As Good As It Gets

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

"Dinosaurs Alive" is a 40-minute documentary from 2007, so this one has its 10th anniversary this year. The people who made this are Emmy winner David Clark and Oscar nominee Bayley Silleck. The title makes it pretty obvious what this one is about of course. So if you care about dinosaurs or paleontology, this one may very well be worth it. Or you will be especially disappointed because you find the lack of depth here really irritating. Depends on you I guess. I myself as someone with not too much interest in the subject must say that none of the aspects made me curious about the subject. Still I have watched dinosaur documentaries in the past that were clearly superior to this one here. No surprise that this one is not among the most known IMAX documentaries out there, but really goes more under the lesser known. Narrator and Oscar winner Michael Douglas is not really making things better as he has way too much text to be honest and you can't blame him for it. It seems as if they were trying to make up for lack of information by having Douglas (admittedly a huge star) talking random stuff all the time. And the reenactment scenes were just as uninteresting as the paleontologists we see and find out about. Thumbs down from me. Not recommended.

I think every young boy goes through the stage of dinosaur obsession at some point. I certainly did and my two boys can't get enough of them either. So along comes "Dinosaurs Alive! 3D." Now this should be a summer holiday winner - it's got dinosaurs...perfect. They are presented alive...tick that box. AND it's in 3D...should be awesome!! What could go wrong? Everything.Firstly the Dinosaurs. A more appropriate title for this would be Palaeontologists Alive! This IMAX film spends way too much time following the exciting exploits of a couple of grad students travelling to deserts and digging holes. Sure, there are a few spots where we see some dinos - often just walking on the spot as some sort of graphic. But if you want wall to wall dinosaurs forget it. This is just a documentary mainly pitched at adults...and quite a boring one too.Now for the "Alive!". Nah. They're dead. Really dead. Fossil dead. We see fossils. Lots of them. It's about finding fossils it the desert. Again we get a bit of dinosaur action here and there, but even that's to illustrate how they died. Putting the word Alive (with an exclamation mark if you don't mind) in the title is a bit rich.And the 3D. The 3D effects are good as they always are at IMAX. There were a couple of good T-Rex roaring in your face moments and one bit had me jumping in my seat. But mainly the 3D is used to show titles, footage from the 20s in front of a desert, and how a palaeontologist uses a little brush to find a fossil. At one point is shows how far apart 5 palaeontologists sit from each other. Basically, there is no real point for this to be 3D. At one point one of my boys took the glasses off. I told him to put them back on. He replied "What for?" Enough said.So, if your kid has a dinosaur obsession take him to this...if you want to stop it. This film engages in everything boring about dinosaurs. It's a stinker. Use your hard earned money to hire Jurassic Park or, if you want a doco, Walking With Dinosaurs. You'd probably go better with Land Before Time in fact. This just isn't worth it.

I've recently taken my two sons to see this at my local science center, and all of us were very disappointed with Dinosaurs Alive! This very dry documentary mainly focuses on archaeologists in 1920s Mongolia and modern day New Mexico. CG dino scenes were not only sparse and short (why call this film Dinosaurs Alive if you're not going to focus on them?), but the special effects were poor. I've seen effects on Discovery Channel specials and cheaply-done Sci-Fi network movies that far exceeded what was in this movie. Come to think of it, I would have rather watched the Discovery Channel's "Walking with Dinosaurs" on my TV than this big screen snooze.Occasionally there was a beautiful, panoramic shot of some cliffs or a desert vista; but other than this there wasn't much redeeming about this film. If it's still playing at an IMAX theater near you, go see something else.

Don't just walk away from this clunker - run! There is nothing new at all covered in this sub par documentary styled fiasco. Any child that's studied dinosaurs in grade school already knows what this one's all about.The opening sequence was a great indication of what was yet to come - cartoonish dinosaurs do battle - and manage to walk across a sandy plain without leaving a single footprint.Then the movie resorts to shots we've all seen hundreds of times - yep dinosaur skeletons. Again, nothing new.But wait, next we are going to go on a real dig - in Mongolia. At first you think at least the scenery shots will be fantastic, but they are out of focus, totally taking that away from the experience.More disappointment as we move to Mexico and more blurry scenery and lack of story.Intersperse these shots with incredibly horrible CGI shots of water and sand floods - I'm talking incredibly bad effects. First year students would do at least 20x better.Also be warned before you shell out your hard earned money - this is one short movie.Definite skip.