The
Good Dinosaur
The movie serves as another helpful reminder how everything in nature
wants to kill you.
In this animated feature where dinosaurs talk, humans act like dogs,
and both co-exist because the big bad asteroid that exterminated
dinosaurs from the planet missed the target, Raymond Ochoa provides the
voice of Arlo – an undersized, fearful dinosaur working on
Mom (Frances McDormand) and Dad’s (Jeffrey Wright) farm.
While his brother and sister seem to be growing into adulthood, Arlo
still fears everything around him and doesn’t appear to be
tough enough to make it in this dangerous world.
When tragedy strikes, Arlo is forced to face his shortcomings,
especially when he becomes separated from the rest of his family and
his only friend on the long journey to find home is a strange boy, Spot
(Jack Bright).
The Good
Dinosaur is a movie that
delivers a few memorable, emotional moments, but is too simple to be
anything other than average.
When I saw the film, director Peter Sohn was featured in an opening
sequence making an impassioned speech about how the movie shows us
communication without words. There are moments when The Good Dinosaur
delivers on that promise as the audience is moved to tears seeing the
two young, scared boys demonstrating the story of their broken lives
and finding a connection without any common language between them.
Then, the script gets in the way.
Maybe they should have eliminated all of the dialogue. The
Good Dinosaur isn’t
horrible, but the creative team relies too much on frenetic action to
fill time, instead of building up the characters and story beyond
intermediary levels. It’s safe to say these are the guys and
gals who were leftover and available, while their colleagues were hired
to work on Inside Out.
I also wish the animation was more consistent. Sohn and the team
deliver stunning, realistic nature scenes on one hand. Then, give us
cartoonish looking characters on the other. The two don’t go
together.
The Good
Dinosaur is a decent movie for
kids who can handle the most frightening of scenarios (characters
facing the possibility of becoming dinner for other characters, and a
huge Bambi/Lion King moment).
The Good Dinosaur is rated PG for peril, action
and thematic elements.
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