By Bob Garver<\/p>\n
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In reading reviews of Pixar\u2019s \u201cThe Good Dinosaur,\u201d I\u2019ve noticed a lot of critics making fun of the film\u2019s title. Some are calling it \u201cThe Bad Dinosaur.\u201d Most recognize that it deserves better and call it \u201cThe Mediocre Dinosaur\u201d or something middling like that. I think that \u201cThe Good Dinosaur\u201d is accurate enough, though given the heights reached by other films in the Pixar canon, it\u2019s a little disappointing that I can\u2019t bring myself to call it \u201cThe Great Dinosaur.\u201d<\/p>\n
The stretch of a premise is that the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs missed the Earth, so dinosaurs are still thriving here at the dawn of Man. Along the way, dinosaurs taught themselves how to develop tools, farm, and speak English. Young Arlo (Raymond Ochoa) is an adorable Apatosaurus who wants to help out and \u201cmake his mark\u201d on his family\u2019s farm. The problem is that he\u2019s afraid of creatures not a hundredth of his size, like chickens and human children. But his stern father (Jeffrey Wright) insists that he contribute by dealing with these pesky critters. A human hunt turns into a family tragedy (this is still a Disney\/Pixar film, after all) and Arlo swears revenge on the tyke indirectly responsible. He aggressively yet fearfully chases the child into the wilderness and ends up in danger. Wouldn\u2019t you know it, the kid rescues him. Arlo needs to survive for a while and ultimately get home, and he needs the help of his friendly mortal enemy to do it.<\/p>\n
The film is a \u201cmismatched pair on a journey\u201d story, with the twist being that the pair is a talking dinosaur and a non-talking human. The human is at a very early stage in his evolution, so much that he basically acts like a dog. He\u2019s even given the name \u201cSpot\u201d by Arlo. Arlo and Spot have all the typical wilderness adventures, from finding food to bonding over lost family (an impressive scene sees them illustrating their families with sticks) to fighting off predators. Along the way, they meet some colorful characters, including a horned beast with an ineffective team of small woodland creatures at his disposal (the character is interesting, but it\u2019s clear that the script has no use for him), a team of villainous pterodactyls (the otherwise-heroic Arlo frankly loses some of my respect over something he does to their leader), and a family of T-Rex cowboys. Yes, cowboys. This has not been marketed as a cowboy movie, but for a while it really turns into one.<\/p>\n
The cowboy stuff is something of an awkward fit, though Sam Elliot as the family\u2019s patriarch is one of the film\u2019s highlights, and it\u2019s one of the few times the film actually tries something unique. Otherwise it\u2019s a pretty standard adventure movie where the main character has to overcome fear and prejudice in order to survive. It\u2019s like the writers thought that if they made their main character a talking dinosaur with a pet human, we wouldn\u2019t notice that this is a story that\u2019s been done many times before. Then again, the target audience for this movie is kids, so maybe they haven\u2019t seen this story enough times to be sick of it. Still, this is not one of those Pixar movies with a lot of multigenerational appeal.<\/p>\n
I wish the best for \u201cThe Good Dinosaur,\u201d I really do. The animation, especially the scenery, is beautiful; and there are enough funny and touching moments that it certainly qualifies as a \u201cgood\u201d movie. I\u2019ve seen trailers for the other kids\u2019 movies that are coming up this holiday season, and I feel pretty safe saying that this will be by far the least painful. This isn\u2019t one of Pixar\u2019s better movies, but Pixar has never made a bad movie, and this one does not break its streak of overall competence.<\/p>\n
Two and a Half Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Good Dinosaur\u201d is rated PG for peril, action and thematic elements. Its running time is 100 minutes.<\/p>\n