Disney / Pixar
By this point it’s probably already known that Pixar had their first “failure” with this movie, at least financially. But was it a really a failure otherwise?
The Good Dinosaur is the latest Pixar movie in a year where we’ve already gotten Inside Out, one of the best movies of the year. Compared to that, The Good Dinosaur can’t help but disappoint. The movie is a bit tonally odd, as I’ll explain. There is a central conceit about it all, that the world in the movie is the result of chance long ago. 65 million years ago an asteroid struck the Earth, causing the extinction of all the dinosaurs. But what if it hadn’t? What if instead we got the movie Super Mario Brothers where dinosaurs evolved into humanlike creatures? Or what if they were giant puppets that worked with humans like Theodore Rex? Thankfully, nobody saw either of those two terrible movies so we’ll never know.
In The Good Dinosaur, we pick up on Earth a few million years after the extinction event is avoided. We start with a family of Apatosaurus with a father (Jeffrey Wright), a mother (Frances McDormand), and three dino kids. Libby and Buck are the eldest and are hard workers, but then there’s Arlo (Raymond Ochoa). Arlo is the runt of the “litter,” much smaller than his siblings. He’s also a bit of a coward, which means he’ll need to learn to get over it. Again, pretty predictable. Arlo craves success and purpose and wants to make his father proud.
The movie thankfully doesn’t make Poppa dinosaur a jerk or a cad; he truly believes in his son and wants him to succeed. That said, this being a Pixar and a Disney movie, soon there’s tragedy and we’re just invested enough to care. Some “critter” has been stealing food from their farm, so Arlo and his father set up a trap — turns out it’s a feral little caveboy (Jack Bright). But Arlo can’t bring himself to kill the caveboy, disappointing his father. And things get worse.
Soon after, while chasing angrily after the caveboy, Arlo falls into a river and gets swept far away from his home. So we’ve got a two-part quest: Get home and get over that pesky cowardice problem. Pretty simplistic, but that’s alright. Turns out, of course, that the caveboy is around and hey, he’s not so bad! Slowly Arlo begins to form a bond with the caveboy, who is 100% treated like a pet dog. If it’s not already obvious, Arlo eventually gives the caveboy the name Spot.
Spot’s actually a pretty great character, vicious and fearless, but also quite loyal to Arlo. The humor lies in seeing the little kid growl and attack much larger beasts. But then the movie takes some odd turns. They meet up with a crazed band of pterodactyls that worship the storm, and Spot might be in danger. After that, there’s a weird Western style subplot. Arlo and Spot run into a bunch of friendly Tyrannosaurs (led by Sam Elliot as the T-rex dad) who are essentially cowboys and horses in one.
They actually have a “herd” of large buffalo like beasts and have to deal with “rustlers,” which are velociraptors (and they actually have feathers, which was a shock because that’s a pretty recent discovery). The problem with this subplot is that the Western theme seems like a bit of a joke, but the whole point is to give Arlo a growth opportunity.
So I’ve complained already about some of the problems, and here’s another one: the movie is a bit all over the place. I’ve since discovered the production was a bit troubled, and it comes across in the final product. That said, there’s good here too. The movie is visually stunning, with the natural world coming across more realistically than anything I’ve ever seen in animation. Pixar is still good at tugging those heartstrings, and I definitely felt a little something at a few points in the movie. The voice acting is also excellent, including the two kids, which is kind of important as they’re alone for most of the movie.
There are some pretty scary scenes here, probably actually too intense for very young kids. That’s another problem here: I’m not sure about the target audience. It almost seems to be a hodgepodge of different things Pixar wanted: a story about a dinosaur and his pet human, a Western themed adventure, a story about man vs nature, and a showcase for new animation tricks. Some of that worked, some didn’t.
The Good Dinosaur is far from a bad movie, but I can’t put it among the top Pixar movies by any stretch. I liked it, but I don’t feel a need to see it again, unlike Inside Out, which wrecked me even when I rewatched it. Probably okay to wait for the home release on this one.
Did you see The Good Dinosaur? Tell us what you thought in the comments below.
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