Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and today, we come to the conclusion of Dino-Rama. Alas, we aren't going out with a bang but rather a whimper as we look at Pixar's latest film. Last year, Pixar released 2 movies, Inside Out, one of the greatest and most complex movies that they have ever made and perhaps the most gut-wrenching film that they have ever done. And they were able to give the core emotions more personality beyond their core emotion. Take for example, my favorite character, Disgust is more than just that. I'll sing the praises of Inside Out anyday of the week but then we come to the second movie that they released last year, The Good Dinosaur. And this doesn't even feel like it was made by the people at Pixar.
The quality of this film puts it below Cars 2 in how bad it is (and keep in mind, I like the first Cars). I can safely say that in my opinion that is my least favorite Pixar film of all time. If it were not for Dino-Rama, I would not be reviewing this film as the trailers turned me off from the outset. And while I normally try to not let a trailer influence my opinion, I am saddened to say that my worst fears turned out to be right. The Good Dinosaur is easily one of the laziest, most pandering Pixar movies or animated movies that I have ever seen. Parts of the film feel like it ripped off other movies such as The Lion King and Dumbo and I swear at one point, a character shows up, that I half expected to hear Chris Hansen say, that the character was on To Catch A Predator.
Oh, I WISH!!!! That would have made the movie so much more interesting. But perhaps the biggest thing that infuriates me is how gorgeous the background animation is. It's so beautiful and photoelastic that it looks as though, you are looking at a picture. Something that not even Dinosaur (2000) could pull off with using real locations.
It's up there with the likes of The Blue Umbrella in how gorgeous it is but it is constantly clashing with the rather cartoony designs of the characters. Most especially, the main character Arlo.
And the worst part of this is, that someone I am a fan of, Nick Pitera did the background animation for The Good Dinosaur. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he sang the gum jingle in Inside Out. Oh, and you can also hear him shortly in Zootopia. Oh well, at least he has done work for a lot of other Pixar movies that are great. With this rant out of the way, let's get this started.
The Plot
The film opens with a scene that posits, what if the meteor that wiped out all the dinosaurs missed.
I hope that you like that conceit because the film really doesn't do jack squat with it as we fast forward, millions of years later and we are introduced to the main family and while I won't call this one a ripoff, the start of this film opens in a vein that feel a bit similar to Finding Nemo. However, that is only one of the few times that this movie doesn't feel derivative. We are next introduced to a family of Apatosaurus farmers. Yes, that is an odd concept but toys coming to life worked and while most people will not agree with my sentiment that Pixar made the idea of talking cars work, I thought the first Cars film was pretty good. So, the concept isn't inherently bad and it could have worked but somewhere along the way, the team working on this film fumbled the ball and left the stadium leaving only the halftime show to fill in and the best that they could find for halftime was Vanilla Ice singing Ninja Rap & Ice Ice Baby for 9 sets straight.
We first meet Henry and his wife, Ida as they watch the birth of their children as they have 3 eggs about to hatch and the biggest egg is the last to hatch and in I guess what is supposed to be this film's version of irony, the biggest egg housed the tiniest child.
And even as a baby, I couldn't get into Arlo because it felt like the film was trying too hard to make him cutesy. If I may, I'd like to bring up two other characters that we are introduced as babies.
We are introduced to both Dumbo and Simba as babies and yes, there is an "Aww" moment because well, they are cute but they never cross into the territory of being overly cutesy because they still feel like real children, when you are first introduced to them as babies but with Arlo, you get the feeling that the film wants you to have that same "Aww" moment but baby Arlo almost looks creepy in how cartoony he is and it takes away from him feeling like an actual child. And things only go downhill from there as Arlo grows up and we see him become a young dinosaur. He has one simple job on the farm, feed the chickens but he can't even do that right as he is scared of the chickens, his shadow, and everything and anything that moves.
This becomes so irritating because it never feels like Arlo ever grows or develops throughout the film. Honestly, while I was watching this film, I was thinking to myself that Fluttershy would tell Arlo to toughen up. And this brings us to our next point as Arlo's main goal in the beginning of the film is to earn a mark on the silo that his father built because getting a mark there means that you have done proven your worth. And as time goes on, we see that Arlo's siblings, Buck & Libby have earned their marks. Oh, I'm sorry that I didn't really go into much detail about them before but the film save for maybe one scene forgets that they exist. So, after being bullied by his brother, Buck who pretended that he was dying, Arlo's poppa, Henry has an idea on how to help him get over his fears. (Does it involve turning off the movie? ) No, rather it involves taking his son out at night and showing him the majesty of fireflies. A scene that would have been so much more effective if Arlo wasn't afraid of every little thing in front of him but it seems to work and Henry gives Arlo, a new job to earn his mark.
