First things first — it is better than the original, famously troubled 1994 version that sank under the weight of too many screenwriters (reportedly over 30) and too many commercial tie-ins. This prequel benefits from lower expectations (it was originally intended as a straight-to-video release) and improved technology (the CGI dinosaurs are terrific). Okay, it begins with a fart joke (the guilty party — a dinosaur — says, “Hey, I got three stomachs, cut me some slack!”). And the rest of the humor is only slightly more elevated. And some of its jokes are older than the Stone Age. But it is not too bad, there are even a couple of genuinely funny moments, and it can provide for a moderately enjoyable family outing or a first-class birthday party for anyone in the 5-8-year-old range. The kids at the screening I attended cheered and applauded.

Mark Addy (from “The Full Monty”) and Stephen Baldwin (from “The Usual Suspects”) play Fred and Barney as though they are really enjoying it. The wonderfully talented Kristen Johnston (“Third Rock from the Sun”) is sadly underused as Wilma, but she looks sensational in her “Isaac Miz- rock-hi” animal skins. Wilma is the pampered daughter of the snobbish Pearl Slaghoople (Joan Collins in sort of prehistoric “Dynasty” mode) and the loving but addled Colonel (Harvey Korman). She has no interest in a life of country clubs and snobs. She runs away and is befriended by waitress Betty O’Shale (Jane Krakowski of “Ally McBeal”). They meet Fred and Barney and all goes well until Chip Rockefeller (“Dharma & Greg’s” Thomas Gibson), who is after Wilma’s fortune, invites them to his new resort in Rock Vegas. But all ends well, and we even get to see the origins of Wilma’s upswept hairstyle and pearls.

The highlight of the movie is Alan Cummings. He plays both Gazoo, the space alien who comes to earth to observe human mating rituals, and Mick Jagged, the (what else) rock star, frontman for (what else) the Stones. It’s a real pity that he plays only two roles – the movie fades whenever he is off screen. In the soundtrack’s highlight, Ann-Margret simultaneously salutes two of her career highlights — the original Flintstones cartoon (as “Ann Margrock”) and “Viva Las Vegas” with a terrific rendition of “Viva Rock Vegas.”

Parents should know that there are a few naughty words and mild sexual references (one afternoon Betty tells Barney that she wants to come back to his apartment and make him breakfast, and he wonders what she wants to do until morning), and some pie-in-the-face/pratfall cartoon violence.

Families who see this movie should discuss why Wilma feels unsatisfied despite her wealth, why Fred feels that he has to make a lot of money to compete with Chip, and how Betty and Barney create trouble by jumping to conclusions instead of telling each other about what worries them. Parents will also want to talk about Betty’s decision to go off with Mick when she thinks Barney has been unfaithful. Whether it is out of spite or a way to bolster her spirits, it is a foolish response.

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the old Flintstones and Jetsons cartoons, and may even get a kick out of looking for the similarities between them.

Two of the biggest stars in Hollywood took pay cuts to appear in what is essentially a quirky independent movie — with two of the biggrest stars in Hollywood. Even though Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts are both top-notch acting talents who do not get enough credit for taking risks (Pitt’s performance in “12 Monkeys” was one of the best of the decade), in this movie their star power overwhelms not just their acting but the movie’s story as well. The effect is like trying to juggle a bowling ball with a dozen eggs. Fortunately, when things get out of kilter or the plot begins to sag, there is all that star power to keep us happy and give us something to enjoy until it gets going again. If the movie has a lot of pieces that don’t quite fit together, at least they are all high-quality pieces. It may be something of a mess, but it is an interesting mess to watch.

Pitt and Roberts play Jerry and Samantha, a couple whose romantic relationship is complicated enough when Jerry is called on to perform one last errand for a mob boss. He has to go to Mexico to get a valuable antique gun called “The Mexican” from a man named Beck and bring them both back with him. Jerry tries to explain to Samantha that given a choice between letting down the mob and letting down his girlfriend, the fact that only one of those options involves death has to factor into the calculus. Samantha, who is a big fan of the women’s magazine school of relationships and who reads books like “Men Who Can’t Love” with a highlighter in her hand, tosses Jerry’s clothes out the window and sets off to pursue her dream of becoming a croupier in Las Vegas.

The mob guys know that Jerry’s focus and competence cannot be counted on without a little added incentive, so they arrange for Samantha to be kidnapped by a hitman named Leroy (James Gandolfini of HBO’s “The Sopranos”).

Gandolfini is just plan brilliant in the role, and the scenes between Leroy and Samantha are the best part of the movie. He explains that he is “here to regulate funkiness” and she tells him that he has “trust issues.” Soon they are giving each other relationship advice in between shoot-outs. Meanwhile, Jerry, who tends to “Forrest Gump through life,” is chasing after the gun, with intermittent success.

We want Jerry and Sam to get together, but the movie becomes less interesting when they do. Even a surprise cameo from another big star does not help us through a final act that involves the loss of characters we have come to care about. Jerry and Samantha react and behave in ways that we are not used to seeing characters played by big stars behave. Pitt and Roberts give it all they have, but the script does not have enough weight to help make that behavior consistent with what we know of the characters.

Parents should know that the movie is very violent, with a lot of shooting, graphic injuries, and the deaths of important characters. A woman commits suicide when her lover is killed. Characters drink and smoke and one character is drunk. There are mild sexual references, including a homosexual relationship. Some of the Mexican characters could be considered stereotypes, but then so could some of the American characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people work out the complexities of relationships and why it is that so many of the characters care more about relationships than about money or the life and death situations all around them. Leroy may have more than most people to worry about when he thinks about what a romantic prospect will think about what he does and who he is, but that is always a concern for anyone contemplating an intimate relationship. The idea that “the past doesn’t matter — it’s the future that counts” is a beguiling one — is it true? Under what circumstances? Leroy talks about being “surrounded by lonliness and finality,” and about how the people who die having loved are different from those who die alone. This is worth discussing, along with the way that Sam and Jerry begin to think about their relationship as being special enough so that they cannot walk away from it.

Families may also want to talk about the way that Jerry’s friend justifies participating in criminal acts by compartmentalizing, explaining that he is just doing his “portion.”

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy “Raising Arizona.”

Once upon a time there was a princess. She discovered that she was not the real princess after all. Her late father had imprisoned the real king and queen. All were now dead, but the real rulers had produced a son, who was now in hiding with two scholars. The princess determined to find him and give him back the throne that was rightfully his.

So, the princess went to spy on the prince and, this being a fairy tale, she fell in love with him at first sight. But no women were allowed near him. The scholars kept him in total seclusion, not just to protect his life, but also to protect his heart. They believed in pure rationality and spurned emotions, especially love. So the princess and her lady’s maid dressed up as boys and arrived at his doorstep, whereupon various complications ensue.

This story comes from a play first produced in 1732, now adapted to the screen by Clare Peploe and produced by her husband, Bernardo Bertolucci. Peploe keeps the setting of the story within its period, filming on location at magnificent houses dating back to the 18th century, but there are flickers of theatricality and modernity. A character appears to glimpse an audience in modern dress, seated on the magnificent lawn. Antique instruments on the soundtrack are briefly joined by an electric guitar (played by Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour). And at the end, the performers come out in for a curtain call, wearing their own clothes.

These references to the dualities of 18th/21st centuries and male/female roles are supposed to echo the story’s themes of duality and disguise. But it does a disservice to elements of the story that can only be understood in the context of their era. The princess (Mira Sorvino) has only three strategies – she commands, she bribes, and she seduces. Most of the story has her seducing the scholars Hermocrates (Ben Kingsley), his sister Leontine (Fiona Shaw), and, of course, the prince (Jay Rodan). In each succeeding conversation with the first two, she tells more and more lies. With the prince, she begins with lies, and then tells more and more truth, revealing more to him each time they meet.

