Rating: 
Summary: Fun and adventurous ride through a fantasy fairytale world.
Review: "Dinotopia" is not your average "Jurassic Park" film. It's almost the opposite of what you'd expect in "Jurassic Park". There is only one scene that truly looks like it was taken right out of "Jurassic Park"--and that would be a quick fight scene between two Tyranasorousrex dinosaurs. PLOT SUMMARY: Based on the novel, the film (actually a made-for-TV miniseries movie), is about two teenage half brothers, called Carl (Tyron Leitso) and David (Wentworth Miller) Scott, who couldn't be more different. Carl is the outgoing, rebellious teen, while David is the quiet, serious one who would rather be studying than going out. Their father decides to take them on a plane trip for his birthday in his personal airplane (Mr. Scott is supposibly a millionaire). On the plane ride, Mr. Scott lets Carl drive the airplane and they soon are stuck right in the middle of a deadly storm out in the middle of the ocean. Their plane crashes into the ocean, and Carl and David manage to escape the plane, while their father is still stuck inside. They swim to shore, and find themselves on a strange island they at first think is deserted, until they come across an odd archaeologist with a wooden leg who explains that they are on the island of Dinotopia. Carl and David insist that they need to find some help because they believe their father is dead. So the archaeologist takes them to a village where they are encountered by the most astonishing discovery of all--dinosaurs living amoungest humans! After they are taken to Dinotopia's main city, Waterville City, they are introduced to the mayor and his beautiful daughter, Marion (Katie Carr), who the boys both fall in love with. The mayor tells them that there is no way off the island and that they are stuck there forever. Carl, is of course, very upset about this. Carl doesn't want anything more than to go home. David, on the other hand, tries to make the best of their situation, and has come to reconile his destiny in Dinotopia. Like all Dinotopian citizans, Carl and David are given assignments--Carl is supposed to raise a baby dinosaur, while David is assigned to become a Skyrider, and help protect Dinotopia from harm, which is ironic, because David has a great fear of heights and Carl doesn't feel as though he can take care of a baby dinosaur. Carl and David both try to win over the affection of Marion, and become friends with the archaeologist...who seems to know a lot about Dinotopia and also is trying to look for a way off the island. The villages uses these strange stones called "sunstones", which shine a bright white light and help protect the villages from the evil man-eating dinosaurs. When the sunstone supply mysteriously runs low, fear strikes over the villages that they will be attacked by the man-eating dinosaurs. Now, it's up to Carl, David, and Marion to save the villages of Dinotopia before the dinosaurs attack and destroy the cities by finding more sunstones to put into the towers that hold the sunstones. OVERALL THOUGHTS: "Dinotopia" is a very long film--about 240 minutes to be exact, but it was originally made into a miniseries on TV, so I can understand why it would seem longer on DVD. The acting is pretty average--there is some stiff acting at points during the film, but it was fairly good. It wasn't "great", but it was "good enough". There were a lot of plots twisted into the film...almost too many, such as the love triangle between Carl, David, and Marion; Carl trying to get home; dinosaurs attacking, etc., but they tried to set up the story in a way in which all plots could be resolved by the end. And, amazingly, it pretty much worked. The special effects were well-done, and there is non-stop action. I also have to add that the setting is beautiful and so are the costumes. The DVD is wonderfully packaged, with a "making of" documentary, behind the scenes, two deleted scenes, interviews, a "Dinotopia Encyclopedia", photo gallery, cast and crew information, tips and tricks for the Game Boy adventure game, a maze game, hidden footage, dinosaur facts and sounds for kids, and DVD-ROM features. The DVD is available in full frame format. I highly recommend "Dinotopia". Score:
97/100
A+
Rating:
Summary: The Best Movie You Can Find
Review: This, without any doubt in the slightest, is one of the absolute best movies you can possibly find. The plot starts like this. Two brothers, named Karl and David, with their father, fly on a plane and meet an awful storm. Eventually they crash on the mysterious island Dinotopia. They believe their father is dead.
