Walking With Dinosaurs

an insufferable family adventure whose impressive animation is consistently undercut by cartoonish self-awareness.

The only solace from the uninspired characters and crammed-in factoids are the gags about poop and puke - juvenile, yes, but also appropriate for the film's "back to nature" ethos.

You'd think it'd be hard to screw up a movie about dinosaurs, and yet Hollywood keeps doing so.

A film that is not so much bad-although it is quite bad-as it is utterly inexplicable.

Walking With Dinosaurs is too good a visual treat to miss, especially if you catch the 3-D version. But don't expect to enjoy the predictable, paper-thin story.

You could write "Walking With Dinosaurs'' off as harmless filler for the under-5 set, except that the only female dinosaur, Juniper, exists solely to moon over Patchi, who as a hatchling lost part of an ear to a winged predator.

The problem isn't the animation, which has been accomplished and, at times, jaw-dropping. It's the concepts and the writing.

All narration and childish fart jokes should've been removed from this movie, and then, perhaps the children in the audience would actually learn something.

"(A)beautifully animated but plot-thin kids film that borrows heavily in the story department from both the Land Before Time and Ice Age movies, as well as various Disney animated classics."

Walking with Dinosaurs 3D has gorgeous, meticulously detailed CGI, but also way too many stupid jokes about poop and puke.

I realize scientists can't prove dinosaurs didn't communicate telepathically, but I suspect the filmmakers' decision to go telepathic stems more from financial concerns than artistic or scientific ones.

Some of the character transformations are rushed (such as that of Patchi's older brother) and I don't quite think there's enough here to keep youngsters entertained.