The Good (?) Dinosaur

                When I saw the first teaser for The Good Dinosaur I was excited! It looked bold, clever, and visually magnificent. There was no dialogue, and the set-up seemed promising. Pixar already made a comeback with Inside Out (still the best film I’ve seen this year) and now it looked like they would be upping their game even more. Now I’ve been to see it and it’s …okay.

                The premise depicts a world in which dinosaurs never went extinct and over millions of years evolved up to the point when humans came along. The story in this set-up follows a young Apatosaurus called Arlo the weakest in his family, who gets lost after a personal tragedy, and with the help of an infant human he names Spot, tries to find his way home again.

                It sounds like a familiar set-up, which it is; and which is the biggest problem of The Good Dinosaur. The prehistoric-creature-must-find-it’s-way-home story has been done a surprising number of times and it hasn’t been done excitingly or fresh since The Land Before Time. Even having a child along for the journey and characterizing that child as pet-like isn’t really new. Throughout the film I was hoping it would go in some interesting directions with this, but it’s fairly straightforward and predictable. Which is a shame because given the context of this world, where dinosaurs have evolved to talk, rationalize, and irrigate, there are so many greater possibilities and stories to explore, rather than focus just on this story and relationship that’s been done and done better in the past. The characters aren’t very interesting and don’t develop in unexpected ways. A lot of elements in this film feel borrowed from The Land Before Time, key among them being how Arlo is no different from Littlefoot. He’s just as naïve, just as fearful, just as much an underdog, and develops his courage and determination at a very similar pace. Spot is every excitable, energetic, loyal-to-a-fault, primal kid type. The only characters with some creativity to them are the side dinosaurs we meet along the way. They include a gang of suspicious pterodactyls, a family of tyrannosaur rustlers led by a brilliantly cast Sam Elliott, and some raptors on the loose from the set of Deliverance. The scenes with these characters in particular make the film feel like a western which I admit gives it a unique if odd characteristic.

The saving grace of the film however is its animation which is very pretty. Particularly the landscapes look right out of a nature documentary (and one set in our own Canadian backyard at that). Though I feel at times it’s too photorealistic, so that you forget the film is animated which I think distracts from the art of animation oh a whole. But the panoramic shots like in the trailer, are wonderful and lend a sense of grandness to the world and the firefly sequences are captivating. The characters are also very distinctly designed and expressive, enough so that I do really think this film would have been better without dialogue. That was the impression the first teaser gave me and I think this film could really have been remarkable if it was purely visual. Another interesting aspect is how dark the film is.  The situations are perilous and grim even though we know the outcome. When the inevitable tragedy occurs, I was surprised how unrelentingly swift it was, and it left a suitable impact.

There are definitely some good moments in The Good Dinosaur and the animation is wondrous, but it does suffer from a bland story and characters that feel like a waste of a promising set-up. It’s unfunny, unoriginal, and tries too hard to be cute and emotional. But it tries harder than the Ice Age movies. If you’re curious, I’d recommend it only for the visuals; and for the short in front of the film called "Sanjay's Super Team" which is a vibrant display of colour and creativity, much better than the film that succeeds it.