LAND BEFORE TIME III
THE TIME OF THE GREAT GIVING
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
The original THE LAND BEFORE TIME is an involving, magical, and beautiful tale. In the second sequel, LAND BEFORE TIME III: THE TIME OF THE GREAT GIVING, the physical beauty is still there as are all of the lovable lead characters, but sad to say that the director (Graham Morris instead of Don Bluth), writers (John Loy and John Ludin instead of Judy Freudberg, Tony Geiss, and Stu Krieger), and all of the voices are different. This version is a sweet and harmless little story that will delight kids who are into the series, but the underdeveloped and formulaic story line will disappoint adult viewers.
Ducky, Petrie, Littlefoot, and Sarah are again the stars. Their voices sound the same, but actually they are done by different people. In short, these dinosaurs are as lovable as ever. Every time Ducky delivers her canonical, "Yep, yep, yep" response, a warmth goes through my whole body. These are the sort of animal characters that kids and adults of all ages can cherish.
LAND BEFORE TIME III is a story about water conservation. It has subthemes of parents learning how to become parents and of species learning how to work together and share, hence the subtitle of the movie. Unlike the original of the series, which had the quite scary T-Rex called Sharptooth, this version has only a group of young bullies lead by Hip. Hip and his band and some mildly mean dinosaurs that appear at the end are weak villains, hence the show lacks any genuine tension. From the beginning it just meanders to a quick and fairly uneventful ending.
The story line is that a change in their environment causes The Great Valley to begin rapidly to lose its water. This means that the dinosaurs fight for the little water left, and the vegetation they eat starts vanishing. While the adults are arguing over water allocation rules, the four good kids venture into The Mysterious Beyond and find that a volcano eruption has caused a landslide that blocks their water source. Meanwhile, the rebellious bullies want to keep the water for themselves. Hip declares, "When you're big. All the rules that grownups make don't apply to you," and other such tough guy mottoes.
Eventually, the grownups come to learn how to be better parents. Sarah's Dad tells Hip's dad, "if you always rule with anger, that's all your son will know, and that's what he'll express to others." True enough, but like most lines in the show, it is too stilted. The show ends before it ever gets started, and the narrator pedantically explains the message of the movie to us in case we missed it, telling us that the dinosaurs, "each learned the special kind of joy which comes from giving to others."
LAND BEFORE TIME III runs 1:11 which is plenty of time given that not much happens. The film is available now on video. Since what does happen is totally innocent with no real villains and very mild, non-scary violence, it justly gets a G rating. There is no sex or bad language. The characters are all naked, but they are dinosaurs afterall. A kid of any age could see the film, and if they liked the others in the series, they will probably enjoy this one albeit probably not as much. My son Jeffrey (almost 7) likes all three shows and gives this one a thumbs up. I can not recommend the picture, but for the wholesome and lovable characters in search of a script and for wonderful, soothing, theme music (James Horner), I do give it **, which may be a bit on the generous side. On the other hand, I love that "Yep, yep, yep" line. You have to hear it to understand its appeal.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: March 7, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews