'Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie' Offers a Child-Friendly Alternative to That Other Dinosaur Movie

Carter Young, Mckenna Grace, Terry Crews, and Jennifer Hudson lead the voice cast.

Now in Theaters: Hailing from Canada, PAW Patrol debuted in 2013, featuring a crew of search and rescue dogs as they carry out their heroic duties.

The highly-successful ongoing series, which is now streaming on Paramount Plus (all 13 seasons!) naturally spawned a big-screen adaptation, Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021), which led to a sequel, Paw Movie: The Mighty Movie (2023), which led to a threequal, Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie, which arrives in multiplexes on the same day that another dinosaur-themed movie opens (The End of Oak Street).

While the other movie also features children, the heroes are teenagers and their parents, and numerous people are attacked and/or eaten by dinosaurs, so this is the obvious child-friendly alternative. My plans did not allow me to see Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie in advance of its opening, and I won’t be able to get to it this weekend.

From sampling the television series, which is targeted at children, I’m not sure if any of the movies contain material that adults could also enjoy, though the animation in the new film’s trailer looks to be quite good, which may be enough if you are devotee of animation in general.

In any event, I’m aiming to return to my schedule and publish something here every week on new films and television shows that are targeted at youngsters, yet still may appeal to adults, even those who are single with no children, such as myself.

More about Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie. Yesterday, I watched a six-minute featurette on Paramount Plus that is clearly aimed at adults, since it includes snippets of the Backstreet Boys talking about their participation in the movie. Here’s their music video of the song.

Official synopsis: “After their ship gets caught in a mysterious storm, the PAW Patrol pups crash land on an uncharted tropical island filled with dinosaurs. They meet Rex, a pup who has been stranded on the island for years and has become an expert in all things dino-related.

“When the PAW Patrol’s archrival, Mayor Humdinger, begins recklessly mining in hopes of exploiting the island for its natural resources, he inadvertently causes a huge, dormant volcano to erupt. The PAW Patrol pups are thrown into a series of high-stakes, dino-sized rescues bigger than anything they’ve done before, as they must stop Humdinger before everything on the island goes extinct.”

Visit the official site for locations, showtimes, and ticket information.