Director: Peter Sohn
Score: 2/10
You Tried
Once upon a time, a Disney-owned animation studio grew to the point where they wanted to put out two movies in a year instead of their normal single production. With most of the sure money, budget, and talent focused on the A-team flick, the second-tier squad was free to make a movie free of the typical constraints of oversight, committee design, and fear of the unknown. In the end, that movie turned out to be one of the greatest animated classics of all time.
But guess what; it’s not 1994, and this ain’t The Lion King. In fact, it’s about as polar opposite as you could possibly get.
Let’s not beat around the bush, here: The Good Dinosaur is bad. Dyed-in-the-wool, from-the-core-out bad, in a way I haven't seen in years. Anything and everything that could have gone wrong with this movie did, at every level of production. The creation was plagued with issues, including mass layoffs, directorial spats, and conflicts over story and art direction. The film languished in an interminable six year void before finally being released, presumably because these days you could throw your vacation photo slideshow on a film screen and make your money back. I kind of feel bad for Peter Sohn, because he ended up with his name attached to it as the leader. Sure, maybe he got a wounded bird out the door and into the air; but that bird then was hit by a rock, burst into flames, and crashed on the shoreline where it exploded. Suffice to say, there’s a reason the “Alan Smithee” credit was invented.
The Good Dinosaur is (I assume) the story of a cowardly young dinosaur coming of age. Right from the beginning, though, I’m just hauled out of the moment by the insane incongruity of the film’s premise. Why are dinosaurs somehow more evolved than mammals, to the point where they are capable of forming an agrarian society? Why does the human... uh... cub wear clothing but is unable to do anything remotely like a human (like walking)? Why is half the dialogue in this stupid movie made up of giggles, screams, and unintelligible grunting?!
The plot, if you can call it that, is a loosely-strung-together collection of set pieces copied from other movies (and not very well). They even blatantly ripped off the patriarchal death scene from The Lion King in the most ham-fisted way possible, which is a shame, because as I alluded to in my opening paragraph, there’s plenty of much more useful lessons they could have gotten from that movie instead. Everything is contrived, nothing is original, and the entire movie actually undermines itself with its own art direction. Literally, this is alternate prehistory FANFICTION, with every negative connotation that may imply. If it had a narrative adaptation, it would have an "and then" in between every sentence.
The sole point of any praise whatsoever I can grant The Mediocre Reptile is that the CG on the backgrounds is stunning. Like, photo-realistic in a way I’ve never seen before. It seriously looks like they animated cells over actual video footage of backdrops and water. So, with that in mind and that technology in the bank, why for the love of film are all the characters so cartoony?! It doesn’t match at all. I actually found my mind rejecting it altogether because I couldn’t reconcile how great the scenery looked with how utterly average the actual character models and animation are.
In a way, I’m glad The Terrible Fossil came out. First off, it gives me the chance to really rip into a movie that deserves it. Sometimes, it’s relaxing as a critic to just shoot some mostly-dead fish in a particularly small barrel. But beyond that, I hope this movie is the proof we finally need to get past the “But Pixar” argument. Pixar isn’t sacrosanct; they’re just as capable of making soulless pap as any other studio is (Cars 2 neatly demonstrated that, but people like to forget that movie existed, now don’t they?) What makes Pixar great is their approach to creating movies, starting from the very first premise. If you make the mistake of forgetting about that approach, of approaching a movie as an obligation instead of a craft, you get—
Well, you get this, actually.
Acting: 4
Story: 1
Visuals: 6
Sound: 4
Enjoyment: 1
Overall Score: 2/10
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