“It’s too bad it couldn’t have worked out between us, but at least we’ll always have Tar Town.”

Justin’s rating: Poochie the Dog would completely endorse this movie

Justin’s review: One might look at the title and year of this movie and draw the erroneous conclusion that this had anything to do with the decade’s obsession with dinos (and Jurassic Park in particular). But the truth is that Adventures in Dinosaur City was trying to coast on a weird combination of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Hence the tagline, “Long before there were turtles, the world was ruled by dinosaurs.”

Siblings Timmy (Omri Katz) and Jamie (Tiffanie Poston) sneak into their parents’ mad science lab to watch cartoons on the big screen TV. But little do they know that the place is rigged to send people into other dimensions. Thus, the kids — along with their lunkheaded friend Mick (Shawn Hoffman) — get sucked into a cartoon called DINOSAURS. The fact that absolutely no time was spent workshopping a better title for this fictitious show tells you how quickly this script was churned out.

So the trio finds themselves in Dinosaur City, where wise-cracking lizards hang out with cave people and rubber suits are pushed to the limit. They’re thrust into a conflict between the good dinos and the evil Rockies, cave people who work for a nefarious Allosaurus named Mr. Big. They befriend Forry, a little flightless dino-slash-hand-puppet to go on a quest to recover a stolen fuse that’ll somehow help them get back home. Unfortunately, the heroes from the cartoon are kind of cowardly jerks, leaving the kids to pick up the slack.

You know how there are kids movies that are decently well-acted and -written with at least a partial eye to keeping the older set entertained? Yeah, that’s not Adventures in Dinosaur City. This is thoroughly juvenile, especially in its acting and writing. Everyone talks in campy one-liners that ironically wouldn’t even work if a cartoon said them and the dinos never stop moving as if under the assumption that they get paid by the twitch. And the story is so basic and dull that you could write out an accurate synopsis of the rest of the plot five minutes into this.

So is there anything here that makes it worthwhile? Honestly, probably not — but if there is, it’s the world-building. The idea of jumping into a cartoon world that you know full well is an interesting one, and humanoid dinosaurs with their own city isn’t often seen. I did like some of the costume designs and sets, although every character moves so slowly through these areas because crazy fantasy indoor sets are expensive, yo, and you got to justify the cost with as much runtime as possible.

Fantasy visuals aside, this is a completely boring movie that should have all but the most patient itching to ditch it. It makes that Dinosaurs sitcom seem like high theater, and I don’t think I ever laughed once at that show. I was hoping for a Tammy and the T-Rex or Super Mario Bros. or Theodore Rex-type fusion of dinos and craziness, but this movie can’t even fail in an interesting way. Every person here should be embarrassed to be associated with this mess.

Oddly enough, this movie was treated to a video game adaptation on the SNES — and it’s debatable which is better remembered today:

Intermission!

• What is this bizarre illustrated title sequence?
• “You little horn head!”
• “FULLY ANIMATED” is a weird caveat for your Flintstones ripoff cartoon
• The kids’ sped-up dance moves
• This dad is such a caricature
• “Smells like orange juice in here.”
• These portal effects are so early 90s CGI
• Jeopardy references are so 1981
• “This place is so cool!” “Yeah, as in ‘goodbye cool world’!”
• Mick’s legendary “I hate water” rant