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Introduction

Hello, fellow adventurers! Welcome to a very different, very wild animation adventure and I, Jeryl “Blaziker” Koh, will be your trusty guide for today. What’s that? A wild animation adventure, you say? You thought with studio executives cancelling animated movies and shows, award ceremonies making fun of animated movies and most damning of all, the return of John Lasseter, the animation world has gone crazy?

Well, if you think this is crazy, this is what I call “crazy”. Music!

(Speakers playing “Rabbit Hole” by Jaguar Jonze)

Chase me into, down the rabbit hole

Chase me into, down the rabbit hole

Oh, and the flashing lights? That’s for the showpiece.

Today, I wanted to introduce to you one of the movies that got me into exploring animation from around the world, one that may not be obvious at first, but once I talk about how I discovered it, then you will realise why I wanted to review this movie for so long.

To be fair, it is for nostalgia reasons, but most importantly, it is important to look back at these animated movies and appreciate how far we came as well as to appreciate how crazy the animation world is, especially with animated movies from around the world. However, before I tell you how I came across it, a brief about what this movie was about from its production notes.

Dino Time is a 2012 obscure animated movie, animated by the same studio that worked on the Sofia the First series. The story of a daredevil kid named Ernie, his little sister Julia, and his best friend Max, who, while horsing around in Max’s inventor father’s workshop, accidentally trip a time-machine into operation and find themselves transported back in time 65 million years, where they’re adopted by doting dinosaur mom Tyra (Melanie Griffith) and a rambunctious dinosaur “brother” named Dodger (Rob Schneider). The three kids explore the excitement of the prehistoric world – trying to steer clear of Tyra’s evil dinosaur rivals (voiced by the Baldwin brothers of William and Stephen) – while, back in the present day, Max’s dad and Ernie and Julia’s overprotective mom (Jane Lynch) plot their rescue.

How I Discovered It

So, how did I discover the movie? In the early 2010s, at a shopping centre in the east side of Singapore (specifically White Sands in Pasir Ris), according to my hazed memory, I was with my family to celebrate New Year’s Eve and found myself inside a Challenger (a prominent electronics chain), playing on a demo iMac and fiddling through the iTunes store, where out of a blue, I clicked on the Dino Time trailer, not knowing what to expect and… I’ll show you the trailer in the next section just so that you can experience it yourself.

My first reaction: “Whoa, what is that?” As someone that grew with The Land Before Time, dinosaur movies are my jam, so that movie trailer hooked me. When the movie came out on Okto (a local kids’ TV channel that has now merged with English TV channel Channel 5 due to low demand) a few months later, I watched alone with so much glee and not much care from my family. Unsurprisingly, I declared it “the best thing since last bread”.

(That quote has not aged well ever since Zootopia came out)

Even though most dislike Dino Time (or Back to the Jurassic which is its American name), and that it came out in America only three years after its initial release, my love for Dino Time and low budget animated movies did not wane at all. Look, movies like this do not cater specifically to the mainstream animation market, but the majority of the reviews pretty much trash it and for good reason, which I will talk about in this review. However, the important thing is that if you enjoy low-budget foreign animated movies like this one, just wear it like a crown, and no one will convince you otherwise.

(And no, I did not spray myself with Jinkx Monsoon’s “Delusion”, although I wish I had a bottle of this fragrance to convince myself that this is a masterpiece)

Now, 10 years after my first viewing of Dino Time/Back to the Jurassic on local TV, it is time to re-watch and review this movie. Will Dino Time once again be the unexpected low budget foreign animated movie I came to love, or will I succumb to reality and admit this movie was as bad what most had believed?

Key Information

• Directors: Choi Yoon-suk and John Kafka
• Animation Studio: Tolion (produced with CJ Entertainment)
• Country of Origin: United States of America and South Korea
• Rating: PG
• Release Date: 2012 (In certain countries), 12 June 2015 (In USA)

Trailer

The Review

Story and Characters – The Negatives

First, I wanted to get the negatives out of the way. Yes, I do not want to bash the movie that I love, but I had to be honest and talk about its flaws. I am doing this so that the team that worked on it can improve on their craft for their future movies, so my feedback is for their benefit.

Personally, the biggest issue regarding Dino Time’s writing is also its biggest strength: the lack of logic in this movie. There are loads of nonsensical moments that threw out logical science, so much so that this movie went off the rails, which would frustrate for most dinosaur afficionados who most likely will explain the inaccuracies within the movie.

However, this also brings rise to another issue regarding the writing: this movie suffers from the lack of proper pacing. A lot of the plot went so fast, it is very difficult to catch up with whatever was going on. There are just too many elements inside the movie in such a frenzy, which explain the unfocused writing.

