistic world to depict the violent life of the dinosaurs and then used a anthropomorphized child's voice with horrible dialog that sounds like its from a PBS kids show as the main narration. Imagine watching Jurassic Park with Fifel the Mouse narrating the movie for the first third of the film and you get the picture. Eventually, the voice get older as Speckles get older but the dialog gets no better and the story becomes ridiculous (including showing a Tarbosaurus (similar to a Tyrannosaurus) cliff dive into the ocean). While it's not a documentary, it would have been better served with adult documentary like narration. That change alone would have made this movie more watchable. No narration would have been better and made this movie much more watchable.

One time watchable type movie....

[anthonymark-53418 · 5/10 · 14 March 2019]

My son few times.....that most wanted to watch for an experience ...

An underrated and good film, although it still has flaws...

[devil_hunter12500 · 7/10 · 2 January 2013]

(Note, this review MAY contains Spoilers!)

I remember watching this movie on YouTube two years ago. I was initially pessimistic about it, considering that this movie is Korean. As I watched more, I couldn't help but find myself liking this film. After all, I am a lover of dinosaurs and its quite badass having a Tarbosaurus as the protagonist.

To start off, the story is basic: The life of a Tarbosaurus named Speckles. Initially having a happy life, his family and life is shattered when a Tyrannosaurus named One Eye appears usurps their territory, killing them in the process. What follows is the tribulations and struggle of Speckles who tries to survive during his lifetime. Overtime, we get to see his character mature as he grows up.

So, what are my thoughts of this film? As stated before, I like this film. For kids, it is an enjoyable dino-flick and I think the film is suitable for families of all ages. However for dino-nerds and professional critics, its a hard watch as many usually point out the lack of logic and the excessive flaws of any film possible (Even the best ones).

The Good: To start off, I like the character of Speckles. You can quickly empathise with him and his maturity and growth over the course of the story is very well done. Other characters include Blue Eyes (Another major character), Speckles's family and One Eye (The antagonist) who while somewhat generic, seem to serve their purpose quite well. One Eye is a character that you WILL hate, so that's a good plus for me. The animation is brilliant and that's what I think is the movie's best element, considering that Speckles was meant to be a 3D film. The story is simplistic, but I think it works and flows with the coming-of-age genre quite decently. Aside from the titular Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus, there are also several dinosaurs not known to the public (E.g. Tsintaosaurus, Therizinosaurus, Pukyongosaurus and Charanosaurus) featured which I think helps the film in being colourful and more diverse in establishing different fauna. Lastly, the music of the film is superb in my opinion. It catches the mood quite effectively and provides a sense of adventure and thrill in this film.

The Bad: Not every film is perfect.The same can be said for Speckles. Firstly, the film's story is shown through narration, which goes through different voice-overs depending on Speckles's age. Needless to say, it was insipid (Especially the narrator for infant Speckles) and I felt it was distracting and a juvenile attempt to make the film more geared towards kids. While there is a good species number of dinosaurs in this film, its easy to point out that several of them are actually FROM North America (Tyrannosaurus, Torosaurus and Ankylosaurus for example). Some animals are even over-exaggerated (One species reaching lengths of a 100 feet, despite being way smaller!). One Eye also seems to resemble Scar from The Lion King (Notice that BOTH have scars) and are cunning, but I'd say both are good villains in their own right.

In conclusion, Speckles the Tarbosaurus results in it's pros slightly overpowering its cons to make itself known as a film kids could enjoy. There are heart-warming scenes which while depressing, also makes the story a little bit more forced when it comes to empathising with Speckles, but they are sad nonetheless. For dino-nerds, its a mixed bag and its a tough call when it comes to watching something realistic about dinosaurs. However, Speckles the Tarbosaurus makes for a good substitute and I'd say its an enjoyable film. For anyone who was kids who love dinosaurs, I'd say give them a watch. You'll let me know :).

For my evaluation in terms of story, characters, music, animation and my own personal enjoyment, I would give Speckles a 7.8 out of ten. My best recommendation is that you should rather watch the movie on YouTube rather than just buying it. Kids will love this film and adults will find it heart-warming and depressing Overall, its a good dinosaur film albeit with its own set of flaws and a nice departure from NOT using well known dinosaurs (E.g. Apatosaurus) as the protagonist, having shifted to a lesser known species (Tarbosaurus) for a boosting popularity.

