We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story

Dick Zondag, Ralph Zondag, Phil Nibbelink, and Simon Wells, 1993
Rotten Tomatoes score: 33%

Roll back the rock to the dawn of time.

This movie came out in 1993, which might first make you suspect Steven Spielberg's Amblimation studio wanted to cash in on the Jurassic Park craze. I was going to make a comment to that effect, but then I read the Wikipedia article, which contains an in-depth (albeit unsourced) discussion of the movie's production. Apparently it was conceived in 1989, four years before Jurassic Park came out. It just goes to show how you shouldn't assume these things—it wasn't cashing in on Jurassic Park at all; it was cashing in on The Land Before Time.

But 1993 was also the middle of the Disney animation renaissance, when animated movies featuring celebrity voices were all the rage. So Amblimation dutifully signed up every available celebrity in sight, including such puzzling choices as Julia Child and Walter Cronkite. Wikipedia contains another (unsourced) report about how John Malkovich was signed to play the villain but left due to creative differences. On the plus side, we do get the incomparable John Goodman as a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Rex, as he calls himself, appears in a pointlessly tacked-on prologue, in which he begins to regale a small bluebird with his life story. Sixty-five million years ago, Rex was a savage beast roaming the earth, until one day he met a little Great-Gazoo-looking alien (voice of Jay Leno). Jay brings Rex aboard his spacecraft and feeds him a mouthful of "Brain Grain," a breakfast cereal that turns wild animals into talking cartoon animals. It turns out Mr. Leno works for Captain Neweyes (voice of Walter Cronkite), a wise and benevolent entrepreneur from the far future. Having struck it rich selling his magical cereal, Neweyes has decided to build a time machine and a "wish radio" to serve mankind.

And what does Captain Neweyes do with his ability to read the wishes of the world's children? Does he use his futuristic technology to travel through the centuries rescuing billions from famine and violent death? Well, maybe that's next on his to-do list, but for now he's dealing with the great humanitarian project of bringing a bunch of talking dinosaurs to the children of the 1990s. Arriving in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day 1993, Rex and his dino-buddies meet an artful dodger named Louie (voice of someone called Joey Shea) and a neglected rich girl named Cecilia (voice of Lisa Simpson). The dinosaurs make their debut in the Macy's Parade, performing an obligatory musical number and causing minor havoc.

Louie and Cecilia decide to run away and join the circus, but unfortunately the circus is run by Captain Neweyes' inexplicably evil brother Professor Screweyes (voice of not John Malkovich). The professor does not really seem to have an academic appointment, but he does really have a screw for an eye, which gives him mind-control powers. (A screw? Apart from making his name rhyme with his brother's, is there any reason why his eye is a screw?) Screweyes started his "eccentric circus" to frighten children, and he has a "fright radio" to help him. After ordering Louie and Cecilia to get lost, he then abruptly changes his mind, forces them to sign a contract in blood, and—wow, this lighthearted children's movie has taken a dark turn. Screweyes doesn't really want the children in his circus; he's just using them as leverage to get the dinosaurs on board.

Screweyes has a bottle of alka-seltzers that turn the dinosaurs back into mindless brutes, and now that he has his real stars, he releases the children from their contract. The kids are looked after by Stubbs the clown (voice of Martin Short), who reluctantly tells them what has become of Rex and the gang. Screweyes astounds his audience with the ferocious beasts, but Rex breaks free of his mind control and attacks Screweyes. It's up to Louie and Cecilia to use the Power of Friendship to transform the dinosaurs back to their jolly cartoon selves. For some reason this works, and Professor Screweyes, left alone with his fears, gets attacked by a flock of crows and vanishes, leaving only his screw eye behind. It's way, way more disturbing than it needs to be, and I have no idea what they were thinking.

(Here's a link to the scene. You don't have to watch the rest of the movie. I assure you it is totally out of place.)