Kingsley and Shaw are magnificent, but the clash between the artificial structure of the story and the more contemporary, naturalistic tone of the film only makes it more painful for us to see them manipulated so horrendously by the princess. Rachael Stirling (daughter of “Avengers” star Diana Rigg) is delicious as the lady’s maid and brightens the film whenever she appears.

Parents should know that the movie includes gender-bending seductions, including a same-sex kiss. There are no four-letter words, but there is some spicy language and brief nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people right the wrongs of their forebears and about the complications of getting to know someone and have to decide how much of the truth about yourself to share.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, also featuring Kingsley and the romantic complications of a woman dressed as a man.

People will react very strongly to this movie – they will either love it or hate it. And after some consideration, I’ve decided that I love it.

Those who will enjoy it are people who have a lot of tolerance for all-night college dorm discussions of the meaning of life, because this entire movie is a series of monologues and dialogues that are variations on that theme.

It does not really tell a story. It is just a journey by an unnamed main character (played by Wiley Wiggins) who wanders through an Alice-in-Wonderland-style journey that may or may not be a dream, meeting all kinds of very odd people, many of whom tell him their views on consciousness and the purpose of existence.

It recalls director/screenwriter Linklater’s first film, “Slackers,” which showed us a series of loosely linked people expressing views on everything from Madonna’s pap smear to the assassination of William McKinley, and his later film, “Before Sunrise,” in which a young couple meets on a train and spend the rest of the movie walking around Vienna and talking about just about everything.

The couple from “Before Sunrise,” Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, reprise their roles in one scene in “Waking Life,” lying in bed talking about consciousness after death. Other actors and characters from Linklater’s earlier films flicker through this one as well, their out-of-context familiarity adding to the dreaminess and disorientation.

But there is a crucial difference between this film and Linklater’s earlier works. This film is animated. Actually, it is rotoscoped, which means that it was originally shot on film (digital film, in this case). Then, instead of creating animation cells or computer pictures from scratch, animators paint over the photographed images of real people. Each scene or character had a different group of animators, though the overall look of the film is very consistent.

The combination of the floating animation on top of real images also adds to the dreamlike quality of the film, especially in contrast to the very authentic-sounding audio. Animated films, highly artificial, usually have pristine, tightly controlled audio (with rare exceptions, like the pioneering John and Faith Hubley). But in “Waking Life” we get an extraordinary sense of documentary, even hyper-reality from the ambient noise of the audio and the fact that many of the monologues are delivered by people who are not actors. For example, some of Linklater’s college professors deliver portions of their lectures. This “real”-sounding audio contrasts with the vibrating fluidity and impressionism of the visual images.

At times, shapes shift to reflect the discussion. As a man says he would rather be “a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving,” his face briefly turns into a purplish gear. Another character briefly turns into clouds or smoke. But mostly, the images stay close to their original form and shape, except that the settings around them float, shift, and quiver, perhaps like “some random swerving.” Animation serves the dialogue in this movie as it served the music in “Fantasia.” Instead of Mickey Mouse carrying buckets or hippo ballerinas, we get a literally red-faced prisoner threatening the direst revenge on just about everyone and a man in a captain’s hat driving a boat on the road.

The monologues themselves are like jazz improvisations, wildly playful, bringing in an astonishing assortment of references and concepts. I think the secret to enjoying this movie is not to engage too much with the individual arguments and points of view but just to allow your ears and spirit to enjoy the fact that there are people who feel passionately about these ideas and who are willing to talk about them to other people with an openness that is both humbling and touching.

I enjoy that kind of talk, whether I agree with it or not, and it is a pleasure to see language used to create such intimacy and connection. The Delpy-Hawke scene shows how purely sexy conversation can be, something pretty much lost to movies since they started permitting nudity. The people who want “real human moments,” or “holy moments” of genuine connection come across as authentically vulnerable. Of course, other characters come across as people who talk all the time and barely notice if anyone is listening, but most of the people Wiggins meets want to help him in their own way.

Parents should know that the movie has some very strong language and scenes of cartoon violence, including a shoot-out and a self-immolation. Some teens may be upset by the discussions of death.

