FLYING MONSTERS 3D

It’s a firecracker of a mix: the narration of documentary silverback David Attenborough; the CGI effects used in Avatar; a little-known prehistoric beast whose wingspan once equalled a glider plane; and a punchy, popcorn-jolting title. Yet for my money, Flying Monsters 3D fails to get off the ground – and there are certainly no fireworks. Pterosaurs were the airborne corollary to the dinosaurs and for hundreds of millions of years they roamed the skies, plucking prey from now-extinct oceans and forest floors. Through impressive fossil samples, up-to-the-minute scientific techniques (cutely integrated), real-life footage of modern-day flying lizards, and quite beautifully recreated scenes, the world of the pterodactyls and pterodons comes to life. But despite all the graceful flapping through the sky, there is no ‘arc’. A few bloody stoushes wouldn’t have gone astray, or even an endangered human. Something, anything, to make us care a little more about this so-called monster. (AB) **