Perhaps because this was such an inauspicious note to go out on, we now learn that the dinosaurs have gone to the museum of natural history, where curator Dr. Bleeb (voice of Julia Child) has expected them. The dinosaurs will pose as statues and only reveal their true nature to children, which certainly raises a lot of questions, but let's just leave it at that.

I'm at a loss as to how I should call this one. The story is a jumbled mess (probably a result of trying to stretch a 32-page picture book into a feature film), but the animation isn't bad, and the musical score is excellent. One last virtue that's worth mentioning is the mercifully short run time of 73 minutes; I wish more movies would embrace the less-is-more philosophy.

Okay, I've made my decision:

Richie Rich

Donald Petrie, 1994
Rotten Tomatoes score: 25%

This is the story of a little boy who possessed enormous wealth and worldwide renown, who had things that other children could only dream of, but whose fortune and fame prevented him from having a normal childhood. Then, when he was 14 years old, he starred in the movie Richie Rich.

Macaulay Culkin was without a doubt the biggest child star of the 90s, but by 1994 he was no longer the junior hit-maker he had been in his Home Alone days. In that year, he appeared in Getting Even with Dad, The Pagemaster, and this. For his efforts, he was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award.

Now, I've never seen Getting Even with Dad, but it looks awful; and as for The Pagemaster, the less said the better. But I am at a loss to explain the antipathy toward this Harvey Comics adaptation. Granted, I as a nine-year-old boy was exactly the target audience. And looking back on it 20 years later, I can't help comparing it to Richie Rich's Christmas Wish, a comparison that would make Howard the Duck look like Citizen Kane.

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Richie Rich is the richest boy in the world. According to one of the alternate posters, he has 17 billion dollars, but I'm not sure how they figured that. (In the movie, Richie's father is said to be worth $70 billion, so maybe whoever wrote the poster just misheard the dialogue.) But numbers aren't important—suffice it to say that Richie is cartoon-rich. He lives in a stately mansion (actually the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.); he is waited on by an English valet (Jonathan Hyde) who wears a wingtip collar and waistcoat to exercise; there's a McDonald's franchise in his house and a family portrait carved into the face of a mountain out back; and his father employs an in-house science team that cranks out a steady stream of impossible inventions, for no apparent business purpose.

But all is not well. For one thing, Richie's life of privilege is also one of responsibility, and he is so busy he has no time to be a kid. A perhaps even more serious problem is that the Rich Enterprises CFO, Laurence Van Dough (John Larroquette), is planning to murder the entire Rich family and take over their company. (Do you ever wonder what went wrong in your childhood that deprived you of the opportunity to outwit lamebrain criminals?) His plan nearly succeeds, as he plants a bomb in Dad's private plane just before the family flies off to meet the Queen. But at the last minute, Richie decides to stay behind and hang out with normal kids; meanwhile, Mom and Dad manage to escape the deadly explosion and strike out in a life raft.

Van Dough's efforts to loot the company are stymied by Richie, who asserts his rights and runs the company in his parents' stead. (Richie tells Van Dough that his father has never fired anyone, which is hard to believe, but what do I know about business?) Meanwhile, Van Dough frames Richie's trusted friend and valet Cadbury for the murders, so it's up to Richie and his normal-kid friends to bust him out and take down the real bad guys. Fortunately for the ragtag band of kids, they have super-scientist Keenbean (Mike McShane) on their side, providing them with a robot bee and a corrosive so powerful it eats through everything except the tube it's kept in.

Conveniently, Van Dough's evil plan has shifted from killing Mom and Dad Rich to kidnapping them. The in-story explanation is that Van Dough needs them to open the Rich family vault, but it also has the salutary effect of sparing us an additional act where Richie rescues the parents. The final boss fight against Van Dough takes place on the face of Mount Richmore, which allows for some high-spirited action scenes. (It reminds me of the finale of North by Northwest, but I don't know how intentional that was.) Anyway, they defeat Van Dough, proving once again that fabulous wealth can triumph over villainy.

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