Critic Reviews

I was going to say that we probably didn’t need the cutesyness of “Clover” (would clover even have existed back then, given that it’s a flower?), nor the slight Disney tinge. But one of the main aims of this series is to inspire a new generation of palaeontologist.

The price of this CGI technology has fallen dramatically in the intervening 25 years, but so has our sense of wonder, now that CGI is old hat and AI animation software is available to all. But the real problem is one of empathy: the whole Clover scenario is fictional and therefore at one remove.

While the up-to-the minute visuals are hugely impressive, immersing you in a world it’s hard to imagine as extraordinary creatures wander vast landscapes, giving us visions of our unpolluted planet before humans were let loose on it, the stories woven around them, straight from the Disney playbook, feel suspiciously manipulative.

The new Walking is a decent dino documentary and nothing more: it’s fine but compared with the competition, it feels cheap and tired.