Dinosaur (2000) Poster

(2000)

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1/10
Movie=watching grass grow
thesterlingweaver1 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
I wish I felt anything watching this trashfire, it's not even hilariously bad, this is the worst Disney film I've watched. The climax goes on for 10 seconds because all that happens is main dinosaur push evil dinosaur off of cliff and that's it. I don't care about any of the characters, this is worthless, I felt nothing.
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1/10
Unimpressive.
Verbal-201 July 2000
The worst and weakest of all films, "Dinosaur" isn't just profoundly bad, it's also stupid and incompetent. On the dramatic level, all Disney movies are held to generously lower standards and praised as masterpieces. Why, I can't imagine. It's just Disney, says everyone. You shouldn't expect a great script, the movie will be great anyway!

Material tailored to children will naturally have a vast adult audience--parents unfortunate enough to have kids who beg them to take the family out to see movies like these--so why not make something that adults can appreciate? That aside, I insist that the enormity of an unredeemably bad screenplay (Disney seems to have a patent on these) should not be dismissed simply because the movie is for children.

I say all this because "Dinosaur" is a horrible moviegoing experience in so many ways that it is probably considered torture in some parts of the world. For the life of me, I cannot see why everyone was so impressed by the visuals. The opening sequence, called "breathtaking" by many, is a ludicrous rehash of the far better opening of "Forrest Gump." The graphics are unrealistic, the characters' faces way beyond cartoony with hideous human tics and gestures. Why was everyone so convinced and drawn in by the artistry of the film that they were snapped out of a stupor when the animals started to speak? I just don't get it.

Perhaps the disappointment of hearing the dinosaurs and the lemurs talk stemmed from the fact that the dialogue with which "Dinosaur" tortures us for eighty minutes is so bad, it makes the "Godzilla" screenplay look like that of "L.A. Confidential." Yeah, I said it! And I meant it.

To begin, I was never impressed or convinced by the visuals. The blending of ridiculous, excessively cartoony computer models with live-action scenery was anything but seamless. But in comparison with the dialogue, the sights were near masterful. The plot is unoriginal. In fact, it's plain done to death. Disney fanatics, of course, package this phenomenon of recycled garbage as "tried and true" or "a new twist on a classic theme." Fair enough, except it's an old twist on a classic theme. Several classic themes, actually. The movie raises several ideas and just throws them in briefly, giving each the spotlight for a few minutes without dealing with a single one, then retreating back to the search for that darned mysterious valley. Issues are raised not to be resolved, but to interrupt the progress of the plot (possibly to eat up time, because the movie would otherwise have seemed too short, even though it feels too long).

There's that theme of the rivals, the new kid on the block versus the hard-hearted, iron-fisted leader of the pack. Then there's the romance issue, which never goes anywhere (hey, they're dinosaurs, not humans!). And the individualistic ideals raised by our hero as a humanistic thorn in the side of fearless leader's Darwinian methods. That's always good for a laugh. Not here, though. "Dinosaur" is the worst kind of bad movie. Not like "Mortal Kombat Annihilation," where it's so ridiculous that it's entertaining, literally laughable. This, I couldn't laugh at. It was just too painful.

And of course, in grand tradition, the carnivores are demonized and denied speech, which all herbivores are granted. It's the way Hollywood always cements the message that all meat-eaters are monsters from the depths of you-know-where. Nothing like a subtle touch. Interesting, though, that here the predators (carnotaurs, a real but little-known dinosaur) deliver in their roars a kind of dialogue more worth hearing than that of the veggiesaurs. I tell you, the script is BAD! And it really kills the whole movie, for those of us who didn't already find the look of the movie unappealing.

No children's movie is complete without the obligatory scene where the hero defeats the villain in a thoroughly implausible action sequence. Convenient that a solid rock footing would crumble to dust just when the bad guy steps on it, no? This movie takes what was passable in "The Land Before Time" (better by far) and makes it uniformly bad, copying everything and filtering out whatever had any charm, imagination, or credibility. With a never-ending parade of STUPID one-liners, "Dinosaur" is so bad that it almost seems like the product of a collaborative decision to make it stink.

