A caveboy and an Apatosaurus are friends struggling to save each other in the Pixar animated movie “The Good Dinosaur”. Compared to that offering, most animated films would fall short.
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Still, families will, and should, flock to this not-so-gentle tale of a dinosaur and his boy on a road trip. Of course, there’s a family of Tyrannosaurus Rexes – with the leader voiced by Sam Elliott while the siblings are voiced by Anna Paquin and A.J. Buckley – who symbolize cowboys as they move their herd across the plains.
Spot – a pre-verbal prehistoric child who rapidly moves on all fours (Jack Bright provides his grunts) – teaches the awkward Arlo how to survive in the wilderness.
Will you be watching “The Good Dinosaur”?
The Good Dinosaur is good but not great as Pixar Animation retreads familiar territory. The Good Dinosaur’s scenery and landscape are stunning, however even more impressive is how the studio has mastered just how dust, wind, and water float and flow with such a natural movement. The Good Dinosaur is a very well put together film.
“A lot about this little posse of T-Rexes is just really cool and, like most Pixar things, going to take people by surprise”, she said. He gets annoyed when his explanation doesn’t seem to be getting through, but Spot responds in kind, a communication breakthrough followed by a tear-jerking, much-needed snuggle from the little boy. Voiced by the film’s director Peter Sohn, Forrest carries around a collection of animals who “protect” him in hilariously outrageous ways.
The Good Dinosaur is rated G. Given a few million years to evolve further, they’ve become the planet’s dominant species, capable of speech, agriculture, tools and more. Perhaps it’s as a result of these internal issues that the film, while perfectly enjoyable, nevertheless feels formulaic (especially coming on the heels of the beloved Inside Out), mining tropes and elements from past Pixar and Disney films.
It nearly goes without saying the animation is stunningly attractive and director Peter Sohn finds the ideal mix of humor and emotion that makes this movie a joy to watch. There is nothing necessarily wrong with these scenes as they are important to the plot, but I feel if the filmmakers reworked these scenes to appear less like The Lion King, the film would have benefitted greatly.
This is the most ideal “a boy and his dog” movie ever made- except that the boy in question is a dinosaur.
As well as being the second film for Pixar in 2015, “The Good Dinosaur” is Pixar film to be released for Thanksgiving in the USA since “Toy Story 2″, the first one to have a November release since “The Incredibles”, and the first one to not be released in June since “Up” in 2009.
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The feature’s visuals are also cutting edge and go over and beyond what Pixar has done in the past.
