Sixty-five million years ago a meteor hurtled toward Earth and caught fire in the atmosphere before veering harmlessly into space. The grazing brontosauri below craned their necks to watch the light streak across the sky, never realizing what almost hit them. Pixar’s latest animated feature, The Good Dinosaur, imagines Earth as it might have developed had the cosmic collision that wiped out the dinosaurs never occurred. The young protagonist, Arlo, is a dinosaur lacking courage and fortitude. He must learn to accept fear as a condition of life and to work with other species while affirming the value of family. It’s an endearing addition to Pixar’s storybook, beautifully rendered in 3D and leavened with humor.
In the millions of years that passed since the meteor’s flyby, dinosaurs evolved into an intelligent race. Although they did not lose their tails, diminish in stature or invent the wheel, they developed language (English, naturally) and agriculture, and learned to construct shelters. Arlo’s kin behave much like the frontier family on an old TV western, valuing self-sufficiency, hard work and bonds of kinship above all else. Arlo, however, emerges from the nest as the runt of the litter, instantly picked on by his aggressive brother. Voiced by Raymond Ochoa, Arlo is weak-kneed and frightened even by the chickens in the family’s coop. His parents (Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand) are patient but disappointed as Arlo fails every test.
An unforeseen chain of disaster leaves Arlo lost in the wilderness with an unwanted companion, Spot (Jack Bright), a proto-human child who scampers on four feet and occasionally on two. Spot had been a nemesis for Arlo, but they learn to pull together and care for one another in a homeward-bound odyssey replete with predatory pterodactyls and other dangers. They find some fearsome friends along the way, a family of longhorn-herding T. rexes whose gravelly voiced patriarch (Sam Elliott) has some shrewd advice for Arlo: “You can’t get rid of fear but you can get through it.”
Much of The Good Dinosaur’s humor rises from a series of riffs on western movies, keeping adults amused while tickling children with such sight gags as a cowboy T. rex using a cricket as a harmonica as he unwinds by the campfire. The Good Dinosaur is one of the best 3D films ever in terms of harmoniously integrating the visuals with the story.
The Good Dinosaur
3 and a half stars
Raymond Ochoa
Jack Bright
Directed by Peter Sohn
Rated PG
