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(More customer reviews)Not unlike everything else produced under Steven Spielberg's Amblimation company, "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story" was a critic's punching bag and a rare find for anybody who didn't catch its original release, but even more so than An American Tail - Fievel Goes West or Balto, the story of four dinosaurs in New York seems forsaken by popular animation history, with seemingly more people not even having heard of it than otherwise. While the film does have its faults, this is still a lamentable fate for a feature that puts to shame a lot of what's on the market today and the DVD release of which was way overdue.
The story: four dinosaurs - Rex (John Goodman, Monsters, Inc.), Elsa (Felicity Kendall, Good Neighbors), Dweeb (Charles Fleischer, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), and Woog (Rene La Vant) - gain intelligence and are transported across time by the benevolent Captain Neweyes (Walter Cronkite) so they may fulfill the wishes of the children of the modern world. Dropped in New York City, they swiftly befriend Louie (Joey Shea) and Cecilia (Yeardley Smith, The Simpsons) - two young runaways from opposite sides of the tracks - and find themselves fleeing from panicked grown-ups as they search for the Museum of Natural History...only to find themselves the target of the spooky ringmaster Professor Screweyes (Kenneth Mars, Young Frankenstein), who harbors sinister plans for the dinosaurs.
"We're Back!" is a children's movie, first and foremost, and was most likely aimed at kids no older than nine or ten. In other words, while there is a decent amount of action, scary parts, and humor, it's all pretty inoffensive. Problems are solved by talking and understanding rather than fighting, and you don't have to be spoiled to know from the start that there's going to be a happy ending. This rather harmless approach carries over to the characters themselves: the dinosaurs are very cuddly, and generally everybody is proved to be very warm-hearted - almost too warm-hearted for me, and probably likewise so for anybody else who grew up watching animated films where peril was commonplace.
The performances and production, overall, tend to be pretty good. In addition to Goodman, Fleischer, Smith, Kendall, and Cronkite, the cast boasts Jay Leno, Martin Short (Treasure Planet), Julia Child, and Blaze Berdahl (Ghostwriter) in supporting roles, creating one of the most unique voice ensembles for any film, and they all tend to do good jobs with their roles. Though it retains the trademark big-budget style prevalent in "Fievel" and could still go toe-to-toe with the visuals of a Disney movie at the time, the animation has a flaw: the outlines of human characters' features occasionally stuttering in-between frames - making a nose or mouth look less defined from one second to the next, and on occasion simply disappearing. It's not a debilitating error, but is a bit disappointing to watch happen repeatedly.
What the film does hold in its favor, though, is its ability to inspire the inner child. I know it sounds corny, but consider: who hasn't dreamed of having a special friend that no one else had or seeing a real dinosaur in your own backyard, or having that dinosaur as a special friend? That wonderful ability to warm hearts that producer Steven Spielberg forsook when he began to tackle adult fare is well at work here, with New York City seeming as magical a place as any wonderland before it became associated with real-life disasters. The film pulls off the nostalgia factor incredibly, taking us back to a time before animation turned to 3D and we had Shrek shoved down our throats. I'm not sure how much this means to other people, but this aspect saved the movie for me.
In all, it's not difficult to see why "We're Back!" didn't do very well when it was first released, but why it remains so largely unremembered continues to perplex me. Disregard the technicalities of my three-star rating and know that the film's strengths outweigh its faults effectively, and that the movie is a secret opus for fans of classical animation. Don't deprive yourself - give it a look.
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For every kid who ever wanted to meet a real dinosaur, Steven Spielberg presents We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story - the animated tale of four prehistoric pals in the most awesome adventure since the dawn of time! Join Rex, Woog, Elsa and Dweeb as they time-travel to New York City to meet their biggest fans - modern-day kids - and make all of their wildest dreams come true. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, Jay Leno, Martin Short and Rhea Perlman, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is a magical film the whole family will enjoy.
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