Im not going to compare The Good Dinosaur to any previous Pixar films in this review. As good as Pixar's track record is The Good Dinosaur deserves to be compared on its own merits; what does it bring to the table and what does it not?
What if the meteor that destroyed the dinosaurs millions of years ago didn't? What would the world look like years later? Good Dinosaur has a unique answer to that question and uses the phenomena to construct a familiar boy and his dog story, except this time the boy is an Apatosaurus named Arlo and the dog is an actual boy named Spot.
The greatest strength of The Good Dinosaur is in its set up. Its genius, simple and unique providing for a feel that is all its own; yet despite its refreshing ideas The Good Dinosaur borrows more from stories before it then it really should. Arlo is strong yet timid, Spot is fierce yet innocent in nature. From the start of the story you know where its heading and it doesn't take any turns form there. There is the obligatory I hate you phase between Arlo and Spot, the bonding phase after that, and plenty of cliches. Another strike against it are the side characters. The secondary characters were really annoying and felt forced in this movie; outside a pet collecting triceratops and an enlightened pterodactyl I just wanted all of them to go away. There was also an annoying subplot carried throughs the film which served as a literal translation of Arlo's development of a character. When something is subtle it risks the danger of being overlooked yet in this case when something is so obvious it instead feels like the filmmakers spoon-feeding the meat of the story to you instead of allowing the audience to interpret a work of art.
It seems like Im being to hard on the Good Dinosaur, and I don't want to come across to cynical because thats not the case. I liked this film, I liked the story and liked a couple of characters. There is a scene in this movie that takes place between Arlo and Spot at night I think is very touching, but its just one scene. I don't think I like it enough to recommend it to anybody outside of kids who are hungry for stimulus. I doubt I will have the urge to watch it again and in hindsight it wont be one of my top three animated movies this year (and there weren't that many). Overall the movie is just ok, its clever and also really cliche and overdone. The nail in the coffin for me might be the character models which agains the beautiful back drops and animation just seem out of place. That on top of a vanilla experience makes the Good Dinosaur only just good enough to be a consideration but not a must see.
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