Dinosaur @ Odeon, Ipswich

FEATURING THE VOICES OF: DB Sweeney, Alfre Woodard, Ossie Davis, Max Cassella

VERDICT: RoaaarrrGrowlRoaarrr!!!! (a great film - full of jurassic larks...ha ha)

Ever since I saw Jurassic Park when  I was 13, I've always loved dinosaurs. I dunno, I just think there's something pretty magical about the scaly critters - roaming around, being generally massive and huge, eating whole trees for breakfast; aren't they cool?

So, when I heard about Disney's new Dino-flick called….wait for….Dinosaur, I knew I had to be first in the queue - so, what's it about and what's it like?

Imagine the computer generated Dino's from Walking With Dinosaurs combined with the slushy, feelgood storyline from The Land Before Time and you're very nearly there.

After an amazing opening sequence which explains how the film's leading dino orphan Aladar gets hooked up with a bunch of friendly lemurs (Plio, Yar, Suri and Zini), the film charts the journey to the "promised land" - a wondrous place where migrating dinosaurs are hoping to settle after a huge meteor destroys their homeland.

Without giving away too much of the plot, it's your usual Disney moralistic nonsense; as Aladar gains confidence and challenges Kron, the leader of the pack along the way falling in love with a girly dinosaur and befriending a token group of Disney typecast characters - a comedy Styrachosaur named Eema, an old slow-poke Brachiosaur named Baylene and a clumsy wacky dog-like Ankylosaur called Url - chuckle.

Ok, so cliches aside, this was actually a really great Disney film. The computer generated Dinosaurs were stunning and looked really real and everything, and as they were set against real backdrops from around the world it just seemed totally believable. I really wanted to reach out and touch the dinosaurs skin….no, honestly.

The storyline, although hackneyed, was fast paced and exciting; and running at a less-than-dino-sized one hour and twenty minutes - this is a movie that even the youngest dino-babies won't get bored of.

Oh, and there weren't even any of those dreaded Disney songs which seem to ruin every Disney film for me. Hey, lets hope they've become extinct eh?

If you liked this, you'll love:

Land That Time Forgot

Jurassic Park

Toy Story 2

- Eddy Vista