I love animatation. It's a medium of endless possibilities. And of all the studios behind animation, the one that has gotten the most praise ever since it was founded is Pixar. But then, in 2011, they released Cars 2. Manypeople disliked or even hated this film. Afterwards, people never looked at Pixar the same way. Not to say Brave and Monsters University weren't good, they just weren't up to Pixar standards.
After MU, The Good Dinosuar was set as Pixar's next film. However, production troubles pushed it back to Thanksgiving 2015, leaving the film that was supposed to come out right after it, Inside Out, to be Pixar's next film. When THAT movie was released, everyone loved it. There's even talk of how it should be nomminated for Best Picture.While I won't go that far, I'll say it's still a great movie, one of the two best animated films of 2015 (The Peanuts Movie being the other). Thus putting a lot of preasure on The Good Dinosaur. So is it good or bad?
CONS
The premise is very generic. In fact, it reminds me of another animated dinosaur flick, The Land Before Time (1). It's about a young small dinosaur who loses his parent in the first act, and this leads him on a big quest where he learns stuff and befriends a bunch of colorful characters. There are some differences and there is one thing that kind of makes it work (I'll get to that in the Pros section).
Another problem with the movie is that it has an interesting concept that it doesn't take full advantage of. That concept being: What If Dinosaurs Still Roamed the Earth And The Astroid Never Hit Our Planet? It does do some interesting stuff, like Dinosaur farmers and herders, but you wish that they could do more. It reminds me of another Dinosaur film to come out this year, Jurassic World. Where they do some cool stuff with the premise of The Park being Open, but you wish you could see more of it.
But (unlike most people), I like Jurassic World, and I like The Good Dinosaur.
PROS
The one thing that makes the story work is the focus on the relationship between Arlo and Spot. Both are great characters, espicially Spot. He's a ferral human being who acts like a dog and he actually has something in common with Arlo. And when Isay ferral, I mean he bites something's head off (Okay, it was a bug. But it was a giant bug!) The best scenes with them are the interactions, not only are they funny and heartfelt, but some of them feature very little to no dialouge, giving the animators a chance to shine. We also see how they're friendship grows as they start hating each other (because Arlo blames little Spot for his dad's death) and they grow where it tears them apart to see one in danger.
As for the animation, It's Pixar. Therefore, it's great. The backgrounds are very realistic. And the cartoony designs fit very well with them much better than the trailers did.
The best character in the movie is Butch, a T-Rex voiced by Sam Elliot. While he's in the movie for ten minutes, he's actually a pretty funny and likeable character. As he's teachs Arlo that being afraid isn't a terrible thing, and is actually the Dino version of an old war veteran, sitting around the campfire with his kids, talking about his scars and how he "drowned a croc with his own blood".
The movie also has a great message. It's similar to Inside Out's message. Where Inside Out's message was that it was okay to be sad, this movie says it's okay to be afraid (Fun Fact: That was the original message of Inside Out before they had Sadness go on the journey instead of Fear). It's saying that while you should overcome your fear, you shouldn't get rid of it entirely. This is shown by Butch and whenever Arlo and Spot are attacked by Thunderclap, a psychotic Pterodactyl who claims he's has no fear.
One more thing is the emotion. There are two great scenes in the middle and near the end where there's no dialouge and, due to relationship formed between Arlo and Spot, is very touching, heartwarming, and by the end, you may want to cry like a bitch.
VERDICT:
While "origianal" may not be the word to describe The Good Dinosaur, it's still a very fun, very charming, very heartwarming film. Kids will love it, and adults will find enjoyment from it instead of wanting to sneak out of the theater to see Creed. However, don't expect Inside Out or Up quality, expect something more on par with Brave, Cars (1), or A Bug's Life, or as I call them, Pixar's Underrated Three. So, in short, The Good Dinosaurmay not live up to the Pixar name, it does live up to it's own name.
8/10