The Land Before Time IX: Journey to Big Water 2002

6.2 / 10   202 vote(s)
G
Animation Adventure Family

Littlefoot befriends with a mysterious, fun-loving dolphin-like creature named Mo, who is trapped in "new water" caused by heavy rain. The gang then goes on an adventure to the "big water" to bring Mo home.

Release Date 2002-12-17
Runtime 1h 11m
Director Charles Grosvenor
Producers Charles Grosvenor, Daniel J. Wiley, Steve Chen, James Wang
Writers Tony Geiss, Judy Freudberg, Dev Ross

I know I've still got 5 more of these things to get through, but boy am I sick of rehashing the same two or three messages and story concepts over and over again already. Also Mo was endearing for about the first 5 seconds, then annoyed me every moment he was on screen for the rest of the runtime. Journey to Big Water also features the first time we get a cross-movie reprise which was... A thing that happened which I feel neutral about. I didn't like or dislike this, I just felt it was worth mentioning. It is pretty unusual how contextually they start singing because "singing will cheer them up" so they sing that old song about how afraid they are and the various ways they could die.

Speaking of songs, the first one is pretty bizarre, firstly because it's about imaginary friends, but kind of passes the line of "it's okay to have an imaginary friend and you shouldn't be ashamed" and breezes into "imaginary friends are better than real ones", and secondly because the impetus for it is a lead character talking about how he has an imaginary friend he talks to every single day. Even though we've spent 14 years with this character, and in no other media has he ever mentioned an invisible friend, or even been shown in a scene that could be implied to involve one prior to this very unnecessary song.

Oh and also this is the worst Land Before Time yet.

Final rating:★½: - Boring/disappointing. Avoid where possible.

Gimly