Eventually they meet the mysterious, (but rather vile as shown later) Cyrus Crabbe. Later they meet the daughter of the mayor of Dinotopia's Waterfall City, Marion, and they both fall in love. Lots of exciting things happen, such as the time David starts to ride on Pterodactyls, when David, Karl, and Cyrus go inside the Sunstone cave, and many other parts as well. The dinosaurs are very realistic, and the characters are easy to like right away. Plus, it is 4 hours, so the length is quite a thing to like. This fantastic movie deserves far more than 5 stars, so do yourself a favor and buy this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for little kids, including the one in us
Review: I could go on how horrible the script was, starting with the plot holes (e.g. their plane crashes in the ocean in the middle of a hurricane, they swim the rest of the night and then walk out of the surf the next morning like they just did a slow lap around the track). The dialogue is a joke. The characters are one-dimensional, predictable and stereotypical. Perhaps the only thing worse than the script is the acting. And perhaps the only thing worse than the acting is the directing. Having said all that, however, the bottom line is my younger kids thoroughly enjoyed it. And when I could turn off my adult critic and watch it with the eyes of an eight-year old I enjoyed it too. And that's who it's for. Eight to ten year olds (not necessarily in a chronological sense). The truth is that the special effects are quite good -- the true star of the show. And the Dinotopia setting, after all is said and done, is enchanting. Except for one stupid scene where the lead male swims naked (apparently) with the lead female the movie is absolutely clean. That makes a four-starrer in my book, despite everything else.
Rating:
Summary: Great for fans of Dinotopia books and fantasy in general
Review: As a kid, I used to go to my local library and book shops just to look at the beautiful water-color images in the Dinotopia books. Now, the series has been brought to life in a well animated, colorful, and very refreshing series. In this four hour mini-series, two brother find themselve stranded on an island/continent inhabited by dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Most live peacefully with humans, but as the story begins to unfold, we see flocks of flying reptiles and hungry tyranosuars trying to take over and destory Dinotopia. The story more or less revolves around the brothers adapting to life among the Dinatopians and trying to save them from destruction. Though a little too light-hearted, this series has much to offer. The dinosurs and their world do the books a great deal of credit. The acting in the film is definatly made for televison, but the dialogue is rich and the characters fleshed out (both human and saurian). If you are expecting Jurassic Park dinos, however, think again. Most of the dinosurs speak to an extent, but most don't use human language. Those who enjoyed West of Eden will perhaps get a kick out of the talking Stygenosurs. The most impressive inhabitants of Dinotopia are the flying pterosaurs. Overall, the dinosurs are impressive enough for adults to enjoy watching the series, but children are likely to enjoy Dinotopia to the fullest. In short, if your kids like dinosuars, or they just happen to like the Dinotpoia books, this DVD will be great gift for them. It is both thought provoking and interesting, while at the same time not to complicated for young minds. The visuals are likely to captivate, especially if watched on a big screen television.
Rating:
Summary: A Land Apart from Time.
Review: I honestly liked this 4 hour movie. The effects are great this movie is absolutly filled with tons of CGI animation. It involves two half brothers who after a plane crash land on a lost very big island (200 miles in diameter) called Dinotopia. On this island dinosaurs survived extinction, and yes it explains why. The people are protected by sunstones. Bright rocks that seem to somehow scare away carnivorous dinosaurs. Suddenly they start going out and the charactors go to an adventure to save the place from disaster. It does have bad pacing (I kind of think this movie would have been fine at three hours) it still is fun to watch considering it has some great action scenes. Overall good movie. As for the DVD the picture quality is very good not great but definutly good enough. It is in 1.33 fullscreen since it was filmed for television. Not bad at all. If you are complaining about the picture on the VHS switch to DVD. I don't think you should care about picture if you still buy VHS. The sound is the problem it is only two channels not a full 5.1 mix. Not to mention that for 10 seconds in the final action scene as one of the rocks its the ground the sound completly disapears. [weak]. But overall the sound is good enough and it gets the job done even though it should have been better. The extras in involve two deleted scenes, a decent making of, a couple traliors, and a game of kids. Decent overall. Dinotopia is a good movie and at such a...price you can't go wrong heer.
Rating:
Summary: LOVE THIS MOVIE!!
Review: I always liked fantasy movies. I love that this one shows a different side to dinos. Its a classic adventure, reminds me some what of The Lost World. Its a Grea Adventure for any age! I'm 22 lol!
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Eye Candy
Review: This is standard Disney eye Candy with horrible animation, even more horrible acting, and very second rate production values. If you like dinosaurs, see some other movie.
Rating:
Summary: One thing I've noticed on the dvd was..
