The Land Before Time: The Great Longneck Migration

The dinosaurs are once again on the move, as Littlefoot and his "longneck" brethren discover they've been having the same "sleep stories" about the "great circle" in the sky, compelling them to travel to parts unknown to witness what they hope is "something wonderful." Meanwhile, Littlefoot's non-longneck buddies--Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike--embark on an adventure of their own as they track their migrating friend. With our narrator promising "more adventures to come" it appears that the longest-running produced-for-video franchise shows no signs of becoming extinct. For this 10th installment, the producers must have upped the animation budget, since not only are the colors vivid, but several of the sequences are theatrical quality. Lending welcome vocal support are Bernadette Peters as the friendly dinosaur Sue, who joins the migration; the venerable James Garner as the avuncular Pat, who befriends Cera and company; and Kiefer Sutherland as Littlefoot's long-lost father. Though this is not the place to actually learn about dinosaurs, preschoolers have taken these anthropomorphic characters to heart, and this latest is a surprisingly good benchmark in this often-underachieving series. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 13-minute “Read-Along with Littlefoot” movie summary story segment, “The Great Circle” segments about solar eclipses (with craft experiments including “make your own solar eclipse” and a solar eclipse calendar), “Littlefoot's Spanish Language Lab,” two sing-along songs, a “Dino-Stars” segment about characters (with dinosaur statistics and film highlights), an “In the Studio with Olivia Newton-John” segment (5 min.) highlighting the film's “Best of Friends” song, a weblink for the Jurassic Park Institute, Easter egg-type movie clip segments, and DVD-ROM features (including stencil activities and coloring pages). Bottom line: a solid extras package for one of the better films in the long-running franchise.] (K. Lee Benson)