Sadly Over-hyped

hyped garbage

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

"Dinosaurs Alive" is a 40-minute documentary from 2007, so this one has its 10th anniversary this year. The people who made this are Emmy winner David Clark and Oscar nominee Bayley Silleck. The title makes it pretty obvious what this one is about of course. So if you care about dinosaurs or paleontology, this one may very well be worth it. Or you will be especially disappointed because you find the lack of depth here really irritating. Depends on you I guess. I myself as someone with not too much interest in the subject must say that none of the aspects made me curious about the subject. Still I have watched dinosaur documentaries in the past that were clearly superior to this one here. No surprise that this one is not among the most known IMAX documentaries out there, but really goes more under the lesser known. Narrator and Oscar winner Michael Douglas is not really making things better as he has way too much text to be honest and you can't blame him for it. It seems as if they were trying to make up for lack of information by having Douglas (admittedly a huge star) talking random stuff all the time. And the reenactment scenes were just as uninteresting as the paleontologists we see and find out about. Thumbs down from me. Not recommended.

I think every young boy goes through the stage of dinosaur obsession at some point. I certainly did and my two boys can't get enough of them either. So along comes "Dinosaurs Alive! 3D." Now this should be a summer holiday winner - it's got dinosaurs...perfect. They are presented 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 be Palaeontologists Alive! This IMAX film spends way too much time following the exciting exploits of a couple of grad students travelling to deserts and digging holes. Sure, there are a few spots where we see some 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 a documentary mainly pitched at adults...and quite a boring one too.Now for the "Alive!". Nah. They're dead. Really dead. Fossil dead. We see 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's to illustrate how they died. Putting the word Alive (with an exclamation 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. There were a couple of good T-Rex roaring in your face moments and one bit had 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 palaeontologist uses a little brush to find a fossil. At one point is shows how far apart 5 palaeontologists sit from each other. Basically, there is no real point for this to be 3D. At one point one of my boys took the glasses 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 want to stop it. This film engages in everything boring about dinosaurs. It's a stinker. Use your hard earned money to hire Jurassic Park or, if you want a doco, Walking With Dinosaurs. You'd probably go better with Land Before Time in fact. This just isn't worth it.

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 very dry documentary mainly focuses on archaeologists in 1920s Mongolia and modern 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 on them?), but the special effects were poor. I've seen effects on Discovery Channel specials and cheaply-done Sci-Fi network movies that far exceeded what was in this movie. Come to think of it, I would have rather watched the Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" on my TV than this big screen snooze.Occasionally there was a beautiful, panoramic shot of some cliffs or a desert vista; but other than this there wasn't much redeeming about this film. If it's still playing at an IMAX theater near you, go see something else.

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