Review: I recorded the full version, off tv when it first aired. And noticed that the commercials were cutting some of the scenes. Now that I seen what the dvd had. I know what those commercial-cut scenes were. So I would say, the dvd/video is worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun to look at but the books are much better
Review: I got Mr. Gurney's first two Dinotopia books several years ago and thought they were pretty good, (especially the 1st one), this miniseries disappointed me. Instead of going with the book plotline set in the 1860's we are presented with two half brothers and their father in the present crashing their plane near Dinotopian shores. Dad is lost, presumed dead, for most of the show. References are made to several of the book characters but none make an actual appearance and the storyline itself is only vaguely like that of the books. I had hoped for better, the sets and Dinosaurs look acceptable especially for a big TV budget but the characters weren't very interesting to me (not well developed, hurried or soomehow not ture to form). It seems that most of the people speak with a British accent (I think parts of the show were filmed in Britain). When the regular series comes on this fall I think all of the miniseries humans will have been replace with new actors, I hate it when a series does that.
Does anybody know where to find the hidden scenes?
Rating: 
Summary: Looks fantastic, but no substance
Review: At the risk of incurring the wrath of nearly every other reviewer for 'Dinotopia' who seem to love the film, I'm forced to uphold my opinion that this miniseries isn't actually very good. I'm astounded that so many people quite happily went along with it and that it actually scored an Emmy nomination for best miniseries (though it lost to Bad of Brothers). There are so many logic errors, bad lines, unfinished sub-plots, pointless scenes, terrible acting and confusing story devices that my father and I, who were watching it together, were continually exchanging baffled glances.
The story goes that two half brothers Karl and David are flying with their father when they hit a storm. The plane goes down, their father presumably dies and they are drifted ashore to a seemingly deserted island. In a matter of a few seconds they shrug off the death of their father (Karl literally says: "Well, we did all we could", and then moves on) and soon meet up with Cyrus Crabbe, who introduces himself as an explorer and investigator before accompanying them to a nearby village. It is here that the boys realise this island is not all it seems as they witness a dinosaur rampaging the streets. Again they show their remarkable ability to shrug off rather life altering truths by saying: "Didn't dinosaurs die out millions of years ago?" and then immediatly accepting it. It is then they meet up with Marion, the lovely daughter of the mayor of Waterfall City who accompanies them to her home city to register themselves as citizen of Dinotopia, the one place in the world where humans and dinosaurs live together in peace, undiscovered by the rest of the world. Solitary, book-worm David is soon delighted by the utopian society and begins to flourish, whilst twenty-first century Karl is desparate to return home. However, there is disaster on the horizon. The Dinotopian's sunstones - the source of all their energy - are failing (though we never find out why) and the carnivores of the island are now running in packs, something they've never done before (though again we never find out why that is). When the boys discover a gateway to the 'World Beneath', said to be the birthplace of the humans and dinosaurs of the island, they want to go exploring to find some answers, but the authorities forbid them.
In terms of the story it is quite a disjointed one: the boys adapt far to quickly to their father's death and the new enviroment they're put in, and events and situations keep changing - one moment the boys are trekking through a jungle towards a forgotten gateway, the next they've separated - one at a hatchery, the other at a flying school. As well as this Cyrus Crabbe is lurking around, there's the failing sunstones, the World Beneath, the uncompleted love triangle between the boys and Marion, the unrealised relationship between the brothers, and Dinotopia is seen both as a social paradise and a restrictive area where there is no room for change or growth away from tradition. All these plots are jammed into the one movie, most of them remain unresolved. The film-maker's technique of jumping from one sub-plot to the next is confusing to say the least.
Likewise, there are some terrible logic flaws. Usually I can easily tolerate a few that are used to keep the pace going, but there were just so many, so close together that the movie actually felt random. Why did they leave the safety of the buses to camp out in a half-destroyed village? How did a superior society get such an idiot elected for mayor? How did a half destroyed submarine manage to take three people to the World Beneath? Why didn't Crabbe get punished for knocking out a dinosaur and chucking him in the river? How did Karl know Crabbe has sabotaged his boat? For that matter, why *did* Crabbe sabotage his boat? His adjenda is never fully explained.
These faults along with the shaky story made it feel as if they made the whole thing up as they went along, or at least were too preoccupied with the special effects to give much thought to the story.
The actors portraying Karl and David were unfortunatly very poor, delievering their lines with little to no emotion. Perhaps Karl does a better job than David, for even David's movements were awkward and un-natural. Marion fares a little better, but still questions abound - which boy did she like? What did her mother mean when she said Marion's element wasn't earth, sea or sky? What was she actually doing when she waved her hands over sick people?
I was quite prepared to enjoy this movie, and it wasn't as if I totally disliked it - the dinosaurs were amazing, there were a few funny moments, and I appreciated hearing the names Arthur and Will Denison, Sylvia and Lee Crabbe - but on the whole it was a very patchy story with far too many random events that didn't make sense for me to find it re-watchable.
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