The Good Dinosaur is good but not great as Pixar Animation retreads familiar territory.
By Jim Vejvoda
The premise of Pixar’s latest animated film, The Good Dinosaur, is simple enough: What if the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs had missed the Earth? And, millions of years later, primitive humans and dinosaurs coexisted? It’s also a “boy and his dog” story, with the boy in this case being a young Apatosaurus named Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa) and his “dog” being a feral human child whom he names Spot (voiced by Jack Bright, who only grunts and howls but never actually speaks words).
While they start off more as adversaries (at least Arlo has a very specific reason to be angry with Spot), the two eventually become best friends as they traverse the unforgiving and often terrifying wilderness of prehistoric America. Along the way, the duo encounter religious zealot search-and-rescue pterodactyls, T-Rex cowboys, and raptors who rustle the T-Rexes’ herd of primeval longhorns. Mother Nature is also as much of an enemy here as any of the bad dinosaurs.
We want to hear it.
Separated from his family as they struggle to bring in the harvest (winter is coming!), Arlo finds himself alone in the wild until Spot becomes his protector and friend as they try to make their way back to Arlo’s family. Arlo will need to overcome his fears if he’s to make it home.
Spot is alone in the world, but he’s fearless and a survivor, qualities that inspire Arlo. Their bond is the best part of the film, and, with his dog-like antics, Spot steals every scene he’s in. It’s adorable and hilarious. You believe in the bond between these two, and the movie’s final moments will generate enough feels to make even the most stoic adult choke up.
But as with any Disney-Pixar film, family is central to this particular tale. Arlo is a frightened boy in awe of his wise, brave and doting Poppa (voiced by Jeffrey Wright) — and if you know anything about Disney-Pixar films then you know that no one captures and exploits childhood trauma like they do. There are moments where the film can be genuinely terrifying — enough so that it may be too extreme for very little kids — with death always right around the corner. The Good Dinosaur certainly doesn’t shy away from the ever-present mortal dangers of prehistoric times with more than a few deaths (some played for laughs, others not) occurring along the way.
To say more in this particular case would be to spoil things, but the movie’s Big Sad Moment is a trip back to the same well Pixar’s visited so many times now. And coupled with a formulaic “find your courage” plot line, The Good Dinosaur simply retreads a lot of well-worn narrative and thematic ground.
We want to hear it.
On a technical level, The Good Dinosaur is gorgeous-looking, especially its photo-realistic, Malick-worthy nature photography. Never before have water and landscapes looked so real in an animated movie.
The Good Dinosaur’s production was a highly publicized tumultuous one, complete with a director and producer change, a complete overhaul of the story, and a release date postponement of over a year. 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.
Pixar’s mantra has always been story first, and they’ve managed to salvage every one of their troubled productions, but in the case of The Good Dinosaur you can definitely feel the machinery straining to pull it off one more time.
