The Good Dinosaur Review

7 out of 10

The Good Dinosaur Cast:

Raymond Ochoa as Arlo (voice)

Jack Bright as Spot (voice)

Jeffrey Wright as Poppa (voice)

Frances McDormand as Momma (voice)

Marcus Scribner as Buck (voice)

Peter Sohn as Forrest Woodbush (voice)

Steve Zahn as Thunderclap (voice)

Mandy Freund as Downpour (voice)

Steven Clay Hunter as Coldfront (voice)

A.J. Buckley as Nash (voice)

Anna Paquin as Ramsey (voice)

Sam Elliott as Butch (voice)

David Boat as Bubbha (voice)

Carrie Paff as Lurleane (voice)

Calum Grant as Pervis (voice)

John Ratzenberger as Earl (voice)

Maleah Nipay-Padilla as Young Libby (voice)

Ryan Teeple as Young Buck (voice)

Jack McGraw as Young Arlo (voice)

Directed by Peter Sohn

Summary:

While not the best Pixar film to hit the big screen, The Good Dinosaur has enough fun characters and interesting visuals to please moviegoers of all ages.

Story:

What if the meteor that killed the dinosaurs actually missed Earth? In this alternate world, we see what happened if they lived and continued to evolve. It turns out they become intelligent, begin farming, build structures, herd lesser animals, and develop their own culture. And it is in this environment that young Arlo is born.

Arlo is not like his other siblings. Buck is strong and mischievous. Libby is intelligent and outgoing. However, Arlo is scrawny and terrified of everything… especially his family’s large chickens. But his father is determined to encourage him to overcome his fear and make his mark on the world. He gives Arlo the task of eliminating a nuisance animal that has been raiding their corn harvest.

Eager to please his father, Arlo enthusiastically undertakes the task. However, when he actually catches the animal, he gets more than he bargained for. It is a feral human child that seems to have no fear of him. But in the process of confronting the animal child, Arlo falls into the nearby river and is swept away from the family farm. Terrified and alone, Arlo must make his way home, but he’s going to need a lot of help from the animal he intended to kill.

The Good Dinosaur is rated PG for peril, action and thematic elements.

What Worked:

One of the biggest surprises for me about The Good Dinosaur is that it is actually a Western. You can’t tell it from any of the trailers or commercials, but it is. Arlo grows up on the family farm in a rugged, pristine world. Arlo and Spot must face Mother Nature on a road trip that leads them across several colorful characters such as T-Rexes that herd longhorns like cowboys. You could simply switch the dinosaurs for humans and make Spot a dog and you would have a basic Western. (Fortunately it wasn’t Old Yeller with Spot meeting a dark fate at the end.) So to see that unexpected genre switch from Pixar was an interesting surprise.

Graphically, The Good Dinosaur is unlike any other Pixar film. It has hyper-realistic environments that look like they were filmed in reality. From water flowing over rocks to leaves gently blowing in the wind, it’s so real that Pixar could actually be pulling a scam on us and simply be filming background plates in Yellowstone. Yet this extreme realism is contrasted with very cartoony dinosaurs and humans. It’s an interesting style choice to see what looks like a giant green balloon dinosaur walking through a national park. Combine this with some neat 3D graphics and it becomes an engaging design that draws you in.

While we’ve seen dinosaurs and humans together in The Flintstones, this is something quite different. We don’t see dinosaur-themed human inventions. We see familiar human inventions as if a dinosaur had built them. You can tell a farmhouse is a farmhouse, but when you look closer at it you see how it functions for a dinosaur. Fences and grain silos are just a little bit different. They still have to plow fields and water crops, but they do it like a dinosaur would with a completely different physiology. It’s a really fun exercise in “what if?” for the audience.

While the voice performances are nothing extraordinary, the character of Spot is a real crowd pleaser. Any time the young boy was on the screen, the movie came alive. He does a few completely unexpected things in an attempt to feed Arlo that had the audience reeling with disgust and laughter. One thing happened in the theater that I think speaks to the popularity of the character. Throughout the film, Spot howls, “Awooo!”. Well, as the credits rolled, one young child started howling, “Awooo!” and then dozens of kids started joining in….along with a few adults. That, for me, made the theatrical experience worthwhile. Rarely does a movie engage the audience to the point they want to join in, so that was a lot of fun.

The Good Dinosaur is preceded by the short “Sanjay’s Super Team.” In it, a young Indian boy is more interested in watching a superhero TV show than joining his father in Hindu worship. But after he reluctantly joins his father in prayers, he begins to see the Hindu gods as personal superheroes, not distant relics. While this is not one of the better Pixar shorts by any means, it is still quite interesting to see. It gives you a peek at a culture you don’t normally see on the big screen. It also has a good message about making religion personal. So that wins it points in my book. You can tell this story meant a lot to the creator, and that definitely shows on the screen.

What Didn’t Work:

While The Good Dinosaur is an entertaining film, it could have been better. Frankly, a lot of it is dull. We see a lot of Arlo and Spot walking through beautiful CG environments, but you’re mainly waiting on them to get to some more antics with Spot or other animals. Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Arlo is kind of annoying. He’s terrified of every little thing, and that gets old. I suppose that’s just my jaded adult attitude showing. Maybe young scared kids need a character they can identify with… but that doesn’t make a whiny dinosaur any more entertaining for adults.

While The Good Dinosaur is going to be spectacularly new for kids under 10, a lot will seem familiar to adults. This is a lot like the first Ice Age but with dinosaurs rather than wooly mammoths. Throw in all of the familiar Western tropes and there’s not a lot groundbreaking here. Also, any adult familiar with Disney movies know that if the movie starts out with two parents at the beginning, one or both of them will be dead by the end. One of the characters in this film has a massive target on their back and Pixar does not at all hesitate in taking the shot. The thing is it felt completely unnecessary. I won’t get deeper into spoilers here, but if you removed the death from the story it would be largely the same. I know Pixar has a policy of needing there to be a tear for every laugh, but it felt forced here.

There’s also one scene that stood out for me. Along their journey, Spot and Arlo accidentally eat some fermented fruit. They then have some bizarre psychedelic hallucinations. This is one of the funnier moments in the film and provides some of the trippiest visuals in Pixar history. But, if you deconstruct it, it’s a couple of minors getting high in a Disney film. I’m going to be interested to see if it gets more conservative parents up in arms and how parents are going to explain what happened to kids. Grab your popcorn and sit back and watch.

The Bottom Line:

While this was nowhere near my favorite Pixar film, it was still entertaining and worth checking out in 3D on the big screen. My 13-year-old son and 10-year-old son both liked it well enough. But I was surprised by the reaction of my 16-year-old daughter. She said it was one of her favorite Pixar movies and that she cried during it. So there you have it. If you’re any kind of Pixar fan, I think you’ll find it enjoyable on some level.