Let me see if I understand this correctly – if you live in the age before humans and you take some sort of journey, John Leguizamo shows up to narrate your misery. Because, you know, the trek for salvation isn’t difficult enough by itself. Wait a sec … are you trying to tell me that every prehistoric lizard had to deal with John Leguizamo at one time or another? Why that puts causes for extinction in a whole new light.
On the short list of the most forgettable films of the year, Walking with Dinosaurs 3D is a painful reminder of what happens when you fail to give your characters any traits one might remember more than three minutes after the film ends. We begin in the non-animated present where Karl Urban takes his kids fossil hunting, ‘cuz Sam Neill made it look like such fun in Jurassic Park. When the teen boy (don’t know his name; 
won’t look it up; don’t care) refuses to hike – hey, those candies aren’t gonna crush themselves, man – some sort of crow with the voice of John Leguizamo flies down to annoy him, in English.
Now me, I would have said, “talking bird! Check this out!” And as he kept talking, I would have realized why nobody bothered talking to this bird before. Somehow, the kid is convinced to follow the bird to the Cretaceous period, where everything is animated and the creatures speak English without moving their lips, which is a pretty damn good trick now that I think about it. Then we start following Patchi (voice of Justin Long), the baby Pachyrhinosaurus (“Boredom inducing lizard”). Patchi loses his parents, then his herd, then he grows up, challenges a relative for the kingdom and gets the girl. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like any tale I don’t already know to death. Walking with Dinosaurs 3D is like if you retold the Lion King with dinosaurs and all the players having personalities of potted plants.
During the big conflict, the John Leguizamo bird actually gets distracted and stops paying attention. Turns out, he’s the lucky one. I stayed until the end and cursed myself for only missing ten to fifteen minutes of Act II to sleep. I’d like to say the kids will enjoy this one, but they won’t. The ones next to me certainly didn’t. Walking tended to err on the side of wonder rather than action. As a result, you just have one very stupid, lumbering dinosaur saying, “what’s that?” a bunch.
♪I used to think baby you love me
Then you took me to here
And I just can’t wait for the house
Lights to come on. This sucks, my dear
Now every time I hear dino talk
Gotta keep my lunch down
‘Cuz nothing in this here picture
Will reverse my frown
I’m walking with lizards whoa, oh
I’m walking with lizards whoa, oh
I’m walking with lizards whoa, oh
And don’t I feel bored!♫
Rated PG, 87 Minutes
D: Barry Cook, Neil Nightingale
W: John Collee
Genre: No wonder you’re extinct
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Lizardmen
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Those who believe reducing science to the lowest common denominator doesn’t actually serve a public good.
♪Parody inspired by “Walking on Sunshine”