A little critter has been eating their food in the silo and Henry puts him in charge of protecting the silo and all seems to going well as the critter, we later learn is named Spot is captured but Arlo doesn't have the heart to kill him as it's just a kid. Henry sees this and disappointed in his son decides to take Arlo with him to teach him a lesson as they go after the critter. But this soon turns out to be a mistake as a flood is coming and Henry realizes that he has pushed his boy too far and decides that it's time to go home and in a scene that feels like, it's trying to be a second-rate version of Mufasa's death from The Lion King, Henry is killed (and as I will discuss, there is a scene later on in the film that makes me lose any respect for the tragedy that Arlo went through).
Again with the design here, I know the scene is saying that I should feel sad by Arlo's loss and feel for him as he mourns of the loss of his father but that design for Pixar is laughably bad. It looks less like someone about to die and more like he's about to breakout into a musical number. Again, to bring up The Lion King, let's look at Mufasa's face, when he was about to die.
You can truly sense the fear in Mufasa's face there as you see that there is nothing that he can do and while Henry's death is going for the same thing, the expression on Henry's face just doesn't have the right impact. It's less the agony of death and more that he got a thorn stuck in his foot. While, there is a sense of pain in Henry's face, it is sending the wrong message of pain. Any weight and gravitas meant to be associated with this scene is lost on the viewer because the look on Henry's face is not the right type of expression.
With Henry now gone, Arlo has to take on more work at the farm. I can only imagine how that news was handled. But here's something that bugged me about this scene, after Henry passed away, we only ever see Arlo & Ida working on the farm. Seeming to imply that Buck & Libby have moved away from the family farm but that is not the case at all as when Arlo returns home from his journey, we see his siblings there greeting him.
Arlo soon discovers the feral caveboy, Spot in the silo eating all of their food and Arlo is understandably upset and this leads to a chase between Arlo and Spot causing Arlo to fall into a river and Arlo can't swim What can he do? The next morning, Arlo wakes up and discovers that he is far from home and now he has to survive with no one but the caveboy that he is mad at by his side. Arlo soon becomes trapped under a boulder as his tail is caught there and he can't move to save a darn. Spot comes back numerous times with food such as at one point, we see bite off the head of a bug. Movie, here's the thing, The Lion King is able to get away with that because it's easier for human to accept animals such as a warthog and a meerkat eating, then when compared to a young child and also, it wasn't as grotesque. Arlo awakes the next morning to find that his tail has been freed and Spot has brought him berries and he soon leads them to the rest of them. And this is after, we get easily the most pointless scene in the whole movie. At one point, Spot and Arlo digest some rotten fruit and it leads into a hallucination sequence that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It in part felt like the movie was trying to have a Pink Elephants sequence but the thing is, the visuals were more jarring than weird and surreal. And there was barely any set up to it at all. It came across as though, whoever decided to include this scene, just went down the hall to find Cheech Marin while he was recording lines for Cars 3 and asked him for his brownie recipe to get the rest of the crew to go along with this scene. After this, Arlo is attacked by a ferocious snake and okay, this is the one time that I'll let Arlo's fear slide.
Spot defends Arlo from the snake and impressing a nearby dinosaur, i.e creeper (the character that Chris Hansen is waiting for) with his skills as he wants the boy to protect him as he has other animals that protect him.
And in attempt to keep him, Arlo competes in a naming contest as they go through a laundry list of names until the boy responds to the name, Spot. Okay, so now the movie is a journey home and the story of a boy and his dog but in this case, the boy is the dog. Which brings up something that has bugged me with this movie since the first trailer hit. Why haven't the humans evolved past an animalistic state? You can keep the dinosaurs as the dominant species but it's stated at the beginning of this film that it's set millions of years after the meteor missed in this alternate timeline. I understand that the filmmakers wanted to try and have a unique spin on the boy and his dog story but it just baffles me that while dinosaurs have evolved to the point, that they can run a farm, humans have not and are treated like animals. And sure, one might make the comparison to the TV show, Dinosaurs as that did things similar to what I'm describing but the show typically played it more for laughs whereas this film here wants the audience to take this concept seriously and I'm sorry but it's something that I just can't wrap my head around.
