Made to capitalize on the success of Jurassic Park and Japan's own Godzilla franchise, Baby is surpassingly quite unique and charming. The story is of a young girl who gets tasked with the extraordinary opportunity to raise an infant T-Rex. The driving theme is motherhood, as the main girl's mother was never there for her so the girl wants to be the mom (for this dinosaur) that she never had. The film accomplishes this with all the appropriate cheesiness. The practical effects are decent and charming enough, but don't expect to "believe" in this T-Rex. The film seems weirdly American to me though, as her family lives in rural Japan in what is essentially an American house. They sit at a dinner table, eating American food while using knives and forks. Maybe this was done for international appeal? The Christmas segments also seemed very western, but this isn't a complaint. It's silly, heartfelt, and fun. This is definitely a recommendation from me if you enjoy this kind of movie.
4 Reviews
Rex!
BandSAboutMovies27 December 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Rex Kyoryu Monogatari or Rex: A Dinosaur Story was originally written by Masanori Hata and illustrated by CLAMP. It was serialized in the shojo magazine, Kadokawa Shoten: Asuka, in 1993.
Chie (Yumi Adachi) and her paleontologist father Akiyoshi Tateno discover tyrannosaur eggs and one hatches to bring Rex to our time. Chie becomes his friend and protector. The birth of the dinosaur - he comes from the lost continent of Mu! - allows her to be the mother that her own parent Naomi (Shinobu Otake) never was even when that maternal character comes back into her life to study Rex.
At the end, shaman Mr. Shinoda (Fujio Toneda) takes the cute dinosaur back home, perhaps even to find his mother. There's also a long sequence where Rex gets to get in all of the Japanese experience of the holidays, which is watching fireworks and feasting on KFC and Coke. If this were an American movie I would be angry at all the product placement but here I find it charming.
The scientists even make Rex into a celebrity and make him appear in all sorts of commercials like anyone who gets famous in Japan. One of them, Morioka (Mitsuru Hirata), even attacks the little creature and decides to become a Yakuza and kidnap Rie and her friend for himself.
Director Haruki Kadokawa was a pretty big deal for some time, producing movies like G. I. Samurai, Virus, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun amongst many others, and directing The Last Hero, Heaven and Earth, Aijou monogatari and more. In 1975, he inherited his father's publishing company Kadokawa Shoten and announced a new and ambitious plan for his company. They would produce film adaptations of the best-seller novels and comics of the publishing branch. A few weeks into the release of this movie, Kadokawa was charged with smuggling and embezzling money from his company in order to fund a cocaine addiction. He served two and a half years of a four year sentence, but this movie was pulled from theaters.
He made a comeback and is still making movies.
I loved this movie and if you don't, stop being cynical. It has a dinosaur dressed in a Christmas outfit running and playing in the snow with the little girl who loves him. It made me tear up numerous times and that's what all holiday movies should do.
Chie (Yumi Adachi) and her paleontologist father Akiyoshi Tateno discover tyrannosaur eggs and one hatches to bring Rex to our time. Chie becomes his friend and protector. The birth of the dinosaur - he comes from the lost continent of Mu! - allows her to be the mother that her own parent Naomi (Shinobu Otake) never was even when that maternal character comes back into her life to study Rex.
At the end, shaman Mr. Shinoda (Fujio Toneda) takes the cute dinosaur back home, perhaps even to find his mother. There's also a long sequence where Rex gets to get in all of the Japanese experience of the holidays, which is watching fireworks and feasting on KFC and Coke. If this were an American movie I would be angry at all the product placement but here I find it charming.
The scientists even make Rex into a celebrity and make him appear in all sorts of commercials like anyone who gets famous in Japan. One of them, Morioka (Mitsuru Hirata), even attacks the little creature and decides to become a Yakuza and kidnap Rie and her friend for himself.
Director Haruki Kadokawa was a pretty big deal for some time, producing movies like G. I. Samurai, Virus, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun amongst many others, and directing The Last Hero, Heaven and Earth, Aijou monogatari and more. In 1975, he inherited his father's publishing company Kadokawa Shoten and announced a new and ambitious plan for his company. They would produce film adaptations of the best-seller novels and comics of the publishing branch. A few weeks into the release of this movie, Kadokawa was charged with smuggling and embezzling money from his company in order to fund a cocaine addiction. He served two and a half years of a four year sentence, but this movie was pulled from theaters.
