Back in 1999, the BBC created the award-winning documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs, which brought the dinosaur world to life like it had never been seen before. In the past 15 years, technology has improved, and now Walking With Dinosaurs: The Movie looks more realistic than ever as it follows the adventures of Patchi (Justin Long), a Pachyrhinosaurus dinosaur. Patchi was the runt of his siblings, but the first among them to find adventure. The film follows Patchi as he goes on his adventure, quickly discovers the many dangers that await him as his herd migrates south—from carnivorous creatures, to natural threats like rain, ice and forest fires. During his journey, we see Patchi bond with his brother Scowler (Skyler Stone), and find love at first sight in Juniper (Tiya Sircar).

The film is book-ended by a modern-day story of two siblings who are visiting their paleontologist Uncle Zack (Karl Urban) in Alaska while their parents are on vacation in Europe. While Jade Jade (Angourie Rice) is excited, Ricky (Charlie Rowe) has no interest in digging for dinosaur bones. However, he may just change his mind when a bird named Alex flies down and tells him the story of Patchi.

The film looks amazing. The level of realism and detail in makes you forget this is animated—it feels like you are watching actual footage of these dinosaurs! The soundtrack adds to the excitement by enveloping the viewer in the experience. In the forest fire scene, you can hear the rain, lightning and fire crackling all around you, which makes you feel like you are in that forest along with the dinosaurs.

This filmmakers have taken a really odd approach to this film, which kind of ruins it for older audiences. They have basically taken what was originally shot as a BBC Earth nature documentary and added the voice-overs, narration and a wrapper story around it in order to appeal to a younger audience. Throughout the film, Alex the Alexornis (John Leguizamo) provides a non-stop, joke-filled narration/commentary. While I think 7-14 year-olds will find his chatter hilarious, I found his commentary irritating after a very short time. Also, every last detail of what is happening is over-explained—the viewer is not given any credit or time to figure things out on their own.

Another thing I found odd was the way the dinosaurs speak. The mouths are not animated at all, you just hear voice-overs as the Pachyrhinosauruses “talk” to one another, seemingly telepathically. In fact, sometimes you even hear the dinosaur sounds from the original documentary version of the film in the background as the dinosaurs are “speaking”. It would have been nice if they had at least animated the mouths when they re-purposed the film!

The dialogue is also geared towards a younger audience, with lots of bodily-function jokes. Though, I must admit, this one did make me chuckle.:

“Remember, they can smell fear.”
“Sorry, that’s not fear. Juniper, are you OK?”
“I think I just stepped in some fear.”

While the film does have some exciting action-filled moments later on, it starts off pretty slow, and it doesn’t help that every time a new dinosaur is introduced, the screen in paused and a girl’s voice reads off the name and spouts out some facts about that dinosaur. This breaks up any momentum the film had managed to build up at the time.

The few bonus features contained on this Blu-ray are all geared towards finding out more about the dinosaurs—they include videos, maps and other interactive facts about dinosaurs, a dinosaur trivia track that can be enabled during the film, and a dinosaur call match game. There is also a short rap by Nickelodeon star Benjamin Flores Jr. (The Haunted Hathaways). As an adult viewer, I am much more interested in hearing more about how the film was made—the research, the technology used to bring the dinos to life, etc. but nothing like that has been included.

Fox has also released a “Deluxe Edition” of this Blu-ray, which also includes the film in 3D as well as in its “Cretaceous Cut”—the original documentary format without all of the bookends and juvenile voice-overs/narration. For adults interested in checking out this film, that is the version to get as I suspect this “Cretaceous Cut” will be more appealing. Also, in regards to the 3D, there are several scenes with dinosaurs coming right at the screen, which I suspect were designed specifically for 3D viewing.

As an adult viewer, the version of the film on this Blu-ray release did not appeal to me—I would have liked to have either seen the original documentary version, or an entirely different Jurassic Park-style film where the cast from the wrapper story were brought into this world of the dinosaurs.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:27:23)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / 2.39:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Descriptive Audio 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1, Portuguese DD 5.1, Russian DTS 5.1, Estonian DD 5.1, Latvian DD 5.1, Lithuanian DD 5.1, Ukrainian DD 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian

DVD:

• 480p / 2.39:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1, English Descriptive Audio 5.1, Spanish Surround DD 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 3/25/2017):

• iTunes Digial Copy (Requires DVD Disc)
• UltraViolet DigitalHD Copy redeemable via Flixster, Google Play or Vudu

Extras (Blu-ray-only):

• Ultimate Dino Guide (21:12)
  Viewers can learn about all of the various dinosaurs introduced in the film. After a short introduction, select between videos for Pachyrhinosaurus (“Juniper”, “Patchi”, “Scowler”), Gorgosaurus (“Gorgon”), Hesperonychus, Troodon, Pterosaur, Ankylosaur, Edmontosaurus, Parksosaurus, Chirostenotes, Alphadon, and Alexornis (“Alex”). After each video plays, the viewer can discover more fun facts about each dinosaur, view it from different angles, listen to its call, see where it lived using an interactive map, and more.
• Match the Call game
  Test your dinosaur knowledge by trying to guess which dinosaur is making the call before its picture is revealed on the screen.
• Interactive Map
  This is the same map available from the Ultimate Dino Guide. See which dinosaurs were around in each era, and where they lived across the globe. Click to hear facts about the various dinosaurs.
• Brainosaur Trivia Track (1:27:23)
  Enable this track to see pop-up facts about the dinosaurs as you watch the film.
• Nickelodeon Orange Carpet Dino Rap (1:01)
  Benjamin Flores Jr. (The Haunted Hathaways) performs a rap about the film.
• Theatrical Trailer (1:24)

Final Thoughts:

While the film looks amazing, what started off as a BBC Earth documentary has been modified to only appeal to a younger audience by adding cartoony, joke-filled narration and voice-overs. While I think this release will appeal to 7-14 year-olds (especially if they are interested in dinosaurs), adult viewers would be better off checking out the “Deluxe Edition”, which offers the original documentary cut of the film without all of this nonsense. The bonus features on the disc are all centered around learning more about dinosaurs and do not offer anything new in regards to the film itself.