That night, the two start to bond as we learn that both of Spot's parents are dead as Arlo describes how much he misses his family and in a scene that recreates the firefly sequence that Henry shared with his son.
The next morning, the two wake up by each other's side and we are now introduced to our villain, who only appears twice in the movie and well, the story doesn't need him as we meet Thunderclap and his two goons that has the belief of The Storm Provides. He's a bit loose in the head, they at first appear to be a rescue team helping small critters but that is not the case at all as they find small critters and devour them and that is exactly what they plan to with Spot. Sweet Celestia, movie! I have no issue with darkness in a kid's movie but this seems so out of place with how the rest of the movie has gone and did you really need to throw in, something like that when overall it adds nothing to the movie because the characters only ever show up again in the third act and are never mentioned again until that point.
In perhaps the only cool sequence in this film and that's not saying much, our two leads (Luna, knows, Arlo isn't a hero) run off and come across two teenage T-Rexes that fight off Thunderclap and pterodactyl goons.
We are introduced to Nash & Ramsey and their father, Butch played by Sam Elliott. Seriously, I don't care that he was a T-Rex, other than the fact that he didn't have a Sam Elliott mustache, Sam Elliot's character in this film is Sam Elliott. And here's the even weirder thing, this movie takes a detour into unexpected genre territory, when we meet these 3 as it becomes a western. I am not making this up, this movie about a dinosaur trying to find his way home that adopted a pet caveboy suddenly becomes a western as these 3 T-Rexes are cattle ranchers. How...how....how does that even work?
I'm so confused right now. Is this real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide. No escape from reality....
Okay, I'm better now but this movie is really testing me with it's inane decisions as it feels like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be and thought, if I can't be one good thing, it'll be be all the things. And as we have seen here, that doesn't work! We find out that the cattle ranching T-Rexes (still sounds really dumb) have lost their herd of longhorns. And in exchange for their help to get back home, Arlo offers Spot's help in sniffing out the herd and they find them and we find out that have been taken by Cattle Rustlers Raptors. Yes, really!!!
Oh, and this is after Arlo messes up a job that he should be good at as Butch wants him to go out there and scream to get the attention of the Rustlers but he can't even do that right. It takes Spot biting him for him to do that. Yes, screaming on cue like crying on command is a difficult task but Arlo is such a worthless character, that he can't even do one small task right.
In a fight with rustling raptors, Butch is taken down and Arlo must muster up some courage to fight off the raptors. (Can we put in Jurassic Park instead? That was a good movie with villainous raptors!)
That night around a campfire, Butch and his kids talk about moments, where they thought they were dead for sure and Sam Elliott's character talks of how he was covered in his blood fighting off a croc and Butch says that if you aren't afraid, you aren't alive. Which, while I like this message, the movie is also trying to teach Arlo that you can't let fear control your life but the problem is that Arlo doesn't really seem to learn this lesson until towards the latter part of the movie and even then, I'm not sure that it's going to stick.
The next day, the cattle ranching T-Rexes help Arlo & Spot return home as he helps them drive the longhorns home. And in the distance, he spots his home, Clawtooth Mtn and soon, another storm approaches as Arlo starts to climb back home and he has a flashback to the flood that killed his father and this is where I lose any respect for the tragedy that Arlo went through as in his mind, he now pictured the flood like a mouth.
Movie, really! Just really! I can understand, what you were trying to go for as Arlo envisioned the flood swallowing his father but it does not need to be represented onscreen as an actual flood with a mouth. You have taken what was supposed to be a tragic moment in the film and squandered any of the little sympathy for this scene and there wasn't much to begin with. Along the way, they hear an adult caveman and Spot shows interest in in going with them but as the storm is approaching, Arlo just wants to get home. And with the storm, the pterodactyls have returned and in a rather cool shot, we see them circling in the sky like sharks and they end up taking Spot away from Arlo as he plans to devour him. And here at this moment, Henry returns but we later learn that it's a vision of Henry and again, it's like the Mufasa's Ghost scene from The Lion King.
As it is very much in the vein of a father guiding his son back to do the right thing but the key difference between how it's handled with Lion King and how Good Dinosaur handled it is that Mufasa remains firm with his son, while providing guidance whereas Henry coddles his son for quite some point. That's how he was, when he was alive as well and I will give Arlo, this much as he realizes that he has to go back to save Spot but at the same time, the scene with Henry's ghost goes on for far too long. Again, with Mufasa, it was brief and got to the point as Mufasa remained firm on his son but the Henry's ghost scene dragged on for too long. Arlo turns around and stops his father and tells him that he has to save Spot as he loves him and it is at this moment that Henry realizes that his son has grown. He saw development in this character, I'm impressed! NOT! So, Arlo goes back to save Spot and after he does as they are washed up by another flood and that's the end of the movie. No, no, no, it's not!
