As a lifelong fan of animation, an admirer of Tara Strong and as someone who is interested in dinosaurs and has been enthralled by many films featuring them, 'Dino Time' had potential. Sadly, the execution was a long way from fantastic, much of it lousy.
'Dino Time' is not a complete waste of time. Some of the animation is serviceable enough, the colours are pretty and exotic looking and the backgrounds are nicely rendered and quite rich in detail. Some of the voice cast acquit themselves well, Grey De Lisle, Tara Strong and Pamela Adlon always do their best regardless of what's thrown at them while Jane Lynch is engaging.
Not that either element is completely successful. The character designs are unattractive and stiff and there is a general lack of visual imagination. As for the rest of the voice cast, others do not fare well. Melanie Griffith sounds disinterested, Steven and William Baldwin just don't sound sinister enough for villains and Rob Schneider is unbearably obnoxious.
Every other element is poorly done. The soundtrack is forgettable at best and doesn't rouse, catch or engage. The writing is often very forced, especially in the humour which is never funny (quite the opposite),and the story is dragged out, predictable and contrived. Not even the action engages and the time machine stuff is muddled.
Characters are an infuriating mix of bland and annoying, and the obligatory villains' motives are never made clear, let alone expanded upon.
In conclusion, pretty bad and a long way from dino-tastic. 2/10 Bethany Cox
Keywords: time traveldinosaurchildren's adventure
Plot summary
Three curious kids accidentally trip an egg-shaped time machine into operation and find themselves back 65 million years in the middle of a nest of dinosaur eggs. The first thing they see is a giant T-Rex staring down at them in happy wonder. They're not food, they're family! Now the kids have just until the real eggs hatch to find their way back to the present, facing other prehistoric monsters and dangers along the way.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Top cast
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Dino-tastic it is not
The voice actor cast deserved a better story and more focus to detail
It took almost 18 months since the film's premiere in South Korea to reach Germany, but now it has. Being a fan of all kinds of animated films, I thought I'd give it a chance. I watched a German synchronized version, so I didn't get to hear the voices of some well-known American actors including several Emmy nominees and winners: Melanie Griffith, Jane Lynch, Rob Schneider and the Baldwin brothers Stephen and William doing the voices for the two main antagonists. The only one I'd like to emphasize is Tara Strong, not known by many, but with quite an impressive body of voice acting in recent years. Director Yoon-suk Choi was mostly involved with Korean non-animated television so far and the other director John Kafka brought some animation experience to the table from working on Rugrats or Ninja Turtles TV series.
Unfortunately, despite that (or because of that) the film only succeeded very rarely. It's really only for children who won't think about it in depth and just enjoy the images and funny(?) actions of the characters. There's no real deeper meaning or captivating action in this one. The whole coke OK the time machine subplot was pretty terrible I thought. Or the fact that he needed years to build the machine the first time, but now with the help of the mother from one of the disappeared kids it takes hours. Well.. I guess you shouldn't think about it too much or you could probably even criticize the concept of time travel as a whole.
The film had its moments though too. Many of these involved the dino-mum: the language barrier for example or the moment she realizes that she is not the main character's real mother was actually quite a bit touching. Surly and Sarco were truly intimidating, not sure if too much for smaller children and the fight sequences involving them weren't all that bad. However, the switches between the T-Rex mom and those two changed so quickly and randomly, it felt a bit strange. As a whole, I can't really recommend this film and it's really only a must see for people who want to see every animated movie there is.
Very poor!
Despite being an adult nearing 30, I am still very partial to kids animated films and 90% of the time I thoroughly enjoy them. This film, however, was incredibly poor. The storyline and script but appalling and it felt really dragged out. It was also incredibly predictable. I was surprised by the lack of humour too. Obviously, this is aimed at children, my son, who is 4, watched it quietly. He is a dinosaur fanatic. He only seemed truly captivated towards the end when there was a little more action involving the dinosaurs but it certainly didn't get the rave reviews that other films like How To Train Your Dragon or even Disney's Dinosaur received. A rainy day DVD film at best - and that's if you're desperate.