Walking with Dinosaurs
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: December 20, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
37
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
6
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
30
The DissolveNathan RabinDec 20, 2013
The film aspires to educate as well as entertain, rattling off the names and relevant distinctions of various dinosaurs as they appear onscreen for the first time. But the overwhelming impression the film leaves is that dinosaur poop was enormous. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comPeter SobczynskiDec 20, 2013
A film that is not so much bad — although it is quite bad — as it is utterly inexplicable. Read full review
75
Portland OregonianMarc MohanDec 20, 2013
Purists may still quail at the little bit of anthropomorphism going on, but it seems a small price to pay to broaden the audience for a family film that seeks to do more than just entertain. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickDec 20, 2013
Poor John Leguizamo, who hopefully got well-paid to voice a stereotypical Latino bird providing a stream of nonsensical narration. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereDec 20, 2013
Unfortunately, the only thing that dies harder in the movies than natural selection is careworn cliché, and Barry Cook and Neil Nightingale’s movie about a plucky, lovestruck pachyrhinosaurus named Patchi subjects our long defunct earthly ancestors to a fate arguably worse than extinction: a life lived in a world of cheese. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 20, 2013
The movie for anyone who has dreamed of watching young dinos in love. Read full review
37
Washington PostStephanie MerryDec 19, 2013
Like an elaborately decorated wedding cake, the kid-friendly Walking With Dinosaurs 3D may leave you wondering how something so stunning could end up being so bland. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeDec 19, 2013
Visually, “Walking With Dinosaurs” dazzles with its combination of Animal Logic-animated CG creatures...and beautiful practical backgrounds... Less dazzling is the constant stream of jokey banter, which thwarts the pic’s educational potential and caps its target age awfully low. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 19, 2013
A hyper-realistic-looking, character-driven story of survival with talking dinosaurs that can't decide whether to inform or entertain. The film and its featured creatures do a little of both but modestly. Read full review
70
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerDec 19, 2013
The movie looks great, the writing is peppered with moments of wit, and there’s even an educational component built in as dinosaur facts are displayed on the screen. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 19, 2013
It's unlikely that a dinosaur wrote the script — the Writers Guild of America makes no provision for Cambrian membership — but this animated feature is dimwitted all the same. The title should be "Trudging With Dinosaurs" (in 2.5-D, for all the grandeur the glasses confer), because the only semblance of a plot is provided by a long migration to winter grounds. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTom RussoDec 19, 2013
However well-intentioned the movie may be, it spills over with flat cutesy humor, making a slog out of an experience that should be filled with wonder. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 19, 2013
Strange hybrid of science lesson and Saturday-morning cartoon. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreDec 19, 2013
“Walking” takes care to ID each new dinosaur species introduced, including factoids about what they ate and any special skills they might have had. It’s downright educational. Just don’t tell your kids that. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 19, 2013
Yes, the film’s CG dinos look great tromping in the Alaskan wilderness, but children deserve better than such unchallenging fare. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineChris CabinDec 19, 2013
The strain to make the film both an educational tool and a child-minded entertainment is noticeable throughout. Read full review
67
Film.comLaremy LegelDec 19, 2013
Educational content, clever and photorealistic dinosaur CGI, and John Leguizamo voicing a prehistoric bird. What else would one need for a fun movie stew? Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Dec 18, 2013
Instructive mainly for screenwriters looking for tips on what not to do, Walking With Dinosaurs takes the education out of “educational entertainment.” The entertainment, too. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleLouis BlackDec 18, 2013
It was maddening and frustrating to watch so much ambition wasted on delivering such lame junk. Very young children, I suspect, will like it, but the closer viewers are to puberty, the less likely it is to hold their interest. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 18, 2013
For a film that purports to love dinosaurs, this bigger, flashier Walking With Dinosaurs sure doesn’t trust them to be interesting enough to carry five minutes of a movie without the copious aid of slapstick and bathroom humor in a screenplay so rote it makes creatures that have been dead for 65 million years feel less fossilized than the jokes. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterMichael RechtshaffenDec 16, 2013
Walking With Dinosaurs takes rewarding advantage of a much bigger budget and state-of-the-art technology to bring its impressive collection of Cretaceous creatures to vivid life. But while the walking part’s pretty impressive, the talking part — not so much. Read full review
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