Review: Leapin' Lizards! "Dinosaur," Disney's years-in-the-making, $200 million-plus computer-animated feature, is finally upon us. And these lizards do more than leap. They fight, play, run, cuddle and swim. They talk. They even dispense lessons in social skills (work together) and Darwinian theory (survival of the fittest isn't the ultimate good; look after old-lady dinosaurs because they might be more useful than you think).

Our hero is Aladar--not the celebrated 1970s racehorse Alydar, but an Iguanodon raised by a clan of lemurs after being separated as an egg from his birth mother. As in last summer's "Tarzan," the marsupial patriarch (voiced by Ossie Davis) is less than thrilled by his mate's (Alfre Woodard) maternal instincts: "Things like that eat things like us."

Well, not really. Aladar ( D.B. Sweeney) grows up into a nice 3-ton plant-eater who loves his adopted family. But then a meteor shower--a truly stupendous sequence--destroys their island. So Aladar and the few survivors set out to find food, water and maybe, if they're lucky, other living things.

They stumble onto a herd of dinosaurs (mixed species) whose habitat was also destroyed by the meteors. Led by the dictatorial Kron (Samuel E. Wright), they're headed for the fabled nesting grounds, where they hope they'll be safe. Working against them: thirst, hunger, flesh-eating Carnotaurs, scavenging Velociraptors, and Kron's move-it, move-it, move-it tendency to leave the weak behind as Raptor fodder. The kindhearted Aladar soon bonds with an elderly Styrachosaur (Della Reese) and a towering Brachiosaur (Joan Plowright), who's the last of her species. His protectiveness catches the eye of Kron's sister (Julianna Margulies), much to Kron's displeasure.

Much of the plot is eerily close to Don Bluth's 1988 traditional animated feature "The Land Before Time," in which four baby dinosaurs sought the Great Valley to be safe. Movie buffs may note traces of "Red River" in the rivalry between Kron and Aladar. And anyone who saw "The Prince of Egypt" will recognize egg-Aladar's wild ride to his new home as the movie begins.

In other words, unlike the marvelous "Toy Story" movies, which delighted the mind and eye, "Dinosaur" offers $200 million in special effects and a script worth about 2 cents.

Still, that won't bother the picture's target audience--namely, little ones whose favorite giant reptile is a purple non-people eater named Barney. They'll get a kick out of the comic interaction between Aladar and his adopted family (a balletic vine swing is sensational). They'll be enthralled by the jaw-dropping credibiity of this lost world and its myriad inhabitants. And the simple story will hold their attention.

But two warnings. First, while most of the movie is Barney-tame, the scary parts are quite scary--the aforementioned meteor shower and several Carnotaur attacks. Second, any dinosaur-lovers whose idea of dinsoaurs isn't baby-blue eyes and anthropomorphic tendencies had best look elsewhere. Say, at your local video store for "Jurassic Park."

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service