For me, a movie is only as good as its script. Complaints of implausibility (a big problem here) die out where the drama is appealing or the action entertaining, two ideal strokes of luck facilitated in the first place by the words on the paper. No such luck with "Dinosaur," a movie whose unjustifiably good B.O. performance seems to have legitimized the studios' free-spending habits. So much for imagination. I don't care what else comes out this year; "Dinosaur" IS the Worst Picture of 2000. And so far, in my opinion, it's the Worst Picture Ever.
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1/10
Bland corporate movie making
benzing17 July 2000
The special effects aren't all that special (give me a Ray Harryhausen stop motion dinosaur anyday; cgi creatures just don't seem to have weight or substance), the story is a ripoff from Land Before Time and Lion King, the characters are beyond annoying. I was rooting for the "Carnataur" or whatever to eat all of the principles. Even worse I saw this on a double bill with "Chicken Run", which was stylish, funny, thrilling, and original. After seeing what could be achieved with lumps of clay, patience, and geniune creativity it was just too much to sit through this bland lowest common denominator garbage.
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1/10
Dinobore
paulo2025 June 2000
Not just the 'standard' Disney story, this movie was a piece of crap, pure and simple. So crappy was it, that I couldn't even bother to be amazed at the CGI; in fact I saw this film as an immense waste of technology.

First off, I HATED the fact that these realistic dinosaurs and quasi-realistic primates spoke and all but acted like humans. It's one thing to have traditional 2D animated characters speak or even a 3D animal talk in a live-action fable but to have astoundingly realistic creatures have such horribly anthropomorphic qualities in a "realistic" setting is very jarring, especially when the dialog is so 'cute' and anachronistic.

Secondly, the story mimicked the superior Land Before Time. Let me state I don't think Land Before Time (the 1st one) was a masterpiece, but for what it was, a charming story mostly aimed at the younger crowd, it was successful. Dinosaur tells practically the same story, but with boring characters.
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1/10
That was it?
Gryosphere14 September 2001
When I saw Dinosaur for the first time back in May 2000, I was thinking to myself, "That was it?". First off this movie shouldnt be called "Dinosaur", it should start with "The Land Before Time". This was as bad, if not worse than the sequels to "The Land Before Time". The story lines are identical. Here is a question, They spent 12 years making this film, and this was the best story line they could come up with? Plus people are saying that the CGI is outstanding. Believe me, they arent that amazing. The Jurassic Park Trilogy is much better than this sad try at a movie. Go out and buy Jurassic Park or The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Also go ahead and start planning to get Jurassic Park III on video when it comes out on December 11th. Do not waste your time with Disney's Dinosaur.

0 out of 10
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1/10
Disneys latest attempt for summer success
kev3w816 May 2000
Dinosaur. Disney's latest movie with plenty of special effects and a stunning mix of real backgrounds and computer animated dinosaurs, but it basically lacks 3 things; length, story, and character development. It starts of with basically the trailer that was shown in the theater of a dino egg being bounced and rolled around and in that egg was a baby dino failed into the hands of some prejudice monkeys who at first decide to dispose of it until they stop acting like monkeys and come to their sense and take him in. Then it skips from the baby dino to a full grown dino without any indication of this time lapse leaving you guessing that its the same dino because there is no indication of his name till after this time lapse. Then there is a meteor shower and aladar(the now full grown dino) carries his parent monkey to a safer place. While roaming throughout the desert they come across other wandering dinos and team up to find a better place to live. After 20 minutes of roaming in the desert the dinos finally find a better land. After they find this better land they come across some mean dinos that don't like the other dinos on their land decide to fight. In the end its just a happy ending with aladar getting some female dino that he's had his eye on and defeating the bad dinos. Its too short being only 1 hour and 22 minutes and because of that the story doesn't have enough time to grow and develop. Disney should stick to regular animation till computer animation becomes less costly because for price they payed to make dino was a waste.
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1/10
Suckiest "A-Film" Ever.
superdoghead28 December 2001
This movie was unbearable. They stole the plot from /Land Before Time 4/, then dumbed it down. If you don't believe me, watch LBT4. The stock "clever Disney characters" were replaced by brainless slugs who didn't bother trying to be interesting.