He made a comeback and is still making movies.
I loved this movie and if you don't, stop being cynical. It has a dinosaur dressed in a Christmas outfit running and playing in the snow with the little girl who loves him. It made me tear up numerous times and that's what all holiday movies should do.
Fun for the entire family...
paul_haakonsen6 July 2021
I sat down in 2021 with my eleven year old son, as he wanted to watch a movie. We hadn't seen the 1993 Japanese family movie "Rex: kyoryu monogatari" (aka "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story") before, so we settled on this one.
I must admit that I wasn't initially expecting much from a movie such as this, given the movie's synopsis. But I must say that writers Bill Bannerman, Haruki Kadokawa and Shoichi Maruyama actually managed to come up with a storyline that was as entertaining and enjoyable for me as it was for my eleven year old son. "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" definitely took me by surprise.
The storyline is a very enjoyable and highly likeable, so it makes for a very wholesome family movie, especially since it is something that can be easily enjoyed by adult and youngsters alike.
There was something very likeable about Rex, though it was very obvious at times that it was just a rubber suit. But the personality of the dinosaur was something you just can't help but love.
Forget all about realism and such, because this is not a realistic dinosaur movie - if there even exists such a term. This is a movie meant for enjoyment and entertainment, one that is aimed at a wide audience. So there is nothing violent here, nor does Rex eat meat - animal or otherwise.
If you have the chance to watch "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" with your family, I can highly recommend that you do so, because it is a very good family movie.
My rating of "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" lands on a six out of ten stars.
I must admit that I wasn't initially expecting much from a movie such as this, given the movie's synopsis. But I must say that writers Bill Bannerman, Haruki Kadokawa and Shoichi Maruyama actually managed to come up with a storyline that was as entertaining and enjoyable for me as it was for my eleven year old son. "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" definitely took me by surprise.
The storyline is a very enjoyable and highly likeable, so it makes for a very wholesome family movie, especially since it is something that can be easily enjoyed by adult and youngsters alike.
There was something very likeable about Rex, though it was very obvious at times that it was just a rubber suit. But the personality of the dinosaur was something you just can't help but love.
Forget all about realism and such, because this is not a realistic dinosaur movie - if there even exists such a term. This is a movie meant for enjoyment and entertainment, one that is aimed at a wide audience. So there is nothing violent here, nor does Rex eat meat - animal or otherwise.
If you have the chance to watch "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" with your family, I can highly recommend that you do so, because it is a very good family movie.
My rating of "Rex: A Dinosaur's Story" lands on a six out of ten stars.
Goofy and fun family movie.
Jeremy_Urquhart7 February 2024
I really want to compare Rex: A Dinosaur's Story to Jurassic Park, because they came out the same year, but it's got more similarities to another Steven Spielberg film: E. T. the Extra-Terrestrial. A kid who has issues with a parent befriends an adorable but similarly lonely creature, and then the kid works to help the creature. Doing some reading into this, both also had creature/special effects done by Carlo Rambaldi.
It starts slow, but once the dinosaur is introduced, it manages to be a lot more fun. I think the simple second act was my favorite, but I did quite like how ridiculous it gets in its final act. There are action scenes, so much slapstick comedy, charmingly not-great special effects here and there, and it also becomes a Christmas movie.
It's all silly, but I found a lot of it very charming. And to say that about a kid's movie I didn't grow up with - and as someone who turns 29 in less than a fortnight - I think that's saying something. Maybe not much, but something, and something's enough. Rex: A Dinosaur's Story is enough.
It starts slow, but once the dinosaur is introduced, it manages to be a lot more fun. I think the simple second act was my favorite, but I did quite like how ridiculous it gets in its final act. There are action scenes, so much slapstick comedy, charmingly not-great special effects here and there, and it also becomes a Christmas movie.
It's all silly, but I found a lot of it very charming. And to say that about a kid's movie I didn't grow up with - and as someone who turns 29 in less than a fortnight - I think that's saying something. Maybe not much, but something, and something's enough. Rex: A Dinosaur's Story is enough.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
