My Pet Dinosaur | Film review - Australian fantasy looks to Spielberg

(Image credit: Signature Entertainment)

Making friends is easy, keeping them is impossible.

A young fatherless boy makes friends with a strange alien creature and tries to shield it from the authorities. Throw in a suburban setting and a bunch of plucky kids on bicycles, and this low-budget Australian fantasy adventure’s debt to Spielberg’s E.T. is blatant. And in case we haven't yet taken the hint, at one point Jordan Dulieu’s hero even uses sweets to coax the creature out of hiding.

Unsurprisingly, special-effects whiz turned writer-director Matt Drummond (maker of 2014’s Dinosaur Island) only conjures up a fraction of the magic, charm and wonder found in E.T., and his Aussie cast’s American accents aren’t that convincing, either. Yet the dinosaur-like critter itself – an impressive bit of CGI given the film’s resources - is cute enough to make My Pet Dinosaur a tolerably entertaining time-passer.

Certificate PG. Runtime 90 mins. Director Matt Drummond

My Pet Dinosaur available on DVD & Digital from Signature Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgdYSIFhYrM

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A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.