When 'Good' is good enough for Pixar
Sixteen movies in, ranking the Pixar filmography serves little purpose anymore. The animation studio has only really faltered on one movie (“Cars 2”), and everything else falls into “Good” and “Great” categories. Distinguishing beyond that is just an exercise in personal preference.
Earlier this year, Pixar released a great movie: “Inside Out” is a brilliant combination of creative visuals and emotive storytelling. The studio’s second 2015 offering, “The Good Dinosaur,” isn’t even close to the originality or execution of “Inside Out,” but that shouldn’t be the measure of the new film’s success.
Pixar’s history is something to be celebrated. Using it as a measure for quality leads to sometimes unreasonable expectations.
This is all a long-winded way to say “The Good Dinosaur” isn’t a great Pixar movie, but it’s still a pretty good one.
Story issues have plagued “The Good Dinosaur” from its inception, hardly a surprise considering how many Pixar films have gone through major production upheavals (Watch the bonus features on the “Inside Out” Blu-ray, and you’ll be surprised by its convoluted path to brilliance). “Dinosaur” director Bob Peterson was removed from the project in 2013, leading to 2014 being the first year without a Pixar movie since 2005.
Peter Sohn eventually took the director’s chair, drastic changes were made to the story, and almost the entire announced voice cast was replaced. The result is a movie with fundamental story problems, most all of which stem from a clumsy opening act.
“The Good Dinosaur” imagines a world where the dinosaurs never went extinct and evolved to become farmers. Humans are present too, but they are of the primitive, grunting-caveman type.
The story focuses on Arlo, a runty, fearful Apatosaurus who is trying to “make his mark” with his family. It’s a clunky conflict, mostly because Arlo’s father keeps saying the cringe-inducing phrase while making actual footprints on the family’s silo of harvested corn.
Some terrible, “Bambi”/”Lion King” stuff happens, and Arlo is left to fend for himself. That’s when he forms an unlikely friendship with Spot, an undomesticated cave boy with advanced survival skills.
Once Spot and Arlo team up, “The Good Dinosaur” becomes a simple-but-engaging take on a Western/Odyssey film. The adventures are sometimes bizarre (including accidental hallucinations, buffalo-herding T-Rexes and a group of psychopathic Pteranodons), but the central relationship builds effectively and (mostly) without the on-the-nose dialogue contained in the opening scenes.
Visually speaking, “The Good Dinosaur” is spectacular. The landscapes are the most photorealistic I’ve ever seen from computer animation, to the point where the more-cartoonish dinosaurs can seem out of place. A decision was obviously made to keep the dinos from appearing too scary for the target audience.
Take away the opening 15 minutes, and one misguided dream sequence near the end, and “The Good Dinosaur” might be closer to the “Great” Pixar category. Those problematic scenes are probably the result of repeated story tinkering, but it’s the kind of lazy screenwriting that hinders other children’s entertainment. In an effort to beef up the “message,” the purity of the storytelling is compromised.
Pixar’s 2015 will be defined by “Inside Out,” which stands to snag a few Oscar nominations. “The Good Dinosaur,” aside from garnering mostly decent reviews, won’t be remembered as a studio standout. Remove it from Pixar’s own impossible track record, and “Good” is still better than the batting average of most kid-fare.
Thanksgiving leftovers
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2,” like “Part 1,” is an incomplete experience. In splitting the story in half, the films don’t work as standalone stories, and watching them back-to-back only demonstrates how padded each film has become. The cast is still strong, but “Mockingjay” would be better as a three-hour epic than two, two-hour episodes.
“Creed” is a formulaic story, following the model of previous “Rocky” installments and other boxing movies like it. The difference is the execution. Director Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”) stages every scene with intensity, and the performances by Michael B. Jordan and an Oscar-worthy (really) Sylvester Stallone pushes “Creed” above all the previous “Rocky” sequels.
Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.