Another red flag is the juvenile comedy. There are loads of fart jokes within the movie, most of them coming from the Baldwins’ three flightless bird-like dinosaur henchmen of Morris (Nolan North), Horace (Tom Kenny) and Horace (the John DiMaggio). The comedy is typical, mainstream-level comedy that does not go anywhere because of the unfocused writing. As for the dialogue, the screenwriting, as what you expect, is not good, with some cringeworthy lines from various characters.

Speaking about the characters, most characters are one-dimensional and not-so-developed, but they are great fodder for the insane story, which I will talk more about them in the positives. However, I had to call out the three bird henchmen once again because they are pretty infuriating. In fact, their moments throughout the movie are worthy of the “Stupidest Movie Henchmen” award because their moments of capturing Ernie and his friends are so dumb, it is beyond comprehension.

Some of the voice acting, particularly from Pamela Adlon (who had a difficult task of voicing Ernie), can be annoying and while the voice actors did whatever they can with the unfocused script, the sound editing did no justice with some of their voices hamming up by the editing. This makes these characters annoying, but honestly, B-rated voice acting is an issue with most animated movies with a similar calibre as Dino Time. Given its voice cast that has a mixture of celebrities and professional voice actors (including the troublesome Tara Strong because of her N*T project), I expect better from the voice acting.

Story and Characters – The Positives

Whew, I did not expect to talk about so many bad things about Dino Time, but truthfully, given that animation these days is getting better in terms of the overall quality, I had to get it out of my chest and looked back at its various pain points. With that said, let us move on to the positives.

As I mentioned earlier, I talked about how Dino Time’s lack of logic is not only its biggest weakness but also its biggest strength. Well, because of the lack of movie logic and the lack of scientific accuracy regarding the dinosaurs, this movie went unhinged, which is how to prevent a movie from being too generic if you know you cannot make a great animated movie. Despite the incoherent writing, the pure insanity of its writing resulted in various meme-worthy moments, from the egg-shaped time machine that looks like a dinosaur egg Tyra was protecting, to the Phineas and Ferb plot of Julia trying to bust Ernie for breaking out of his house during his curfew and of course, Rob Schneider as a crazy dinosaur. Somehow, these moments, plus many others, mash to become this incomprehensible mess that keeps the viewers from getting bored. If you can put up with its stupidity, that is.

I also had to commend the world-building of the dinosaur-centric suburban town of Terra Dino (which, for some reason, I absolutely loved) and as well as its land during the Jurassic period, even if there are definitely historical and scientific inaccuracies. If you look closely enough, most parts of the town had a dinosaur theme with it, from the crossings to the museum entrance with the dinosaur skeleton and so much more. As much as the writing is trash, I must say that the world-building of Terra Dino is pretty solid for an obscure, foreign-made movie. More on the design of Terra Dino in the animation segment.

Moving on to the characters, because of the one-dimensional cast, whatever shenanigans these characters pull off, makes this movie insanely entertaining. Talking about the main trio of Ernie, Max and Julia can be tricky. Sure, they have little characterisation, but the moments of Ernie on his electric skateboard, Max tagging along and trying not to get Ernie in trouble and Julia in her constant attempt to catch them in the act, it was a surprise cat-and-mouse chase no one looked into. Plus, Ernie’s insane thinking to get back to the present prevented the movie from going too boring.

However, I think I know who my most favourite character in Dino Time is: Yes, the reason why I wanted to talk about this movie: ROB FREAKING SCHNEDIER AS A DINOSAUR!

Ok, I think I may have overthinked about how stupid Rob’s Dodger is, but hot take, he was much better voice acting Dodger in Dino Time than Norm in North of the North (although to be fair, more people heard about Norm much more than Dino Time). Since Dodger is only a supporting character, this makes his level of annoyingness less pronounced than his twerking as a polar bear in Norm. It also helped that he helped Ernie and his friends, as well as Tyra, the mother T-Rex, when it mattered the most. Was his voice the most soothing? Definitely not, but hey, he could have done worse, like twerking like there is no tomorrow in the Arctic…

As for the other characters, Jane Lynch (famous for her performance in ‘Glee’) did a fine job voice acting as Ernie and Julia’s Mum, as does veteran voice actor Fred Tatasciore as Mac’s Dad who invented the time machine and the Baldwins as the two Saurosuchus brothers (more on their designs later because I have a lot to say). While their voice acting is not that great, the thing is that they had to do with such a lousy script, and I feel the voice acting is not too lazy compared to other, more problematic, animated movies.

Animation

Now, let us talk about the animation and boy, I have positives and negatives about the animation. Given that IMDb did not list the budget for Dino Time, based on animated movies that are similar to Dino Time, plus the fact that it did not get a wide release in the United States, I estimate the budget for the movie to be at around the $20 to $30 million dollar range, given its mixture of professional voice actors and celebrities, as well as its problematic animation, which I will get to later.

