Review of Adventures in Dinosaur City (1991) by Leonard D — 21 Nov 2014

This is one of the worst examples of world-building gone wrong I have ever seen. It's just too ambitious for what it is, and takes the audience's involvement for granted. There is not one character driven moment that doesn't feel like it was cranked out of a sausage grinder.

How can I convey this better? Hmmm... It's like none of the characters have any personality, backstory or identity until you're told (via lame exposition) that they have a personal trait, history, or identity right before the time it becomes important.

The puppets are extremely poorly animated (the "main" dinosaur, "Rex," can't even get his eyes to focus in the same general direction - oh yeah, he looks nothing like the dinosaur on the cover, either).

Hiring actors nobody ever heard of would be okay if they did a good job, but it just seems like they didn't have direction. The action sequences are too few and too far between for the run-time, and rather than spend effort on special effects some of the action is implied while they use stock footage of the sets.

The only reason I'm not giving this half a star is because the production crew clearly put some effort into overcoming a budget shortfall, and that's appreciated, but the question remains: WHY DID THEY BOTHER? Even the SNES game based on this property isn't very good.

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