Dinosaur

Directed by Ralph Zondag (2000)

While I'm not sure Dinosaur enters my personal pantheon of childhood classics, the movie is surely endearing and fun. Attempting to be objective, I can't really point to anything in this film that makes it second-rate to some of my childhood mainstays (such as The Land Before Time or Fox and the Hound). Even the animation, a risky mix of year-2000 CGI and live-action sets, miraculously holds up fairly well. You get what you want in a family flick; the love story, the quirky characters, the evildoers, the whole works. Some scenes are genuinely sad. I think I laughed out loud a few times too! Of course if I watched it as a kid I think I'd like the movie more, but even for a first-time watcher, Dinosaur is a good movie.

(11/19/21)