Studio: Amblimation (Amblin Entertainment)
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Produced by: Stephen Hickner
Short Synopsis
In New York, a runaway young bluebird named Buster meets a friendly Tyrannosaurus, Rex, who is playing golf and tells him his story. In the age of dinosaurs, Rex was a ravening hunter until he was taken aboard the time-travelling ship of Captain Neweyes, who feeds dinosaurs his "Brain Grain" cereal to make them intelligent and gentle, and plans to take them to the present so that children can see real dinosaurs. Rex, Woog the Triceratops, Elsa the Pterodactyl and Dweeb the Parasaurolophus are dropped into the East River in 1993, with instructions to find the Museum of Natural History and to avoid Neweyes's evil twin, Professor Screweyes. Two runaway children, Louie and Cecilia, help them. The dinosaurs disguise themselves as floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but are discovered and chased by the police and the army. Meanwhile Louie and Cecilia fall under the spell of Screweyes, who runs a sinister horror circus. To save the children, the dinosaurs eat his "Brain Drain" pills and become savage beasts again. The children's love restores them, Screweyes is devoured by crows, and the dinosaurs reach the museum, where Rex's story ends.
Why It Matters
- The film's best scenes are its darkest: Screweyes's nightmarish Eccentric Circus, with its fear-feeding acts, is a striking contrast to the bright parade sequences, and the cast, from John Goodman's Rex to cameos by Walter Cronkite and Julia Child, is remarkable for a children's film.
- It was made by Amblimation, Steven Spielberg's London animation studio, set up after An American Tail and The Land Before Time. Released the same year as Jurassic Park, it was a box-office failure. Amblimation made one more feature, Balto (1995), and closed in 1997, many of its staff moving to the new DreamWorks Animation.
Notes and Trivia
- It is based on Hudson Talbott's 1987 picture book.
- Martin Short voices Professor Screweyes's associate Stubbs the clown.
- See also: A Troll in Central Park (1994), The Land Before Time (1988).