Stars (vocally) Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Steve Zahn, Marcus Scribner, Anna Paquin with Frances McDormand, Sam Elliot, Jeffrey Wright and (as always) John Ratzenberger Directed by Peter Sohn This one appears to be Pixar’s take on several fables in one. Firstly, the title is a misnomer. While the story does revolve around one particular dinosaur, an apatosaur called Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), he’s far from the only ‘good’ dinosaur around. The French title translates to “Arlo’s Journey” which is rather apt, while the German posters call it “Arlo & Spot” which is equally descriptive of the overall story. From the trailers, you would get the sense that this is a ‘boy and dog’ story except that the dog is a feral human child called Spot. What the trailer barely hints at is that this is essentially a Western coming-of-age fable. It could easily be said that there are truly so few stories in the world, and what matters is the telling of such stories. Yes, the movie is that predictable with certain story beats judiciously marked off as we come across them throughout the movie. One could say it’s part The Lion King or part Bambi, maybe Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron did it better or it’s similar to The Journey of Natty Gann or The Jungle Book; all of them solid family entertainment. Do those films give you a hint of what to expect? So, if you’re bringing your kids - and why not if you have them - do mind them as they may find some scenes to be rather intense. You can think back to how Bambi or The Lion King affected you as a kid, The Good Dinosaur may be that kind of movie for this generation of children. One of my concerns was the disconnect between the incredibly realised ‘world’ contrasted against the obviously cartoonish designs of the characters. About a decade and a half ago, Walt Disney Pictures attempted a similar idea with Dinosaur (2000). That one had realistically rendered dinosaurs (given the technology at the time) populating an effects enhanced real-world environment, but the talking animals created a visual disjoint. Here, the world environment created by Pixar’s artist present an incredible amount of realism at work, you could almost reach out and touch that world I wouldn’t be surprised if Pixar decided to branch out into environment effects work after this, providing other movies with such realistic environments for their backdrops. Even with the cartoonish characters, there is a sense of realism injected into their movements, behaviour and limitations, especially given the actions of these characters within the story (you’ll know what I mean when you’ve seen the movie). They work well within the context of the story and the presentation that you could marvel at the character ‘acting’ or the world around them and not be distracted by either. While Pixar has strived to maintain a level of pure family entertainment, this might the one aimed at the younger end of the spectrum thus far; The Pixar Kiddie Feature. That’s not to say there isn’t anything sufficiently satisfying for the grown-ups, but again, most of us have seen all this before. That doesn’t get in the way of a familiar story told - and presented - well. Throw in a beautiful score from brothers Jeff and Michael Danna, and the movie soars when it needs to while hitting the emotional marks as needed. Sometimes, that’s all you need to be entertained. Rating ***1/2 / 5 Please support by buying or recommending to others. Thank you. - b
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2017
|