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South Korea 2012 86m Directed by: Yoon-suk Choi, John Kafka. Starring: Tara Strong, Melanie Griffith, Pamela Adlon, Rob Schneider, Stephen Baldwin, Grey Griffin, William Baldwin, Jane Lynch, Tom Kenny, Roger Craig Smith, Kari Wahlgren, Nolan North, John DiMaggio. Music by: Stephen Barton.
The story of a daredevil kid named Ernie, his little sister Julia, and his best friend Max, who, while horsing around in Max's inventor father's workshop, accidentally trip a time-machine into operation and find themselves transported back in time 65 million years, where they're adopted by doting dinosaur mom Tyra and a rambunctious dinosaur ''brother'' named Dodger. The three kids explore the excitement of the prehistoric world - trying to steer clear of Tyra's evil dinosaur rivals - while, back in the present day, Max's dad and Ernie and Julia's overprotective mom plot their rescue.
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It took almost 18 months since the film's premiere in South Korea to reach Germany, but now it has. Being a fan of all kinds of animated films, I thought I'd give it a chance. I watched a German synchronized version, so I didn't get to hear the voices of some well-known American actors including several Emmy nominees and winners: Melanie Griffith, Jane Lynch, Rob Schneider and the Baldwin brothers Stephen and William doing the voices for the two main antagonists. The only one I'd like to emphasize is Tara Strong, not known by many, but with quite an impressive body of voice acting in recent years. Director Yoon-suk Choi was mostly involved with Korean non-animated television so far and the other director John Kafka brought some animation experience to the table from working on Rugrats or Ninja Turtles TV series.
Unfortunately, despite that (or because of that) the film only succeeded very rarely. It's really only for children who won't think about it in depth and just enjoy the images and funny(?) actions of the characters. There's no real deeper meaning or captivating action in this one. The whole coke OK the time machine subplot was pretty terrible I thought. Or the fact that he needed years to build the machine the first time, but now with the help of the mother from one of the disappeared kids it takes hours. Well.. I guess you shouldn't think about it too much or you could probably even criticize the concept of time travel as a whole.
The film had its moments though too. Many of these involved the dino-mum: the language barrier for example or the moment she realizes that she is not the main character's real mother was actually quite a bit touching. Surly and Sarco were truly intimidating, not sure if too much for smaller children and the fight sequences involving them weren't all that bad. However, the switches between the T-Rex mom and those two changed so quickly and randomly, it felt a bit strange. As a whole, I can't really recommend this film and it's really only a must see for people who want to see every animated movie there is.
Review by Thomas from the Internet Movie Database.