[Movie Review] The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Posted on November 29, 2015 by thegrandshuckett in Movie Reviews // 0 Comments

Director: Peter Sohn

Writers: Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Meg LeFauve, Kelsey Mann, Bob Peterson

Runtime: 100 min

Main Cast:

Jeffrey Wright as Poppa (voice)
Frances McDormand as Momma (voice)
Maleah Nipay-Padilla as Young Libby (voice)
Ryan Teeple as Young Buck (voice)
Jack McGraw as Young Arlo (voice)

Review: by Faith & Marie

We had high hopes for the newest addition to the Disney/Pixar family, however, The Good Dinosaur didn't quite live up to our expectations.

The Good Dinosaur definitely has its tear-jerking induced moments, but it feels emotionally manipulative considering the story isn’t there to back up the scenes. Unlike previous Pixar films, like Up and Wall-E, The Good Dinosaur just tosses out emotional scenes whenever it feels like it, instead of building up the character narrative that naturally leads to emotional revelations. The Good Dinosaur is about one young Apatosaurus and his journey to discover himself, which is almost impossible to do in a film with little direction.

The film follows Arlo, the runt of his family, who lives his day to day life in a constant state of fear. He can never seem to match up to his siblings accomplishments and he feels that he never will. The family is working hard on their farm to grow and collect food for the upcoming winter, but some creature has been getting into and eating their stored food. Arlo’s dad gives him the special task of catching the creature. Together they set a trap and Arlo is supposed to watch the trap and bash and kill the animal once caught. The creature that gets caught in the trap turns out to be a young wild boy, and due to Arlo’s fear and also compassion, he releases the boy instead of bashing him. Arlo’s father becomes angry and forces him to chase after the boy, running head into an oncoming storm and pushing Arlo passed his limits. The creature gets away but returns another day and Arlo ends up falling into the large river trying to catch him and they both get swept far away from home. The remainder of the film follows Arlo as he struggles to find his way home. The wild boy, Spot, follows along and becomes protective of Arlo and the two become loyal friends on their journey home.

What We Liked:

One of our favorite scenes was where Arlo and Spot are first able to clearly communicate with each other. Arlo explains about his family and how he misses them, and Spot is able to show Arlo that he had had a family, but lost them. The two had a special familial bond after that.

Disney Pixar movies are usually top notch animation, but they blew us away with the detailing in this movie. Everything was bold, vivid and extremely lifelike in The Good Dinosaur.

What We Didn’t Like:

We were not entirely thrilled with Spot being portrayed as a dog. He was basically Arlo’s pet who, protected, provided, and cuddled with him. He crawled around on all fours, growling and barking like a dog until the end of the movie, and we feel that his character was never properly developed.

Summary

Overall we give the movie a 3 out of 5 stars, it was brightly colored, and had some comical moments. But the story was hard to follow at times and just didn’t flow together cohesively.

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