wwhitbeck

24 May 2012

Nothing new, horrible effects

Don't just walk away from this clunker - run! There is nothing new atall covered in this sub par documentary styled fiasco. Any child that'sstudied dinosaurs in grade school already knows what this one's allabout.The opening sequence was a great indication of what was yet to come -cartoonish dinosaurs do battle - and manage to walk across a sandyplain without leaving a single footprint.Then the movie resorts to shots we've all seen hundreds of times - yepdinosaur skeletons. Again, nothing new.But wait, next we are going to go on a real dig - in Mongolia. At firstyou think at least the scenery shots will be fantastic, but they areout of focus, totally taking that away from the experience.More disappointment as we move to Mexico and more blurry scenery andlack of story.Intersperse these shots with incredibly horrible CGI shots of water andsand floods - I'm talking incredibly bad effects. First year studentswould do at least 20x better.Also be warned before you shell out your hard earned money - this isone short movie.Definite skip.

awastie

24 May 2012

Dinosaurs Dead!

I think every young boy goes through the stage of dinosaur obsession atsome point. I certainly did and my two boys can't get enough of themeither. So along comes "Dinosaurs Alive! 3D." Now this should be asummer holiday winner - it's got dinosaurs...perfect. They arepresented alive...tick that box. AND it's in 3D...should be awesome!!What could go wrong? Everything.Firstly the Dinosaurs. A more appropriate title for this would bePalaeontologists Alive! This IMAX film spends way too much timefollowing the exciting exploits of a couple of grad students travellingto deserts and digging holes. Sure, there are a few spots where we seesome dinos - often just walking on the spot as some sort of graphic.But if you want wall to wall dinosaurs forget it. This is just adocumentary mainly pitched at adults...and quite a boring one too.Now for the "Alive!". Nah. They're dead. Really dead. Fossil dead. Wesee fossils. Lots of them. It's about finding fossils it the desert.Again we get a bit of dinosaur action here and there, but even that'sto illustrate how they died. Putting the word Alive (with anexclamation mark if you don't mind) in the title is a bit rich.And the 3D. The 3D effects are good as they always are at IMAX. Therewere a couple of good T-Rex roaring in your face moments and one bithad me jumping in my seat. But mainly the 3D is used to show titles,footage from the 20s in front of a desert, and how a palaeontologistuses a little brush to find a fossil. At one point is shows how farapart 5 palaeontologists sit from each other. Basically, there is noreal point for this to be 3D. At one point one of my boys took theglasses off. I told him to put them back on. He replied "What for?"Enough said.So, if your kid has a dinosaur obsession take him to this...if you wantto stop it. This film engages in everything boring about dinosaurs.It's a stinker. Use your hard earned money to hire Jurassic Park or, ifyou want a doco, Walking With Dinosaurs. You'd probably go better withLand Before Time in fact. This just isn't worth it.

23 May 2012

DO NOT PURCHASE RIP OFF

This review is from: Dinosaurs Alive (Amazon Instant Video) My 4 yo old is a heavy dinosaur consumer. The trailer for this video depicts 100% computer generated dino eye candy, but unfortunately for you if you buy this for your child, it is comprised primarily of watching jeeps drive across dusty desert terrain with uninteresting narration from Douglas and factually outdated information (touts the Seismosaurus, which was discovered and thought to be biggest dino ever, until further investigation revealed that it was a partial skeleton of the well known and long since discovered diplodicus.) Tough way for me to learn about the ABSURD return policy for video. I flushed $14.99 down the toilet for this garbage, thanks Amazon. At least let me return it, and you can keep the rental fee as your ransom. Amazon, your digital video return policy is anti-consumer and barbaric. Amazon, please be better than this.

frankp127

23 May 2012

If you have little ones into dinosaurs, I recommend

This movie is pretty good for kids and especially in 3D which is how wesaw it. There is a lot of science but my two boys are now spending timeon 'digs' in our yard. Thedinosaur fight scenes are great and thedinosaurs aren't too scary but are still very realistic. I've seenquite a few IMAX movies and this one is one of the better ones. My boyswould say the best one. 3D is getting better with new technology andthis movie proves that it has come a long way. Michael Douglas is OKwith the narration. If you are a parent or teacher, I recommend thisdinosaur movie, but see it in the theater because it works best to seethe dinosaurs IMAX size(or close to it). Eight collective thumbs upfrom my family of four.

John Krull

22 May 2012

Poor IMAX experience

This movie shows about 2 minutes of recreations of dinosaurs actuallybeing alive. My son, who loves dinosaurs, thought the movie was OK, atbest. 95% of the 40 minute movie includes shots of deserts and badlandsfrom the air or boring, staged interviews with scientists. Calling thefilm "Dinosaurs Alive" is misleading, to say the least. For me, it wasthe worst IMAX movie I've ever seen and hardly deserves to be even puton the screen.We saw it at the Chabot Science Center in Oakland and it cost the twoof us $25. Luckily that included entrance to the center which helpedimprove the experience (a bit - but that's for another review).

Jason

21 May 2012

Clevelandlive

Boring, boring, boring.If your idea of a good time is watching a bunch of ugly paleontologists dig in the dirt for an hour, you'll enjoy this movie. There is no plot and no excitement at all.Oh it's narrated by Michael Douglas, whose voice comes across as very whinny.

scottyr

20 May 2012

Lackluster - dont bother with this one.

I've recently taken my two sons to see this at my local science center,and all of us were very disappointed with Dinosaurs Alive! This verydry documentary mainly focuses on archaeologists in 1920s Mongolia andmodern day New Mexico. CG dino scenes were not only sparse and short(why call this film Dinosaurs Alive if you're not going to focus onthem?), but the special effects were poor. I've seen effects onDiscovery Channel specials and cheaply-done Sci-Fi network movies thatfar exceeded what was in this movie. Come to think of it, I would haverather watched the Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" on myTV than this big screen snooze.Occasionally there was a beautiful, panoramic shot of some cliffs or adesert vista; but other than this there wasn't much redeeming aboutthis film. If it's still playing at an IMAX theater near you, go seesomething else.

20 May 2012

This video does not play

This review is from: Dinosaurs Alive (Amazon Instant Video) We rented this video and could not watch it. Instead it plays the trailer again and again. Complete waste of time and money.