User Reviews

I have low expectations for children's films because they're usually terrible. This film isn't very good, even by those low standards.

You can see that it wants to be a family friendly action film, with a bit of heartwarming stuff between the kid and his dinosaur.

It fails pretty hard at that. There's no humour or charm here. There's no chemistry between the actors, or between the actors and the cgi creatures. The set pieces are weak.

Both my child and I got bored very quickly.

It's a shame, because it could have been so much better. We deffo need films like this.

There are lots of low rated Aussie films, this is definitely not one of them. I thought it was deliberately bashed, but after watching it, I realised it's not any good and deserved those remarks. With such production, they should have come up with a nice storyline. Visually, it was okay-okay kind, but the story, the filmmakers are lucky that no one sued them for copying it from other flicks.

Kids with bikes, a science experiment gone wrong, annoying brother and mom's new boyfriend, A new girl in the town, it was everything you have already seen. All the above, that army general was insanely bad. Why did not they get a decent actor for that important role! Performances of those soldiers were even worse, very bad than a television film made for little kids.

A young kid discovers a baby dinosaur in his room, that might have come from the chemical reaction from the materials he and his gang got while exploring the woods nearby. He finds hard to hide instantly growing this unknown species, especially from the army who are sweeping the town. Where the story heads and ends are the rest of the film with some adventures.

The kids were good, but not the rest. As I said the story was the worst thing happened to it. The film failed to give a proper answer to all the puzzle at the end. It's worth a watch only if you haven't seen many films in your life. But that's impossible among the majority. Yet I believe the children might enjoy it. However, I suggest films like 'ET', 'Earth to Echo', Goonies' many more over this one anytime.

3/10

The actors and the lines were simply weak and almost empty. The story itself was mostly there. The dinosaur and effects were the most Interesting part. My problem was the kids gets the dinosaur to "safety", leaves and then suddenly it's running through the street being chased by government. It's like the filmmakers as whole just skipped a chunk of the plot line altogether and then all characters are suddenly on a mission together. The story fell off the tracks. Overall it was making sense till that point and then got repetitive and random. I'd say skip this movie as you don't miss anything.

Sorry to the producers of this attempt at a charming boy and his heroic pet saga, but it really is awful. The animations were just odd, the direction so wooden I felt like building a camp fire. The story leaps about at points with characters turning up in places from scene to scene with no explanation of how they got there and the military's motivation for being there is only something you guess about long after it even matters. Certainly not for adults and my two grand kids were very bored.

Badly acted, kids performances made the adult actors seem even worse, couldn't be bothered waiting for the dinos to show up.

Not a lot to like about this film, was expecting something better.

Do yourselves a favour and watch, How To Train Your Dragon, the cartoon characters are more believable, likable and watchable.

Perhaps the worst film I've seen for a long time and if I could I would provide a negative score for wasting my time.

It's like a 7th grader wrote, directed, edited and produced this for a school assignment.

The acting and writing is atrocious and the story line jumps around and there is little flow to scenes. The 'US ARMY' guys just turn up and it's the same guys with an assortment of military gear. Then when they start shooting it is comical, because the the firing a sound track from possibly every other army movie and no recoil and/or muzzle flash, and really this is just the an example... there are many, many more.

If you want to watch a film/TV show with great acting from younger actors, watch 'Super 8' or 'Stranger Things'.

Story is great really enjoyed it but the acting was really poor. Needed more character back ground for all main characters so the audience feels emotional involved. Characters that I believe need the back ground depth are the friendship group and the bond/relationship between the main character and the dinosaur.

This film has so much potential it is a shame it wasn't executed well. Poor edit, band actors and no character depth.

I'm not sure if they want to convince people that this is filmed in America, or they are making a joke out of it intentionally. Here are some glaring mistakes that I noticed that made this movie borderline unwatchable:

-Soldiers being transported around in a civilian truck -Soldiers carrying AKs. Their uniforms say US army... -Soldiers wearing covers, while others are not -Over half of the vehicles seen in the movie are not sold in the US -You can clearly see the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle -Characters breaking accent and using strange language for everyday objects i.e. "bandage" instead of "bandaid".

Overall it was a pretty awful movie. They should have just had the movie set in Australia so there wouldn't be so many mistakes.

You have to suspect that the two glowing reviews here were possibly made by people that had something to do with the making of this steaming pile of....digital film.

There are plenty of other BETTER boy/dinosaur movies out there. Do yourself a favor and choose one of those.

I almost didn't watch this because of the poor reviews. The people who wrote them are completely inaccurate and I don't understand how IMDb can allow troll posts like these to stay up on their site. This is a well made family film with good actors, a decent script, very good cinematography and it is what its supposed to be, a fun film about a kid with a pet dinosaur. Definitely worth a look.

An hour and half of life gone forever. Crap acting ... sums the whole film up. Felt like an attempt to rip off "Stranger Things" with "Jurassic Park".

This film is a delight. The story and characters are heartwarming and Magnus is just gorgeous. The young cast put in some really good performances. The accents at times seem to slip with a couple of them but overall they carry the film brilliantly. The only criticism I have is that I can't find anywhere where I can purchase a Magnus toy for my boys.

Do yourself a favour, Ignore the trolls. The real critics are spot on with this one.

