The Land Before Time

Animation producer Don Bluth's fondness for overly cutesy characters and muddy color compositions work to the benefit of his feature-length cartoon The Land Before Time. Littlefoot, a brontosaurus child, must fend for himself when his mother is killed (shades of Bambi). With several other orphaned ...more

Don Bluth's The Land Before Time became a surprisingly marketable brand name for a film well short of classic status, inspiring over a half-dozen cut-rate sequels and spin-offs that are best suited as babysitting videos for preschoolers. In this first outing, the only one in which Bluth was involved, the creator of The Secret of N.I.M.H. and An American Tail again proves that the animation techniques he learned at Disney don't need Disney's army of screenwriters to make good entertainment. ...more