'The Good Dinosaur' - Movie Review

The Good Dinosaur - Movie Review

'The Good Dinosaur'
U; Animated
Director: Peter Sohn
Cast: Raymond Ochoa, Jeffrey Wright, Steve Zahn, A.J Buckley, Anna Paquin
Rating:

This animated adventure has all the markings of a great and comely entertainer, coming as it does from the Disney-Pixar stable that has previously excelled with 'Wall-e', 'Toy Story 3', 'The Incredibles' and 'Inside Out.'

'The Good Dinosaur' can't be rated as Disney-Pixar's best yet but it's certainly up there with the hallowed few. While the animation is not extraordinary it's nevertheless comely and compellingly drawn. The show also has a Oscar probable short to go with it - Sanjay Bakshi's 'Super Team' a touching and interestingly driven animation that has a father-son relationship at it's core with gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon playing out their super-hero facets.

A still from, 'The Good Dinosaur'. Pic/Santa Banta

It's a beautifully designed and created fascinating computer-animated fantasy encounter with a what-if scenario set millions of years back in time. As the story/script goes, the asteroid that devastates earth and made dinosaurs extinct, actually missed striking earth. So the opening sequence has that set-up move forward into a co-existence between prehistoric humans and dinosaurs during the same era. It's several million years past that near miss catastrophe and dinosaurs have developed into anthropomorphised creatures while humans walk like animals and have not yet developed their speech so communicate more or less like dogs. Arlo (voice of Raymond Ochoa), is the youngest member of an Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus family consisting of a Dad (Jeffrey Wright), Mom (Frances McDormand), and three kids. They are farmers, who have to stockpile food for the harsh winters. But a pest problem, a human child, defeats their efforts every time. So Dad and Arlo set out to catch the pesky pest but a tragedy looms large and Arlo is left to fight his own battles and find his true self while embattling the odds that nature throws his way.

There are some truly amazing photo-realistic sets serving as true background for the adventure and it's truly an awe-inspiring sight to behold. The visuals are stunning to say the least and so are the character definitions and movements. And there's also a strong message underlining the adventure - an engaging mix to keep the young and old entertained!