It’s a harrowing tale of survival in one of the most dangerous and vicious terrains known to man, as a scared and callow young boy, having only recently witnessed the death of his father during a brutal flood, must find his way home with the aid of a feral and wild child of the forest. Oh yeah, and before I go any further, I should admit that this is a kids movie, made by Pixar.
The Good Dinosaur is set in an alternate universe where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs missed the Earth and now dinosaurs have become farmers that live off the land. When young Arlo, a frightened and weak-willed Brachiosaurus, is separated from his family when he is washed away down the river, he must find his way home with the help of a young neanderthal boy. Along the way he meets an assortment of other colourful dinosaurs (which all seem to have weird Nebraska accents) and learns to face his fears as he bonds with an unlikely friend.
This is the second Pixar movie this year, and if that seems unusually frequent for the animation studio then that’s because this was originally supposed to be released back in the middle of 2014. However Pixar decided to scrap the release in favour of redoing the film from scratch, this meant firing the whole production team and starting again. Did this bold move pay off? For the most part, yes.
Firstly, the animation is beautiful. The backgrounds and settings are truly amazing, it’s gorgeous to see water running off leaves or a swarm of birds taking off as young Arlo runs through them. The landscapes are photo-realistic, yet almost more beautiful than anything that we can see in nature, this is then mixed with colourful animated dinosaurs to make a unique looking animation that is different from previous Pixar efforts. The two main characters play off each other very well, however Arlo does become annoying from time to time. Spot, the silent part of the pairing, does well at articulating emotions in ways that only Pixar can.
The film’s storyline is fairly simple: little lost boy, or little lost Brachiosaurus, must find his way home and learn how to be brave. It’s easy enough to follow for kids, however it may be too simple for adults, which is unusual for a Pixar movie. This one seems to lack a lot of the nuances and clever catering to adults that we have in normal Pixar movies. The two main characters just seem to float in to other characters stories ever so briefly and then move on, there is no clear “big bad” nor are there any characters that really stick with you after they have left the screen. The narrative itself is very scattered and often lacks a sense of purpose. All of this could be because of the rewrites, but the animation certainly makes up for a lot of the films short comings.
Overall, this is not the best of the Pixar movies and you can’t help but wonder what the original version of this film could have been like, however, even the weakest Pixar movie is better than most movies released today.
The Good Dinosaur gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five eye-wateringly beautiful shots of rain running of prehistoric leaves)
No comments:
Post a Comment