Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)

Sadly this was the weakest of the three Karel Zeman films from the Criterion set I watched. After finding a fossil, a group of young boys decide to climb into a boat to travel back through time to see a live trilobite. The whole production feels like a lazy river ride where the live action humans float past stop motion dinosaurs and other animals, complete with the expected ‘oohs and ahhs’ from the riders. It’s cute in a way similar to a classic live-action Disney from the same era, but it’s nowhere near as fantastic as the previous two Zeman films I’ve watched.