Disney, which is regularly known for its breathtakingly wonderful animation, nearly addictive songs and, more recently, for their all-star cast of voice actors, produced a film that truly veers from the usual path. While Disney’s animation studios often produces films that exceed most expectations as far as fans are concerned, this film actually manages to take a step past each of its companies predecessors in terms of animation. The dinosaurs (and lemurs) in the film look incredibly realistic; down to the very texture of their skin and fur, Bruce D. Buckley--and the rest of the animation department--made sure to focus on the tiniest of details while putting this film together. As far as music was concerned, there was none--other than orchestral. I’m not the type of person who lives for the music in films, however, over time, I have come to expect something in the music department to project energy and help move the story and the audience. Finally, the cast. The cast in more recent Disney films (1990’s and on) have typically included some of Hollywood’s biggest names. Actors like James Earl Jones as Mufasa, John Goodman as Sully and Tom Hanks as Woody are just some of the incredible actors that Disney has managed to wrangle in the past thirty years or so. This film’s voice acting, like its other aspects, doesn’t follow in the footsteps of the other successful animated films released by Disney. Realistically, the most popular actor to come from this film would have been Hayden Panettiere, and she held a very minor role in this film (playing the voice of Suri). I found this aspect of the film incredibly interesting due to the fact that I believe that it made the film better in some regard. Sometimes casting big name actors, who have not voice acted much in the past, can hinder the audience’s ability to accept what they are watching. Not having to look past voices of familiar actors made it easier to focus on the story and appreciate the visuals even more. The story itself was interesting enough; this was something that Disney must have looked at in terms of a children’s film and simply said “screw it. They pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable for a PG rating and I believe that by doing this they put the film in jeopardy. Just seconds into the film the audience is subjected to watching one dinosaur eat another. Death played a major role throughout the film; friends are willing to let dinosaurs who they are meant to protect die to save themselves, some characters are seen being eaten and torn to shreds by others and considering the fact that most of the audience would have been children under the age of thirteen, there is an excessive amount of blood. I struggled to get attached to any characters other than Della Reese’s Eema, but, I thought that between the story and the animation the film was a success. My only need to give this film any type of negative publicity is the fact that it was Disney and it did not fully live up to the expectations that audiences have for Disney. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0130623/?ref_=nv_sr_2
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