Review of The Good Dinosaur (2015) by Samichsupernova — 02 Dec 2015

I'm really conflicted on this one. On the one hand, the photo-realistic landscapes are stunningly gorgeous and there are some shots (the setting sun and the T-Rex ranchers) that will take your breath away. Some of the best moments in this film are told cinematically, without any dialogue whatsoever.

On the other hand, the story is so basic and the beats so predictable that most adults will have checked out by the time the film takes its sweet time winding down to its conclusion, which seems more like a relief than a revelation.

Don't get me wrong, there are some seriously quality scenes (the campfire with the T-Rexes, the way Arlo learns to swim, the 'howling' scene) but the whole is way less than the sum of its parts (some of which strongly resemble "The Lion King" and "The Land Before Time", both of which are clearly better films). Director Pete Sohn does his best and nails the visual tone poem side of things, but there's really only so far you can take this bare-bones coming-of-age-and-overcoming-your-fears story, especially since Pixar's "storyboard-by-committee" technique has lately resulted in their films playing it super safe so that the message translates into global box office. I'm fine with people all over the world being able to relate to their films on a deep level, but when shooting for the lowest common denominator gets to the point of robbing the work of personality and leaving the audience with a third act that runs on cruise control, it's time to dial it back a notch.

When your kid-friendly dinosaur film gets most of its personality from characters' accents, that's when you know the fact that your leads are actual DINOSAURS is underutilized and under-emphasized (throughout, the movie plays it straight, treating dinosaurs as Wild West-era Americans, and Spot as a kind of dog-human hybrid). The lead, Arlo, is actually one of the film's big problems, because the kid that voices him is so annoying I wanted to walk into the voice recording booth and shove a sock in his mouth.

Also, just so you all know, the dinosaurs are not meant to represent actual dinosaurs, but rather dinosaurs as they might have been in something likely closer to modern times had they not been wiped out.

I have been a Pixar fan since the beginning, but after "Up", their output has been really uneven, with the exception of "Inside Out", which was really well put-together but did not portray the workings of the brain with anything resembling reality. With "The Good Dinosaur," if Pixar either eschewed a script altogether and made an experimental dialogue-free film that emphasized the landscapes and mise-en-scene, or cranked out a halfway decent script that wasn't riddled with cliches, this might have even been deserving of being ranked with the likes of "Wall-E" and "Finding Nemo". Instead, it's just slightly better than "Brave" and "Cars 2".

I am giving this a 6 because I felt like it could have been so much more. Everything about this film is a missed opportunity. It was a waste of some beautiful backgrounds to pair them up with such ugly character designs, a waste of great voice talent by having them recite a script that nearly put me to sleep, and a waste of the time of their adult audience members, whose kids will probably enjoy this film once or twice but quickly get bored.