The Good Dinosaur
2.5 Waffles!

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.