Terrible movie bad acting bad everything. Says the guy is a colonel but wears NCO rank...... US Army using AK47s.....just so not waste your money or time

Terrible all around. Kids have terrible attitude. Mom throws kids out of her car in a fit of anger. Plot riddled with holes. Acting sub-B quality. I honestly can't say anything good about this film.

Terrible dialog that is poorly and unconvincingly delivered make this painful to watch from the first spoke word.

I sat down and starting watching this with my family. the acting was poor and forced, with no conviction. The special effects where so bad I thought I was watching a 70s film lol. Half way through we all looked at each other and said " are you enjoying this" we all said "no" had to turn it off. Very sad excuse for a film, the makers should be ashamed.

I really tried to watch this movie but I can't. There are music in every scene, I tried to focus on what's important but that annoying soundtrack just throws everything off. The annoying music makes the acting and action so boring, it was like torture. My kids love dinosaur movies but even they couldn't understand what is going on because the soundtrack music is louder then them speaking.

...or Pete's Dragon. It's nowhere near that high calibre of movie.

I really didn't know what to expect before I started watching this movie. At the beginning, the movie had the look and feel of E.T. But that soon disappeared the moment the main characters "Jake" and his brother "Mike" started acting.

Although some of the kids can actually act. One in particular - "Max" - not only can act, but is funny.

The way the military carry out their manoeuvres and act is about as convincing as the quality - or lack-thereof - of the CGI of the dinosaurs found in the movie.

The movie is supposed to be set in a small town in the USA. But I immediately noticed the houses and streets etc in the movie looked very much like houses found in Australia - which is where I'm from. I then looked at IMDb.com which confirmed this movie was shot in Australia. They didn't even bother using a left-hand drive version of the white van used in the movie - Australia is a right-hand drive country. But at least they got the American accent right. Or did they? So on behalf of Australia, I apologise for this movie. I promise we make better movies than this.

I tried to watch this but really struggled. The film isn't very interesting it's one of those "you need to watch because it's so rubbish" type films

The is quite simply the worst of the worst I'm not even sure what the storyline is. Not gonna write an essay about it simply not worth it

Some people will say this movie isn't a masterpiece. However, those people are philistines who fail to see Matt Drummond's genius. My Pet Dinosaur appears on its surface to be a children's movie created for the Chinese marketplace; and because of this it's saccharin and watered down with no real relatable human interactions. But, that is merely misdirection intended to hide the films true subtext, an examination of the broken american family home and the childhoods it destroys. Whether looking at ideals through Jake the protagonist's journey into manhood or exploring the Oedipus Complex through his older brother Mike's dissent into a MacBeth like madness, as he feels his mother slipping away and falling for Officer Faraday. The film never relents on it's viewer, forcing them to look within themselves and ask, who am I and why do I smell like cats.

Why the heck didn't this get nominated for an Oscar.

The clever and fitting Title Card is possibly my favourite thing about this movie.

The strength of Matt Drummond's first film, DINOSAUR ISLAND, was originality. It didn't hold back in its vast imagination, allowing a climactic clever plot development, all which flew above seeming unbelievability. It was bold and clear while perhaps being the most mysterious world in a film, dreamlike in fact.

The weakness of MY PET DINOSAUR is plagiarising ET. The film's lowest point, the kid saying, "I'm keeping him," is a lack of that same imagination, and was the original film's high point. ET phoney home. If at least he said, "I'm not keeping him." It's a dinosaur! That could have been dumbly clever and allowed a totally different dynamic, and humour - stolen but paid for - especially if the only lonely dino sadly wanted to keep coming home to his little "mummy" who didn't want him. The dino needed more personality like that. The connection between the excellently animated main character and his only friend seemed missing, causing the kid to painfully force emotion, too many times. Well he tried hard.

The writer/director/producer/cinematographer/art director/visual effecter/lead animator tries hard too, to fill the film in all ways, firstly characters and happenings. Another weakness is that because this film is set in reality, the way the dinosaur is created, and other creatures, though intriguing, makes his last film's reality seem rock solid, and it jars. The best part is the lead character's sudden growth spurts - not the kid the dino - half original because in the film it comes from, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957), the monster grew gradually.

The humour at home alone with the new pet is perfect, which is reflected by a later scene in bigger proportions if you make the connection, which I didn't. The UFO part mirrors the less-than-real military presence whose purpose, like creature creation, is never explained. It didn't have to be though, did it. Because it's inevitably ALIEN again, by fault, and again makes no sense. There's barely a carnivore in sight. Instead of that so-overdone-it's-black plot point, surely something thoughtful would have been better, such as scientists wanting to learn what magical power of creation they have unexpectedly unleashed, providing a sense of wonder and breakthrough. Military is totally the wrong department, so again there is a gap. Imagine a film without a bad guy. Unthinkable. His first film.

Another difference of the two films is this has fake American accents, filmed in Australia as some vehicles' steering betrays. It loses honesty points, and charm which it has plenty of. ET go home.

I am totally convinced this was made by 4th graders and passed off as a serious flick. The acting by the kids is so bad even my 7 year old was rolling her eyes. The CGI looked like something a kid would experiment with in 3rd grade and the story line was just all over the place!People who are giving positive reviews for this one have either a vested interest or they are high on something. I have seen some terrible movies in my time but this really isn't that bad, it's just sad.