Disney Animator: "Hey, we can animate this so it looks real good." Disney Exec: "Great! That means we won't have to use any writers on this one."

A lousy review for a painfully lousy movie. Quid pro quo ad nauseum amen.
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1/10
Good movie but lame
acevang40us3 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This movie, Disney made is good, I mean the giant carnivore was huge than the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but somehow it has the attitude similar to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the beginning was cool, it have the instinct of a Tyrannosaurus Rex would do, sneaking up to it's prey, when it attacks one of the herbivores, it strong jaws took it down hard, is something the Tyrannosaurus Rex would do too. When the asteroids came causing trouble all dinosaur they have no choice but to go to a place where there is nutrients for them to feed again. When two giant carnivore attack the monkey and the 4 herbivore dinosaur, the rock caved in killing the female carnivore and one male dinosaur. But as the leader of the herd, he leads them to a dead end, the male carnivore attack them, when 1 dinosaur came to rescue the herds, why should the male carnivore get scare and back-up for anyway, it should attack already, seems Disney have make some mistakes. The cliff screen was wrong, after the male carnivore bit one of the herbivore's back, wouldn't it tear even more bigger? After all, this movie is Good in the beginning, lame after the end of the movie. This movie put all the dinosaur movie into shame.
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1/10
Nice preview. Nice CGI. Sappy. One point.
klaiber26 May 2000
The preview was the best part, since it didn't have any sappy dialog. Rapid downhill slide after that. What a waste of money.
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1/10
Movie #19
onamkakabr22 March 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Dinosaur/Dinosaur (2000) Film #19

Continuing my journey of watching films and making amateur criticisms with it.

This is the nineteenth film that I watch on this profile and review.

This was the first time I watched this film and what a bad and boring film it was.

There are films that are based only on plot, music, captivating and charismatic characters and there is this film that was only limited to graphics.

And this is the worst thing to limit yourself to because graphics are always surpassable, in 50 years the graphics of today (2024) that we see and think will never be surpassed but always will be. Nothing about this film is good.

Characters are not charismatic and much less funny, the journey is boring (I often lost focus because it was very boring), no memorable moments and a completely forgettable soundtrack. I swear, I watched this movie no more than 5 minutes ago and I can't remember the soundtrack, any memorable moments or even the names of the characters and that's horrible.

I know that the 2000s were a very difficult decade for Walt Disney Animation Studios films, but this one is the most forgettable for me, and I say more, the most forgettable until you get to the Walt Disney Animation Studios animations from the 1990s and 2000s. , 2010 and even 2020 which is not over yet.

Without a doubt, it is among the worst films from this studio, along with the War Era films, the two Fantasia films (Fantasia 1940 and Fantasia 2000) and The Magic Cauldron.

I'm still going to review both of them (unfortunately) and make some good-natured criticisms.

Previous Film: Hotel Transylvania/Hotel Transilvania (2012)

Next Film: Chicken Little/O Galinho Chicken Little (2005).

Film Watched on March 21, 2024.

Rating: 1/10.
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1/10
Super Boring. No reason to watch.
Ryan_Barbakins18 May 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Wow this movie was terrible. The story was so basic and boring. None of the characters went through any kind of an arc. The villain is mean for no reason and only gets killed off in the end just so the audience feels at ease even though the villain has no reason to be mean. Was there really a reason why he was so stubborn at the end other than just being mean to be mean because he's a one dimensional villain? The only thing that was good about this movie is the animation. For being released in 2000, this film's animation is honestly breath-taking, however since it is 2019 and not 2000, we have been exposed to much better animation so obviously it looks outdated now. So there is really no reason to see this movie...
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1/10
Good Special Effects doesn't make a great movie, take PM as an example of this.
alexrain20 May 2000
Good special effects don't make a good movie. Look at last years Phantom Menace as an example of this. This movie was boring. The only reason I stayed awake was that it was load. And I was hoping the meat eaters would eat all the talking dinos. Both my 3 year old and 6 year old couldn't wait for this to get over. My daughter was scared half the time and my son was just bored.

The story is just awful and been done 30 times already. Disney is going to go out of business putting crap like this out. You wanna see something great go see Gladiator or rent Iron Giant.
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