The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water (2002)

 

Genre: Family/ Adventure 

Time: 1h 15mins

Director: Charles Grosvenor

Quick Summary: Littlefoot befriends with a mysterious, fun-loving dolphin-like creature named Mo, who is trapped in "new water" caused by heavy rain. The gang then goes on an adventure to the "big water" to bring Mo home.

I know I'm not the target audience here but please for the love of God, nobody make me listen to Mo again.

I'll get the good out of the way first, as there isn't much. Surprisingly, all the characters were shaded! No more flat art. They look so much better, like Jesus it couldn't have cost much to shade the characters, could it? 

As I watched more, I realised where they got the budget to shade them.

Most of the background and landscape was CGI. Really bad CGI too. It just doesn't look right, you can plainly see where they just layered it underneath the character art. As well it's so painfully obviously done by a computer. Seeing as most of this film is about under the sea and sea creatures, they chose to do the water stuff with CGI and it was hard to watch. 

For some reason too, Littlefoot sounded like a girl and it was a little confusing at first.

Now for the main reason I despised watching this. Mo. The brightly coloured Dolphin. I just couldn't deal with him at all. For one, he was way too brightly coloured. He just did not fit in with anything to do with this universe of Dinosaurs. Seriously it looks like some kid made a "dinosaur" and somehow managed to get it into the film. Secondly, the way he spoke and his voice was dreadful. Imagine someone gargling while talking, but they're also really nasally, but they speak in the third person or in nonsense sentences.  As soon as I had witnessed not even three minutes of him I was done, I had shut off from this film. 

The whole reason they found Mo? They chose the disobey their parents yet again and go into the flooded land. Where is the sense of danger with these guys? Let alone these parents who clearly don't care.

Kids will love this brightly coloured hyper thing as I'm sure it will keep their brains stimulated with shapes and colours, but for me an adult it was a straight no. I really struggled through this. It actually pained me enough to give me a slight headache. At least Cera was barely doing her usual thing.

2/10