Another Fun Adventure

Rating: 6/10 (14 July 2009)

I haven't seen the second movie of the series, and so can only compare "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" to the first. Aside from the equally superb animation, I thought this story was weaker than the original (as are most sequels) but still was good fun. Here, Sid the Sloth is working with babies again (just as he worked with the human baby in the first movie.) This time, it's a trio of dinosaur babies that he stumbles upon and decides to raise as his own. Yeah, I know, dinosaurs and mammals didn't co-exist - but it's a kid's movie - and the writers got around that by turning this into a kind of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" type adventure. Sid discovers the eggs after crashing through the ice into an underground world where dinosaurs still rule. Unfortunately, Mamma Dinosaur wants her babies back, and Sid ends up being taken along for the ride, which means that Diego, Manfred et. al. have to set out on their own adventure to rescue him.
What I thought was much weaker here than in the original movie was the lack of any real poignancy, such as Manfred's memories of his family or Diego's "death scene." This movie simply comes on like an action/adventure with some comedy (and some of it pretty funny) thrown in. Personally, I didn't care that much for the new character of Buck, a one-eyed weasel who's essentially exiled himself in dino-world and who ends up leading the gang in their search. It's a good movie for kids (although some of the dinosaur scenes might be a bit scary for younger ones.) 6/10