I will talk about the positives for a moment, and from what I can see, despite its various animation issues, I can say that the background animation of Terra Dino, whether in its suburban town form or in its Jurassic form, do look probable. Even when certain elements look amateurish at best, I particularly enjoy the incorporation of dinosaur elements in its suburban form, which you can find almost everywhere in the town. It makes the town genuinely look like a town for dinosaur fanatics out there.  

Now, as for the negatives, given that the animation studio does not have much experience in feature-length animation, inevitably, the animation will be sub-par, and indeed, the animation is… shall I say it nicely, ‘problematic’.

To start off, even if I am not an expert in dinosaurs, I can say that the designs of the dinosaurs seem a little… off, like I do not feel the vibe of the Jurassic age. Sure, it is a kids’ movie and that it is not a mainstream animated movie meant for the big screen, but even then, it does not excuse poor character design, and that is not when taking the designs of the Baldwins Saurosuchus designs. Come on, dreadlocks in Saurosuchus? While it does mean creative freedom and artistic licence when it comes to designing dinosaurs with crazy designs like Dodger and the three flightless bird henchmen, the design inaccuracies, not to mention the cheap texturing, makes the dinosaurs uncanny.

Speaking of textures, while the background designs of Terra Dino are very creative, what is not are the boring textures of the more specific elements such as the greenery and surroundings of Jurassic-era Terra Dino. The water animation is another weak spot, but given that many non-mainstream animated movies on limited budgets do not have good water animation, I will stop there. I will, however, talk about the colouring of the dinosaurs and some of the background designs because the animators’ use of them is head-scratching. There is a lack of contrast between the colouring, resulting in scenes that are too bright and scenes that are too dark because of excessive usage of one tone over the other. As such, most of the animated sequences look very uncanny and unnatural.

There are also other issues regarding Dino Time’s animation, like when some of the lip-syncing is not on time and some of the character movements, particularly from some dinosaurs, look unnatural, but given how much I talked extensively over my issues regarding Dino Time’s animation, I think I had dealt enough damage to it.

Special Sauce

Now, let us go through the other elements of the movie before we wrap up the review:

• Soundtrack: As someone that take notes at animated movie soundtracks, the Dino Time soundtrack (which is difficult to find individual tracks or even the entire soundtrack online) is mostly a hard rock soundtrack, mostly to make the movie felt cool and radical. My reaction? Eh, it was a box-standard, typical non-mainstream animated movie soundtrack, so it seems. It did not make me annoyed, but it makes me feel nothing. And that is coming from a rock fan myself.
• Good end credits???: Since no one will talk about it, I had to say the ending credits, for such a low-budget obscure animated movie, are surprisingly good! The end credit cards are 2D colourings that are fun and dynamic. If only the animation style is as good as the end credit cards…
• Dare to distribute: The distribution schedule for Dino Time is insane indeed. Some European countries received it in 2012, but for others like the United States, they only receive it in 2015 as a direct-to-DVD. Why the strange release schedule, and why did Regal Cinema, of all places, tried to bring in the movie to its American cinemas in 2012 but pulled it out later? I had no idea. It is quite hard to research much about the movie’s origins, given the lack of coverage.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, a movie’s impact is not judged by the critics’ reviews nor the ratings, but rather how much it influenced its moviegoers. The best movies are those that people remembered fondly about for years to come, discussing over its cultural impact, how it broke societal norms and how it transforms the way we think about movies. For me, Dino Time is one of them, but for a completely different reason.

There are a lot of obscure animated movies throughout my childhood that made me interested in exploring the international animation scene because it opened up my eyes to how unrestricted, expressive and creative that scene offers. Sure, you will get some stinkers along the way, but movies like Dino Time are important in providing animators, writers, producers and many more a platform to express their creativity, regardless of their shortcomings.

Is Dino Time a masterpiece? Far from it. But is it my guilty pleasure? Absolutely. Dino Time is one of the most unhinged animated movies very few people had seen, from the insane lack of narrative substance and logic that makes it somehow entertaining, to the ‘interesting’ character designs and lacklustre animation, the annoying characters and other bits and pieces that makes it a bad animated movie. However, they, plus some positive elements, actually combine to make an alphabet soup of insanity and lunacy that makes Dino Time an entertaining watch… if you can put up with Rob Schneider being an annoying dinosaur, that is.

Thank you so much for joining me on this crazy animation adventure. For such an unknown animated movie not made by a major or even mid-tier animation studios and with an even stranger distribution schedule, Dino Time is a fascination in my eyes with the limitless amount of insanity you can put in a single animated movie. It may not be a shining masterpiece, but this is one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ movies that is worth checking out at least once. This is 100% Vaas Montenegro approved!

We still got more animated movies coming out in the late August and early September period that I have yet to cover, so I will see you on the next adventure once I get my thoughts on them sorted soon. Until then, k thanks bye!

Rating

• Story and Characters: 1/5
• Animation: 1/5
• Special sauce: 1.5/5
• Score: 3.5/15

Rating: Horrible (But still my guilty pleasure)