Families who see the movie will want to talk about their own views on the meaning of life and which, if any, of the characters are closest to their own thoughts about dreams and reality. Is it possible to create “lucid dreams?” Is there a reason that a film-maker might be particularly attracted to this idea – could film be a kind of generalized lucid dream? When you are dreaming, are you aware that you are dreaming? How do you know? What does it mean to say that there’s only one moment or to talk about the eternal yes? Does this movie make you want to know more about any of the authors or ideas it raises?

Families who see this movie will also enjoy “Everyone Rides the Carousel” with animation by Faith and John Hubley, based on the works of Erik Erikson.

Plot: John MacReedy (Spencer Tracy) gets off a train in a tiny, dusty little Western town. It is rare for any stranger to come to the town; it is the first time the train has stopped there in four years. The town residents move from suspicion of the one-armed man in a suit to open hostility when MacReedy enters the local hotel and asks about a local farmer named Komoko. Pete Wirth (John Ericson), the hotel manager, refuses to give him a room, saying they are all booked. When MacReedy takes a key anyway, a bully named Hector David (Lee Marvin) insists that it is his room. MacReedy takes another room. Hector and most of the rest of the town report to Reno (Robert Ryan). When he tells them to push MacReedy without giving him information, they are happy to oblige. But the town doctor (Walter Brennan) tells MacReedy how to get to Komoko’s farm, and Liz Wirth (Anne Francis), Pete’s sister, rents him a jeep to get there. MacReedy finds the farm deserted. Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine), another of Reno’s henchmen, chases MacReedy back to town, driving him off the road and slamming into the jeep with his truck.

MacReedy realizes that Reno will never let him get out of town alive. He tries to make a phone call or send a telegram, but Reno has cut him off. When Trimble harasses him at the diner, he refuses to fight, then finally, when Trimble persists, MacReedy devastates him with a karate chop to the neck. That buys him some time, but MacReedy is cornered and he knows it. He persuades Liz Wirth to drive him out of Black Rock. But it is a trap. Reno is waiting for them. As Liz runs to Reno, he shoots her; he no longer trusts her to keep his secret. MacReedy puts the jeep’s leaking gas into a bottle, stuffs it with his tie, lights it, and throws it at Reno, who is killed.

MacReedy had come to Black Rock to give Komoko the medal his son had been awarded by the U.S. Army for heroism. Komoko’s son had saved MacReedy’s life before he was killed in battle. But Komoko was also dead. Reno and his henchmen killed him at the start of World War II because he was Japanese.

The doctor asks MacReedy if he will leave the medal in Black Rock. MacReedy gives it to him, then puts out the flag so that the train will stop in Black Rock again, for the second time in four years.

Discussion: “A man is as big as what makes him mad.” MacReedy says this to Reno in one of this movie’s key scenes, and it is a concept children (and parents) should think about. It is also interesting that Reno killed Komoko after he was found ineligible to enlist in the Army. His hostility toward Komoko was based on displaced of his anger and frustration as much as it was based on racism.

MacReedy did not choose this battle, but he never turns away from it. A man who had no direction, and no goal beyond the presentation of the medal to Komoko, becomes a man who will not allow Reno and his thugs to win. He is fighting them not just for Komoko, but for himself, and in doing so finds a pride and dignity that enables him to go on.

This is a good movie to use for a discussion of prejudice, not just about race, but also about disabilities.

Questions for Kids:

· What does it mean to say, “a man is only as big as what makes him mad?” Think about a time you got mad. How big was the thing that made you mad? How do you measure?

· The people in the town had different reasons for obeying Reno. What were they?

· How did MacReedy change? What did he learn about himself?

Connections: Compare this to “High Noon,” another movie about a lone force for justice. Anne Francis, known to baby boomers as television’s “Honey West,” plays opposite Robby the Robot in the science fiction classic “Forbidden Planet.” In both movies, she is the only woman in the cast.

Interestingly, MacReedy’s handicap, so central to the story, was a last-minute addition in order to make the character challenging enough to attract Tracy to the role.