After I saw the cover and this movie its cast-lists, I just knew I had to see this movie. It had disaster written all over it! But was it really as bad as expected? Well, in all honesty, it's not a complete disaster.

Of course it's still a pretty bad and certainly simplistic little animated movie but it's still a watchable enough one, especially for little kids of course, who are into dinosaurs and adventure type of stuff.

There are still plenty of problems with it obviously. The story is not only not a very original one, it's also quite weak. It handles most of the characters poorly and its main plot is lacking a good clear main point. I have no idea what the villains in this movie wanted for instance and I also have no real idea how the kids were trying to get back to modern times, after being send back to the dinosaur age by a time-machine (yes, I know, the story is very creative..). It's also the sort of the movie that tries to crowbar in all sort of messages and lessons about life but it does it in such an ineffective way that it actually never starts to become anything distracting or annoying, so it's not a real complaint in this case.

Animation-wise, it's a decent enough looking movie. We have reached a point by now that the technology is advanced in such a way- and easy and cheap to use, that it's basically impossible for a modern computer animated movie to look terrible. It isn't a very detailed looking movie and it's all a bit too colorful for my taste (I mean, really, a pink T-Rex?) but after all, this foremost is still a kids movie, so they most likely won't complain about it.

It's simplicity is the most annoying aspects about this movie. It has too many conveniences in it and just a few minor additions to this movie its story and changes to some of its characters would have made this movie most likely a far better and more engaging one to watch. It doesn't offer any surprises, though its action makes up for some of this.

The humor feels a bit too forced and so do some of its characters. Some of the characters are only in this to serve as comical relief but it doesn't work out too well, since the comedy isn't anything too creative. It even has fart jokes in it, which should tell you something about the comedy its quality and creativity.

Not laughably bad but still a pretty bad movie nevertheless, that's only remotely good and fun to watch for very young children.

4/10

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Now that the animated movie genre is still growing and getting more popular, as well as technically more advanced, as the years go by and new innovations are being made, we also start to see more and more small scale genre movie such as this one, made with a relatively low budget, by smaller and less advanced studios.

That's not saying anything about its quality. I feel that the technology to make these kind of movies have reached a point that it's accessible and affordable for basically everyone to work with. Of course it's not as smooth, detailed and perfect looking as a Pixar, or DreamWorks production for instance but really, it's still perfectly acceptable looking all. Certainly much better than you probably would expect from a movie of this sort.

Thing with these type of 'smaller' animated movies is that they are often always good looking with all of their environments, backgrounds and with its character movements but the animation of the characters is visually still lacking. It always feels that the final layer to give the characters some true details and a realistic looking skin is always missing. But really, that's just about the most negative thing I could say about the movie its animations.

About the actual movie; well it's a tad bit too simplistic and it's lacking some true originality as well of course.

The story did indeed bother me a little. I for instance had no idea what the villain wanted in this movie but he's evil and needs to be stopped and that's all children need to know of course. No need to over-complicate things for movies such as this, that are mainly targeted toward young children. But it should tell you something about how shallow and simplistic this movie is being. Some would say that the movie is simply being straightforward but I still call it poorly constructed really. There is never a good buildup to anything. A little, albino, koala runs away from home, just like that! He makes new friends, just like that! He becomes a carnival hit, just like that! And he becomes a hero in the eyes of some animals, just like that! It's a bit annoying how simplistic and fast paced this movie is, though again, I don't think this is ever going to be a real problem for its younger viewers.

Another problem I had with the movie its story though is that makes it seem that it's going to be about one thing but actually turns into something totally different instead. So at the start it seems like this is going to be a movie with some strong messages against discrimination (the young koala runs away because the other koala's bully him for being an albino koala) but after the start of the movie, it completely drops this idea. It goes for something far less impressive or surprising. It simply has the 'stay true to yourself' kind of message in it, we see so often in animated movies and TV-series. As a matter of fact, as the movie progresses it starts to pick up a "¡Three Amigos!" type of storyline and comedy approach instead, which is of course far from anything original or remarkable, by today's standards. So the movie its story still starts of kind of promising but slowly but steadily starts to turn into something more and more formulaic.

But does the comedy, the action and its characters still make this an enjoyable, worthwhile, little genre movie? Well, yes and no. The comedy and action is all fast paced, which means that it's all good and fun to watch but it can't conceal the fact how terrible unoriginal it's being with both its action and humor, for 90% of its time. And the characters are all good and fun looking but there are too many of them really, with as a result that all of them remain underdeveloped and some also definitely underused, except for its main character perhaps.

Little children are going to enjoy it, no doubt about that but that doesn't mean it's a great movie as well.

5/10

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In this comedy film, a computer tablet full of the world's most hilariously offensive apps breaks through the borders of political correctness, stirring up cultural anarchy. From: IMDb.com

Directed by: Vince Offer

Starring: Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, Adrien Brody and others

Current release date: March 22, 2013

Directed by: Vince Offer

Starring: Rob Schneider, Michelle Rodriguez, Adrien Brody and others

Current release date: March 22, 2013

(Review originally written at 15 August 2007)

"South Park" once perfectly spoofed Rob Schneider's career, by putting fake trailers for movies, of which in one he turned into a carrot. An obvious reference to this movie. It showed how he and all of his movies were always the same and often relied on just one simple comedy aspect. This movie is like that. It relies on just one big comedy joke; a popular hot girl and a dirty dumb old criminal accidentally swap bodies.

The humor and comedy is so simple and weak that at times you just can't help laughing at it. The sort of 'Austin Power's' effect, I would call it. So dumb, silly and predictable that it becomes hilarious at the same time . Such as the whole Biance plot line and rivalry, the story with the parents and so on. There really are some missed opportunities here and thats sort of weird since normally these type of movies are overfull with different often overly developed plot lines. Now everything remains mainly underdeveloped, which also doesn't make this the movie interesting or hilarious movie to watch. After a while the movie even starts to reuse some of its earlier jokes. Never a good sign when a comedy start to recycle its own jokes.

Rob Schneider is mostly overacting obviously but I think that's also one of the reasons why the movie still works out as a fun one. I also think he did a fairly good job at playing a girl who's suddenly in a man's body. It provides the movie with some good moments, the one more subtle than the other. The movie also has some good supporting actors but in much too small roles such as Robert Davi and Rachel McAdams before her days of fame. Adam Sandler unfortunately makes a totally unfunny appearance in the movie. There are some potentially fun characters in the movie but those remain mostly underused.

Of course the story also has some morals and messages in it. In my opinion it's a real shame that Hollywood comedies from this decade always feel the need to do this. But having said that, in this particular movie it isn't really distracting or anything but its still obviously present, especially toward the ending of course.

Obviously not a lot of things really make sense into the story but this is not just due to the ridicules concept but also some bad writing. For instance it doesn't get explained exactly why the school-losers and outcasts suddenly teamed up and get accepted by the 'hot chicks'.

In all fairness this is not a bad movie and it's certainly a watchable one. It's however also very simple, predictable and underdeveloped. That's why I just can't rate it any higher. But nevertheless I consider this a watchable movie. I guess it's especially hilarious with a couple of friends and A LOT of booze.

5/10

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