Good Dinosaur

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 4th December, 2015
Time : 93 minutes
Director & Co-Writer: Peter Sohn; Co-Writers : Erik Benson, Meg LeFauve, Kelsey Mann, Bob Peterson (original concept); Music : Jeff & Mychael Danna;
Starring : (Voices Of): Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Marcus Scribner, Peter Sohn, Steve Zahn, AJ Buckley, Anna Paquin, Sam Elliot, Maleah Nipay-Padilla



This one just about passes muster. The humour is middling, the central message (overcome your fears) delivered in too straight-forward a fashion (and repeatedly), the end predictable. It’s the interplay between the human kid and the dinosaur that engages, along with the quality of animation (truly top notch).

Young, weak, scared dinosaur, Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), loses his loving dad (Jeffrey Wright) in a Simba-esque moment. And has to grow up fast, finding his feet during an unexpected journey away from home, as he battles and later befriends a human critter (Jack Bright) who’s been stealing their corn.

On the way they encounter longhorn herding dinosaurs, rustlers, pterodactyls who are eyeing human prey, and, of course, the vagaries of Mother Nature. All the while trying to get back to his family – mother (Frances McDormand), brother (Marcus) and sister (Maleah).

The music score is quite ordinary but the visuals are anything but. The scenes in the water, above the clouds or atop a mountain are stunning in their realism. But the very average storyline and dialogues ensure the film will appeal only to really young ones.

One really interesting aspect, though, is the way the dinosaurs are organized – Arlo’s family are farmers, another family (Sam Elliot’s the father) run a herd – while humans are essentially shown as scavengers. If the meteor crash hadn’t wiped out dinosaurs, would that have been the way the world would’ve evolved ?