Film Review: The Good Dinosaur

The Good Dinosaur is built around a “what if?” premise that the film’s trailers have likely already explained to you: what if the meteor responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago had just zoomed past earth, uninterrupted? Pixar takes this scenario and imagines dinosaurs that have evolved to become an advanced species, while humans still walk around on all fours in a pre-Neanderthal kind of way

The central story being told here, revolves around Arlo, a young dinosaur who becomes separated from his family after being provoked by a human child. The two are forced to overcome their initially perceived differences and gaps in overall mental capacity; having to rely on each other in order for Arlo to conquer his fears of the unknown so that he can find his way home.

The first thing one is bound to notice is how incredible The Good Dinosaur looks. From the hypnotic flowing water, to the shining brilliance of snowy mountaintops, to the painstaking detail of the lush forests, it is unbelievable how photorealistic the geography is. However, while the quality of the animation is sublime, the overall presentation suffers a bit due to the out-of-place cartoonishness of the dinosaurs themselves–they stick out like a sore thumb against such authentic landscapes. Cartoonish though they may appear, the film still manages to do some incredible things animating the various species of dinosaurs; Arlo, especially, the bruising and physical wear and tear his adventure has on his body is shown with great yet subtle detail.

As great as Arlo looks, overly cartoonish or not, he is, unfortunately, insufferable as a main character. He is frightened of anything and everything, and it ends up becoming the only memorable thing about him. Nearly every step forward in the story is a result of one of Arlo’s irrational fear-induced episodes and it gets old quickly. He becomes little more than a plot-device to keep things moving. In a film dealing implicitly with the effects of evolution, it becomes clear that Arlo might have been better off experiencing the effects of natural selection.

Arlo’s journey toward self-confidence does eventually begin, kicking off with the friendship he comes to establish with Spot, the film’s token boisterous, silly, apelike, human character. Spot is a lot of fun to have onscreen, although he falls victim to the recent animation cliché of being more of a dog in nature, than an actual portrayal of a prehistoric person. He pants with his tongue out, sniffs the ground, howls at the moon, etc. It’s cute, but he essentially has more in common with the moose from Frozen or the horse from Tangled than something resembling a person.  

Overall, there is a striking lack of originality or creativity in The Good Dinosaur, especially given its distinction as a Pixar movie. It struggles as a film to establish any real narrative identity that goes beyond material that doesn’t feel like it is being lifted directly from films like The Lion King, Ice Age, or Finding Nemo.

Beyond the lack of original ideas, as the film progresses it becomes less and less apparent why this story requires the presence of dinosaurs at all. There is hardly anything novel about the way the movie uses them. There are no jokes about the meteor, no jabs at evolution, no conjecture as to what will become of these silly humans, nothing like that. It is a major missed opportunity for the film to feature anything memorable or particularly noteworthy to supplement a storyline that Pixar is essentially knocking off from previous projects.

The film itself is a marvel of technical achievement and looks better than anything Pixar has ever made, making it all the more disappointing that there is very little to sustain the viewer once the novelty of the aesthetics begins to wear off. In the hands of the Pixar of old, The Good Dinosaur might have been something special, but when compared with the impact left by Woody and Buzz, and other famous duo’s, much like the meteor that misses the earth, Arlo and Spot fail to hit their mark.