The film everyone has been calling Paw Patrol 3 released under the title PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, and it is the third theatrical entry in the franchise after PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021) and PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023). Cal Brunker returns to direct and co-writes again with Bob Barlen, so the creative core is unchanged. We watched it during its opening run in August 2026, and the short version is that it is the biggest-feeling PAW Patrol movie so far and also the least interested in doing anything the show has not already done.
The premise borrows from the Dino Rescue sub-theme of the TV series. After the pups rescue a family from a burning boat, a storm drags their ship off course and strands them on an uncharted tropical island populated by living dinosaurs. There they meet Rex, a Bernese Mountain Dog who has been on the island for years, uses a wheeled mobility rig, and has learned to communicate with the dinosaurs. Mayor Humdinger, freshly out of jail, hears about a diamond deposit on the newly christened Dino Island, hires a hunter and a demolitions expert, and blows a hole in the place large enough to wake a dormant volcano. The rescue that follows is the whole third act.
Direction and pacing
At 88 minutes, the film does not waste time, and Brunker has clearly learned where the attention of a five-year-old goes. The setup is fast, the island reveal lands early, and the volcano sequence is genuinely well staged - lava, falling rock, and a coordinated evacuation of both humans and smaller dinosaurs, cut so that each pup gets a visible job to do. That is the strongest stretch of the movie and the part our screening actually reacted to out loud.
The weakness is the middle. Once the base camp is established and the researchers are introduced, the film cycles through a lot of small set pieces without much escalation. Marshall's bond with a baby T-Rex he names Rhubarb is the emotional thread meant to carry that section, and it works in the individual scenes, but the plot mostly waits for Humdinger to do the thing he was always going to do. Critics split along exactly this line: Rotten Tomatoes landed at 83% from 29 reviews, while Metacritic sat at 47/100, which is the usual gap between "this does its job for the intended audience" and "this is a good film."
The new pup and the disability representation
Rex is the most interesting addition. He is written as competent first - he is the island expert, he has a T-Rex companion named Timmy, and the plot needs his knowledge - rather than as someone the team has to accommodate. TheWrap's review, which was mixed on the film overall, singled out the disability representation as handled respectfully, and we would agree. It is a low bar for a franchise built on selling vehicles, but the film clears it without a lecture, and Hayden Chamberlain's voice work keeps Rex from tipping into mascot territory.
Voice cast
Carter Young leads as Marshall, with Mckenna Grace as Skye, Rain Janjua as Chase, and Henry Bolan as Ryder. Ron Pardo again voices both Cap'n Turbot and Mayor Humdinger. The adult guest bench is deep: Terry Crews as demolitions man Alistair Stonewall, Meredith MacNeill as hunter Harper Cutlass, Jennifer Hudson as a reporter, Jameela Jamil, Fortune Feimster, Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, and Bill Nye as a scientist named Dr. Theo Rising, which is the kind of casting joke aimed squarely at the parent in seat B. Dee Bradley Baker handles the dinosaur vocals and does more character work with growls than some of the human roles get with dialogue.
Animation and score
Mikros Image in Montreal and Paris animated the film again, and the production survived a genuine scare - Technicolor Group's shutdown in February 2025 stopped work until Rodeo FX acquired the Mikros operations a month later and finished the job. You would not know it from the screen. On a roughly $40 million budget the island looks expensive: wet foliage, volcanic haze, and dinosaur skin that reads as textured rather than plastic. It is not Pixar, and the human characters remain the weakest models, but the environments are a clear step up from The Mighty Movie.
Pinar Toprak returns to score, with strings recorded by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra and brass and woodwinds by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in Glasgow. The score is doing more work than these films usually get - the evacuation sequence in particular is carried by it. The two original songs are "Bottle Up" by the Backstreet Boys and "Work" by Ava Max, both fine, both clearly commissioned. The 25-track soundtrack runs just over an hour and released alongside the film.
Is it OK for young kids?
Yes. It carries a U certificate from the BBFC in the UK and a G from Ireland's IFCO, and there is nothing in it that needs a warning. The volcano and a couple of dinosaur chases get loud and dark for a minute or two, and very young or noise-sensitive children may want a lap, but no character is seriously hurt, the villains are comic rather than menacing, and their punishment is dinosaur-dung cleanup duty. The 88-minute runtime is the real feature here - it ends before a preschooler's patience does.
Box office and how it landed
The film opened to $20.5 million from 3,545 North American theaters, the franchise's best opening day, and reached roughly $80 million worldwide within its first week against a $40 million budget. It finished fourth on its opening weekend rather than first, which surprised analysts who expected the family slot to be uncontested. Audience response was much warmer than the critical response: an A CinemaScore and 63% on PostTrak saying they would definitely recommend it. That split is the honest summary of this movie.
Verdict
PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie is the best-looking and best-scored film in the series, and Rex is a genuinely good addition to a lineup that badly needed one. It is also formula: a villain who telegraphs his plan, a middle act that treads water, and dialogue written to be understood at a glance rather than enjoyed. If you have a child in the target age range, this is an easy, short, well-made 88 minutes and they will love it. If you are looking for the crossover appeal that lets a family film work on two levels at once, this is not that film, and it is not trying to be.