Underrated dino movie

[kinadismith · 9/10 · 20 May 2021]

I enjoyed the movie a lot watched it in 2012 when I came out and my opinion still hasn't changed after rewatching. It does have its flaws the narration can be kinda annoying at sometimes but the story is good better than the walking with dinosaurs narration tbh.

The Tarbosaurus is set in 80 million year old South Korea, following the Life of Speckles the Tarbosaurus

[satomic · 6/10 · 4 July 2013]

Many people will be wondering why I gave this movie a 6/10, many critics are giving this harsh reviews, which this movie doesn't deserve, so I'm here to share to you why I thought this movie was both entertaining, action packed and upsetting at the same time.

This move takes place in 80 million year old South Korea, this is were we meet our protagonist Speckles, This is my first complaint why is our hero named Speckles, this shows laziness or even stupidity in the character design and this name is not very intimidating as it is a ferocious meat eating Tarbosaurus, which is a relative of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, this brought it down a point. Why couldn't they name the dinosaur differently, here are some names you can give him, Lunar scar, moon-fire, Half-moon, are just to name a few.

Another complaint I have in this movie, is in both the Narrators, they are boring and uninteresting and the child narrator gets annoying at times, the main narrators voice when the protagonist is an sub adult and so forth is not intimidating, why couldn't they get a deeper narrator voice for the adult part, why not James Earl Jones, that would have been more appropriate for at least the adult segment, so this again brings it down a point

The final two complaints I have of this movie is that they kill off Blue eyes (Speckles mate) and Incorrect data of the dinosaurs, the second one brings down more points than the first but here is why I did not like them killing Blue eyes, she was a main character, she was Speckles friend for over 20 or so years and his mate and finally she gets her corpse abandoned by Speckles so as to be disgraced by Raptors was the final indignity to this character, half a point off.

The second issue takes away the final 1.5 points away, most of the dinosaurs and creatures were not in their proper time lines, for example Velociraptors appear ed 75 million years ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Tarbosaurus around 70 million years ago and so forth. another issue is that the dinosaurs were also not in their proper geographical setting, most of the dinosaurs were from North America, Torosaurus, Tyrannosaurus and so forth, even the Asian dinosaurs weren't found in South Korea, Tarbosaurus lived in Northern Mongolia when it lived on planet Earth.

I can live with this even though I am a Dino Freak and know more information than most, my reasoning the Disney Movie Dinosaur. This Movie had certain in-corrections, most Hadrosaurs, Raptors, Ceratopsians and Ornithomimosaurs all lived in the Northern Hemisphere, Iguanodontids and Abelisaurs like Carnotaurus lived in the southern Hemisphere and most of the animals in that film lived in different times as well as this films. So why is this film getting hammered for this and not Dinosaur Another thing about the dinosaurs is the looks, especially on the Raptors, is incorrect and foolish, the Raptors look like punk rejects from the 90's what the hell is with that, but how did the other elements of this movie hold up lets find out The Movie had great CGI, and sound effects, the Visuals were astounding and even the eruption scene was done spectacularly and there is two points already, the story was mediocre but great for a movie like this and it has some great character development, especially later in the film, this brought the movie up to 4 points. I have read crap about this movie before hand it is not accurate to what it is portraying, that is true to some point, but yet again these reviewers overlooked a fine detail, that this is a "Movie" and not a documentary, Dinosaur did the same thing and reviewers aren't slamming that down its throat like in this "Movie".

The thing that brings this movie up to six is the Characters and the Antagonist One Eye, the characters in this film are fleshed out pretty well and add on to the fight scene between One Eye and Speckles, for example when Speckles family dies due to One Eye starting a stampede to rid himself of his rival and even killing his own mother while he watch gives a sense of remorse to this young Tarbosaurus and builds the suspension to the fight later, even though he fights and even beats One Eye earlier in the film. But know lets go to one eye, and ow my God he is bad ass and ruthless, shown by his killing of Speckles family, he shows his bad ass style a few times in this film the first for me is when he climbs out of the sink hole, the second when he tries to rape Blue eyes or mate whichever you prefer so he can take her away from speckles and finally the underwater fight scene.

This is also where I have read crap lately, that the hunting used by One Eye, the boulder to trap an Ankylosaur tail, was to intelligent for this dinosaur, and I would agree if this was a documentary, this is a film and films are not always meant to make sense, even to a well known fact, Dinosaur did it to Alidar the main protagonist and the leaders of the herd of Herbivore dinosaurs which were known to be less intelligent to Therapod or carnivorous dinosaurs period, with a few exceptions.

