After Jurassic Park you would think dinosaurs would look better in TV and movies, unfortunately Dinotopia couldn't raise the bar. Dinotopia is about two brothers who crash on an island that is has humans and dinosaurs living peacefully. The brothers, David and Karl, want to find their missing farther and escape the island. They find an explorer and he brings them into a complicated world of complexity. This is a miniseries and I remember watching it as a young kid and I was amazed. Watching it a second time almost ten years later, I was highly disappointed. This story had so much potential to be great, but the terrible acting and awful special effects made this series pure garbage. Each episode is about an hour and a half, but they all feel like three hours of pain and torture. The main story made sense at first. One brother would do anything to go home while the other would rather stay, causing conflict. Then they both meet a woman that they are attracted to which causes more conflict. Of course the girl is of royalty and importance, and obviously she doesn't want to be important, she just wants to be normal. There is a greedy researcher who appears to be good but is clearly evil and has bad intentions. I would have been OK with that if the acting wasn't so hard to watch. I finished watching this series because I remember loving it as a kid and I always wanted to see it again. I hoped it would get better but it never did. All this series brought was disappointment and made me want to rant about it. Not only is the acting bad but the story eventually made no sense at all. The brothers arrive in Waterfall City and find out they can't leave, predictable but I went with it. Then we discover dinosaurs have their own language and some even speak English. This was just silly. There is a dinosaur language that humans learned and can write down in the form of footprints. Really, that's the best the director could come up with? There are also these things called sunstones and they are of some importance, I still don't even know. There is an archaeologist who searches for them and the truth as well. There is also a dinosaur who wants to explore "the world beneath." I'm not even sure how to describe it any further. The story gets way out of line and to crazy to even follow. This was originally a novel and i can only hope that the novel is better. I don't know what audience the director was going for either. Kids could like dinosaurs but we hardly see any action sequences. The bulk of the story is confusing dialog and some of the worst acting I have ever seen. Adults would be bored and lose interest with this series half way through the first episode. Overall this series is just a fail and should never be seen by anyone. Don't watch it alone, with friends, or even in school. If for some odd reason a school decides to show this series, skip that class, it's worth the F. This series should never see the light of day and gets the WillyT seal of disapproval for cheesy acting, awful special effects, and a miserable storyline.
Review of Dinotopia
