Review of The Good Dinosaur (2015) by Mrmoviebuff — 27 Nov 2015

It's mainly in the title, Pixar's 16th feature 'The Good Dinosaur' is...well...good! Let's start from the simple points...

...The story mainly focuses on a family of dinosaurs which mainly consists of a father (voiced by Jeffery Wright), a mother (Frances McDormand) and three little children...the main one is Arlo (Raymond Ochoa).

Arlo is pretty much like any Disney or Pixar protagonist you have seen before...a vulnerable little boy who is scared and inexperienced in life and the outside world. The story is essentially 'The Lion King' (1994) and 'Finding Nemo' (2003).

Arlo ends up missing long away from home and finds a young toddler boy who he befriends throughout his journey as they try to survive finding food and keeping away from the storm.

Arlo ends up coming across a T-Rex family, the lead who is the father named Butch (Sam Elliott) that teaches Arlo that there is nothing wrong with being scared, as long as you survive, then you will be fine.

'The Good Dinosaur' is pretty pain-by-numbers in terms of storytelling...it isn't as inventive as Pixar's previous feature 'Inside Out' (2015), a movie that nearly brought me to tears (and I rated it 10/10). Like I said earlier...it's similar to 'The Lion King' (1994) and 'Finding Nemo' (2003), the fact that it focuses on a father-and-son relationship and the son goes on an adventure to go from a boy to a man.

It's a good feature debut for director Peter Sohn, who directed the short 'Partly Cloudy' (2009). Sohn may not be among the Pixar juggernauts like John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton and Brad Bird...but he could end up getting better after a couple of more features.

All in all, 'The Good Dinosaur' is good Pixar fare...it may not be up there with 'Toy Story' (1995), 'Finding Nemo' (2003), 'The Incredibles' (2004) or even 'Inside Out' (2015)...but it is certainly better than 'Cars 2' (2011) and 'Brave' (2012)...however...it's a movie with great animation, great music and the funny moments are funny, and the sad moments are sad...like most Pixar films.