Time to finish off here, this is only opinion based and you can either love this movie of hate it, it is great for the whole family and it gives you some facts about the dinosaurs it is portraying, but for the sake of this movie a remake needs to be made and in this remake make sure Blue Eyes doesn't die, but to Dino fans, new comers to the Dinosaur genre and to people with an open mind I recommend this film

Dino Dana fan with a twist.

[joshyates1980 · 8/10 · 18 June 2020]

My 5 year old daughter really like Dino Dana on Nickelodeon. She watched this movie and it touched a nerve for her. She cried because of sadness and happiness. I allowed her to continue watching this movie because of it's great story and the realistic approach that was lacked in Dino Dana. Now my daughter got a glimpse of what the dinosaur world could have been really like instead of the imagination of a Dino Dana girl. I respect both shows.

That voice.......

[ktrawick · 7/10 · 3 July 2023]

The movie isn't bad, but not a kid movie. The cgi is decent, the lessons about dinosaurs interesting, I think too graphic for wee folks. But that voice-over of young Speckles.... Ugh. Made me cringe. A third person narrator would have been so much easier to bear. I love Dino movies, from The Land Before Time to the latest Jurassic Park installment. This was a bit of a disappointment. Beautiful background scenery, totally unnecessary narration. The movie was made in another language, not English, so I don't understand why they picked whoever they did for Speckles voice. It does get better, just don't go in thinking this is a Saturday afternoon kid movie.

I have no idea how to feel about this movie

[bluey-13727 · 25 June 2017]

I haven't written any reviews, so this is my first.

I have no idea how to feel about this movie. Its presented in a childlike way, as if its pretending to be a kiddy movie. But I think this might be the most depressing and sad movie I've ever seen...

No it doesn't have blood, but it has child murder, genocide, starvation, drowning in tar, babies getting squished by rocks, whole family death, whole family death again, throwing babies off a cliff, pack hunting, killing of helpless dinos, stampedes of dinosaurs falling off cliffs, volcano erupting and balls of fire smashing running dinos, more stampedes of dinos running off cliffs, and abandoning your family to be feasted upon by rapters.

This is not a kids movie.

It's a dinosaur movie

[stoygop · 9/10 · 27 December 2017]

People are ridiculous complaining about random dinosaur inaccuracies. This is a movie for children - a little brutal - but somehow my boys don't care and love it. They've watched this as many times as I used to watch Dumbo. (Wait, you mean elephants can't fly?) If you want a documentary on tarbosaurus or tyrannosaurus or velociraptor, then this isn't for you. I wouldn't watch an action film and then complain about how the drama was unrealistic. My recommendation: don't overthink this people.

Not for kids....

[Abtin_AB · 9/10 · 5 March 2020]

This movie is really well made. I seen it a long time ago and i think that was really good. A sad and harsh story with hope and love. Dont miss it.

Sad but brilliant

[zakbundza · 9/10 · 13 March 2022]

I love the movie but it made cry so much when the mum quiex and twins died the narrating is a bit annoying but overall I enjoyed the movie I suggest it to everyone any gae just if you're under 10 what it with a parent.

A story of love, loss, revenge, and hope

[gilgoose · 10/10 · 27 February 2016]

As a dinosaur enthusiast, I can comfortably call this movie the Citizen Kane of dinosaur movies. With dynamic characters and a riveting story that seamlessly tied in adult themes (love, death, and revenge) to a children's movie, I can safely call this movie a future classic. Every frame and line of dialogue is pure 24k GOLD. The one-line zingers keeps the audience on the edge of their seat for the entire movie. One of the best movies OF ALL TIME. The movie can be thoroughly enjoyed by a viewing by yourself or with a group of friends. 11/10 would recommend, can't wait for the sequel coming this summer! I will certainly have a showing of this in my college's dinosaur club.

Very mature and respectable film.

[camjfranklin · 8/10 · 27 June 2022]

Despite the animation of this film being some subpar, the story, characters, and scripting blows me away with its maturity and fulfillment. I adore this film's precense and its ability to impress me with such a limited budget. I have an upmost respect for this film and its crew.

Best Dinosaur movie Ever.

[jankostric · 10/10 · 24 May 2020]

10/10 Most underrated movie ever. It is perfect. Watch this movie. Recommended. CatWithACookie Seal of Approval