For the first time ever Pixar has released two animated features in a single year but can The Good Dinosaur live up to the standard already set by Inside Out? We find out.
Pixar have set movies in a child’s bedroom (and beyond!), under the sea, in a world creepily populated only by cars (where does the oil come from?), in the future, in the mind of a teenager and now in a world where Dinosaurs never went extinct. A couple of million years after the asteroid was supposed to wipe out the dinosaurs, they’ve evolved a simple agrarian society (although we won’t get to see very much of it in the movie) building rough homes and growing crops using their natural abilities (tilling the soil using their broad heads, using simple tools to distribute seeds in the tilled rows and irrigating their crops by essentially spraying water all over their field from their mouths).
In this world a pair of Apatosauruses welcome 3 new additions to their family farm, their freshly hatched children Buck, Libby and littlest of all, Arlo. In this family each member is expected to “make their mark”; set out to accomplish something and achieve it, and while Libby and Buck overcome difficulties and make their marks, little Arlo, seemingly afraid of everything, struggles to find anywhere he can excel.
Darn Critters
Hoping a new task will inspire him, Arlo’s “Poppa” finally assigns him to “Critter Patrol”; protecting the family’s winter food stores from a mysterious unseen creature, however after chasing it too near to the river, both the critter, a small cave boy and Arlo are swept far away from home, with no familiar landmarks apart from the river to guide them home. Arlo now has to learn how to fend for himself, try to overcome his fears and find his way home. Along the way he’ll find help from unexpected places and also happen across those who’s intentions are not as helpful as they seem.
The Voyage Home
Pixar have crafted a Dinosaur version of Disney classics like The Incredible Journey, or if you prefer Finding Nemo if it only focused on Nemo the whole time, as the action stays with Arlo and his companion for the whole film, never leaving their journey to cut back to the situation back home.
As Arlo spends much of the film yelling, being knocked over and getting concussed and as his companion doesn’t talk, communicating only in grunts, growls and pants (he’s essentially a clever dog) there’s little opportunity for the banter and humour that road trip movies like Finding Nemo contained, and as a result the film does feel as if it’s aimed at a slightly younger audience than many of Pixar’s films, or at least it’s missing that extra layer that Pixar usually build in to entertain parents as well as children. The look of the film reinforces this, Arlo being a strangely gangly, cartoonish dinosaur walking though a beautifully realised, almost too realistic world.
Prehistoric Uncanny Valley?
Pixar were probably trying to avoid the semi-realistic look of the Dinos in Disney flop Dinosaur however it can look a little weird at times. That said there are some absolutely breathtakingly beautiful moments in the film, one of the most impressive being a soft focus shot of light on water, it’s so simple but it looks almost real. The film is peppered with moments like these but then the slightly bug eyed dinosaurs show up and the realism and cartoonish-ness clash. The Ice Age films avoided this problem by stylizing both their creatures and their environments in a similar manner. That said the little cave boy is incredibly cute and endearing.
Not to say that any of this makes The Good Dinosaur a bad film, the relationship between Arlo and the cave boy is beautifully realised and the film is enjoyable from moment to moment, but it might not have the rewatchability of its Pixar stablemates.
Just because it’s aimed at slightly younger audience doesn’t mean that Pixar have cut back on emotionally devastating their audience either, an early Bambi-like moment may be too much for very young children to handle and there are at least two other moments that will have audiences in tears.
Pixar have gotten so good at this it almost evil how they play with people’s emotions.
Another Inside Out?
The Good Dinosaur doesn’t quite live up to the bar set by Inside Out, It’s a much simpler, smaller feeling story, despite Inside Out taking place mostly inside a child’s head while this is set across a wide swath of what we can only assume to be the continental USA, there’s just not as many stand-out characters and events as the wildly inventive Inside Out.
The Good Dinosaur also suffers from a slightly anti-climactic ending, as the final scene takes place immediately after the emotional climax of the film, leaving the actual conclusion feeling a little unnecessary.
The Good Dinosaur is an enjoyable, if straightforward, tale of fathers and sons, “people” and pets, and overcoming your fears to achieve something bigger than yourself.
Sanjay’s Super Team
As with many Pixar movies The Good Dinosaur is also accompanied by a short animation, Sanjay’s Super Team, which depicts an adventure in the mind of a young Indian boy which tries to mix his modern, superhero obsessed life with the Hindu rituals of his father. This short is far more enjoyable than the Lava short that preceeded Inside Out, as it’s a far more thrilling affair with Hindu deities battling evil spirits with little Sanjay caught up in the middle. It’s a fun, sweet little adventure that leads nicely into the main film
The Good Dinosaur
Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Steve Zahn, Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin
Directed by: Peter Sohn
Official Site here.
