The Good Dinosaur

RATING: B-

Pixar has been skating on thin ice the last few years or so. Sure, Inside Out happened, but I was in the vast minority of people who found it decidedly average--somewhat amusing at best. Most agreed, though, that Brave and Monsters University were definitely below average for them. (And I didn't like either of them particularly.) Now, Pixar brings us their *other* 2015 movie that I think some people actually forgot about because they were more interested in Inside Out--and now, Finding Dory. 

The Good Dinosaur centers around a version of Earth where the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs missed the planet instead (barely), and the dinosaurs instead ended up becoming... farmers, in order to survive. Even many of the carnivores, it seems. (Yeah, that sounds pretty ludicrous.) Arlo is born to one such family of farmer Apatosaurus's--the runt out of three kids. And he seems to be scared of everything and is unable to perform the normal chores. It doesn't seem like he'll do well in life at first, until he's forced to when he's separated from his family. 

Forced to make a long journey home, he'll be accompanied by a human boy named Spot. And if you think the whole "farmer dinosaurs" thing is weird, you'll find this even weirder: humans in this universe apparently act a lot like dogs. At least, that's the way Spot acts, anyway. Meanwhile, Arlo will have to learn to face his fears and all of that stuff before he's able to make his journey home. 

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty pedestrian plot for Pixar. And it is. Probably the most creative thing story-wise about this film is the dinosaur farmers. It's arguably nothing you haven't seen here before (there's some Lion King *and* How to Train Your Dragon parallels here). And yeah, there are some things in this film that are pretty ludicrous--whether they're just dumb (the hallucination scene), or improbable (a dino throwing a stick at a mutant bird about a hundred yards away and striking perfectly), or just the whole "humans acting like dogs" thing. 

Despite all these things working against it, the film actually manages to be pretty decent. Let's start off with the animation. It is *incredible.* The dinos themselves may not seem realistic due to their cartoonish colors (they're still well-detailed though), but various backgrounds or shots of water or a cliff look so realistic you almost forget it's animated for a moment.

The film gets a fair amount better in the second half too. That's when they start featuring more of the action/fight scenes, and there's also a couple unexpectedly heartwarming sequences. There are some moments in this film that are as good as anything Pixar's ever done; it's sadly brought down a little bit by the moments that that are less satisfying or gripping. I wonder if the troubled production where they basically rewrote the whole thing had anything to do with some of the unevenness of this film. 

The Good Dinosaur is the best film Pixar has made in 5-6 years. It's still lower-level Pixar, but it's really the closest they've come yet to shaking themselves out of the funk they've been in lately. And even being the best of a below-average bunch for Pixar, it's still nowhere near as good as over half the films they've done before; nor is it as good as a few of the animated movies Disney's made by themselves during that same time period (Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6). 

But that said, it's really the first film in a while from Pixar that I've actually really felt like I'd want to watch again at some point in the future. It actually gives me hope that Pixar can get back to the level they once were at. And even though this film could've been a lot better, I will still accept it for now, and wait for Pixar's next few movies to come out and see if they fare better.