Publication Date: 08-15-2026

PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie (2026) review

Dir. Cal Brunker

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

The PAW Patrol movies have mostly been a cut above some other animated movies of the last several years, most notably some of Disney’s recent stinkers. They’re inspired parables about the canine members of the titular troop overcoming obstacles in order to work as a collective. Individual plight and self-doubt is unavoidable, but life is not a one-person show, as these movies depict. Coincidentally, PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie releases the same weekend as another dinosaur movie (The End of Oak Street), and while the two are targeting different demos, this is the clear-cut winner of the two.

The film opens with immediate fireworks. The PAW Patrol, led by 10-year-old human Ryder (Henry Bolan), respond to a fire on a yacht belonging to a family of social media influencers (mom and dad voiced by Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg because of course they are). The pups — German Shepherd Chase (Rain Janjua), Cockapoo Skye (Mckenna Grace), and Dalmatian Marshall (Carter Young), to name the mainstays — answer the call, rescue the fam, put the fire out, and Marshall even saves the troublemaking cat who started the blaze by knocking over a charcoal grill.

An ensuing storm sends the PAW Patrol’s massive ship astray to a far away island inhabited by dinosaurs. The only non-dino on the island is Rex (Hayden Chamberlain), a paraplegic pup who has the plucky sensibilities and vocal tone of Tommy Pickles. Rex has been there for over two years, and has come to befriend all the different dinosaurs and build an elaborate treehouse for himself. It’s so awe-inspiring that Skye calls it “glamping.” Meanwhile, Rex proudly boasts that the treehouse has no TV, no electricity, and no Wi-Fi. The pups don’t seem to mind. I think they use radios anyway.

Back in Adventure City, weaselly Mayor Humdinger (voiced again with gusto by Ron Pardo) exits prison with the intent to stay on the straight-and-narrow. That is until he sees news coverage of the Dino Island and a gaggle of large diamonds covering the exterior of a volcano. He rounds up a band of nitwits to pillage the island swiftly enough not to be noticed by the police dogs.

Meanwhile, Marshall, who is prone to clumsiness, struggles with the thought of making a mistake. He holds himself to impossibly high standards while on the job that his heightened nerves lead him to making unforced errors. Consider when a Brontosaurus gets himself wedged in the gap of an abyss. Marshall is tasked with using the wench to retrieve him, but a branch gets ensnared in the reel. In a haste to fix the problem, he sends his truck down into the abyss. Those of us who can sometimes get frenetic when a moment calls for damage control can relate. Later, Ryder gives him an important talk about how he didn’t let Marshall join the PAW Patrol team because he never made mistakes. He made plenty in training. It was his perseverance and refusal to quit that got him the gig as a rescue pup.

Even Rex tells Marshall that while he might see a multi-level, cozy treehouse, he doesn’t see the hours of time he himself spent correcting his own mistakes and watching pieces of it fall off and break. Rex’s disability is never formally addressed, but we can believe that it would be difficult for a pup to retain all of its limbs for an extended time on Dino Island. Bless those wheels he uses for hindlegs.

Sure, these aren’t grand revelations by any means, but they are worthy, digestible messages for a kids movie. Cal Brunker, who directed the previous two PAW Patrol features and co-wrote this one with Bob Barlen, has a commendable hold on the material. The Dino Movie is a confident blend of animated spectacle and thoughtful messaging that is shown in action as opposed to being talked about ad nauseum. The entertainment here is exorbitantly high. My theater, complete with many moms and probably 15-20 children, was rambunctious during the trailers, but as soon as the Paramount Animation logo hit the screen, this crowd was focused. I enjoyed some of the exhortations from the children: “Watch out, Marshall!” “Take that, Humdinger!” In America, the first PAW Patrol movie was released in theaters as well as on Paramount+ in 2021 due to coming on the back-end of the pandemic. When you see the jubilation this kind of material gives its young audience, you understand why it belongs on the big screen.

My review of PAW Patrol: The Movie
My review of PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie

Voiced by: Carter Young, Mckenna Grace, Henry Bolan, Rain Janjua, Terry Crews, Ron Pardo, Jennifer Hudson, Jameela Jamil, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, and Bill Nye. Directed by: Cal Brunker.