Dinosaurs Alive 3D (IMAX)

Written and directed by David Clark and Bayley Silleck

Sacramento Press was fortunate enough to preview Dinosaurs Alive 3D in the Esquire IMAX theater. Narrated by Michael Douglas, this movie journeys from the breathtaking Gobi Desert in Mongolia all the way to the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.

Through archival footage, the film tells the history of American paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, an Indiana Jones-style adventurer who traveled to the Gobi Desert and discovered a large repository of dinosaur fossils. It then follows a team of modern-day paleontologists and their graduate students from the American Museum of Natural History in New York as they retrace Andrews' path.

Although younger audience members may find this film exciting, and it may give them the inspiration to become scientists, archeologists or fossil hunters, the older crowd might see through the contrived narrative of the film.

The part of the film shot in Mongolia is done in a very nationalistic, glamorous and melodramatic fashion with grad students and paleontologists carrying their American flags through the desert. Though its purpose is supposed to be to educate, the paleontologists speak in scripted dialogue that is supposed to appear spur of the moment, but it is clearly prewritten.

Andrews (as shown in black and white archival video footage), who stole dinosaur fossils from another country is an underappreciated hero, says the narrator, because he inspired Americans to research dinosaurs.

Clearly Andrews was simply heroic for being the first to venture into remote areas of the world in motorized vehicles, and discovering some of the worlds oldest dinosaur fossils. Yet it still remains that in some people's opinion he (as was normal in his day for explorers, scientists, and tomb raiders) stole another country's natural history, and this film glances over this.

In other words, the film seems to perpetuate the idea that Mongolia's desolate Gobi Desert, seldom explored since Ghengis Khan, is hiding important findings needing to be hand plucked for our own museums. 

If you can get past this film's "Great Game" mentality (where Central Asian land, artifacts and fossils are merely up for grabs) the visuals alone are what makes the movie worth the time.

There was exciting and unique computer generated imagery (CGI) illuminating in realistic detail how dinosaurs interacted with their environment. Also, the modern shots of the desert landscape both in New Mexico and Mongolia are among the most beautiful 3D IMAX footage ever shot.

Dinosaurs Alive 3D also illuminates some common Hollywood misconceptions of dinosaurs - like the fact that velociraptors are usually portrayed as scaled in Hollywood films, but they were actually feathered dinosaurs.

Overall, it would be a great film for teenagers and children under 12 interested in seeing gigantic dinosaurs or learning about how cool paleontologists' work is.

Dinosaurs Alive 3D makes its Sacramento premier at the Esquire IMAX theater, located at 1211 K Street on April 24.