They end up surviving and they make their way back home again and again, they hear the adult caveman and as they hear it, they come closer to the mountain and Arlo makes the decision that Spot needs to stay with his own kind but Spot is reluctant to do so as he has grown attached to Arlo over the course of their journey. But Arlo realizes that it's for the best for Spot to stay with his own kind and as he goes, he tells him that he loves him and Arlo makes his way back home and is greeted by his mother and his siblings as they are happy to see him as Arlo has finally earned his mark on the silo and he puts it between that of his mother and father.
This movie as I stated up top is perhaps my least favorite Pixar film to date. It feels like barely anything was accomplished by the main character and I never once found myself rooting for him or cheering him on. Most of the time, I found myself annoyed with his antics and just wished that he would stop being afraid of everything around him. And the other big problem with this movie as we have discussed before is how derivative it feels because as mentioned throughout this review, it seems as though, they were ripping off other much better movies and when the scenes that came up reminding of those films, I found myself thinking, I'd rather be watching those movies instead.
I've seen some reviewers say that if this were a children's television show aimed at a preschool crowd a la Disney Junior, they'd be more willing to let it slide but the dark moments of the movie clash with that cutesy nature and even then, this movie is below the quality of certain animated shows on TV nowadays aimed squarely at the youngest demographic.
Characters
Arlo voiced by Raymond Ochoa
Arlo is perhaps the most worthless main character to ever come from a Pixar movie as he truly provides nothing of substance other than being afraid of everything around him and that wears really fast. You want to believe that he'll learn from his journey home but at the end of the day, I'm not really sure that he does.
Spot voiced by Jack Bright
The gimmick of Spot being the dog character in a story about a boy and his dog is rather one-note and the film can only carry it so far before the audience grows tired of it because again like with Arlo, there is barely anything to Spot as a character other than, "Wouldn't it be interesting if the boy was the dog in a story about a boy and his dog?"
Supporting Characters
Henry voiced by Jeffrey Wright
,
The most that Henry ends up contributing to the movie is his death and as I discussed during the plot portion of this review, that is handled in such a haphazard way that it's near impossible to feel anything for him, when he dies. What was his character like before died? He was strong and stoic, a good ole boy farmer and that's basically pretty much it.
Ida, Buck, & Libby voiced by Frances McDormand, Marcus Scribner, & Maleah Padilla
The rest of Arlo's family contributed even less to the story than his father. We only saw them maybe a couple of times but we never truly got to know them.
Forrest Woodbush voiced by Peter Sohn
Like with the weird hallucination scene that I mentioned, you could have cut this character out of the film and nothing would have been lost as I'm sure, there are other ways that Arlo could figure out that Spot is named Spot. He felt as though, he was just put in there for the sake of having a weird character.
Nash & Ramsey voiced by A.J. Buckley & Anna Paquin
These two were two of the more likable characters in the film but not by very much. They didn't annoy me like Arlo did and a movie about them, when with how odd, their job is would have been more interesting.
Butch voiced by Sam Elliot
He's Sam Elliott. That's all there is, to this character. They just probably told Mr. Elliott to read these lines and it'll sound great.
Villains
Earl, Lurlene, & Bubba voiced by John Ratzenberger, Carrie Paff & Dave Boat
Our three cattle rustling raptors are okay there and in part seem like they were only thrown in, so as to have the obligatory John Ratzenberger role in a Pixar movie. They were basically dinosaur hillbillies and that's about it.
Thunderclap voiced by Steve Zahn
Sure, Thunderclap had two goons but they are really worth bringing up nor is Thunderclap for that matter. As he really adds nothing of value to the overall story. He appears twice and tires to eat Spot and that's it. I get the feeling that he is a bit deranged because of how close, he flew to the lightning but even then, it feels like the movie is trying to pull off a balance of him being threatening and comedic at the same time but it just isn't working.
My Final Thoughts
You know what my favorite part of this movie was. The cameo that they had in Inside Out.
Because A, that's a good movie and I didn't have to hear any of the characters talking here. There is no need to go out and see this movie. You are just better off skipping it altogether. Nothing will be lost from you not seeing this movie. I can't even justify this movie by saying it's okay because it's really not. Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment