I would have liked it more without any of the voice-work. It works as a playful, educational, and well animated dinosaur film if not for the cheesy, poorly acted, and jammed on-top-of dialogue. Granted, children might not want to sit through 90 minutes with no talking, but even taking a Milo and Otis approach with a narrator doing all the voices would have worked better, especially given the characters' mouths never move anyway. I'm a huge fan of the original Walking with Dinosaurs specials and saw the live-action stage show when it came to town, but even I can see that this is unfortunately a film trying so hard to please everyone, that it ends up not pleasing anyone.

Kudos to the filmmakers for using the most up-to-date theories on dinosaur behavior! Was cool to see Tyrannosaurids hunting in a pack/family unit. Dinos like that are almost always shown as lone hunters. Was impressed to see a primitive bird as a main character. The inclusion of early mammals in each act of the film and their role during the time period was nice to see as well. And even choosing Arctic dinosaurs as the subject helps set the film apart from others. It successfully showcases lesser known species while breaking away from the specific Jurassic Park/King Kong dinosaur imagery we're all too used to seeing from Hollywood.

I'm hoping a dialogue free version will exist in a special edition Bluray someday, as that would be an incredible film worth watching again and again.

3 Stars (out of 5)