Inside Out was a demonstration of Pixar regaining its mojo and The Good Dinosaur shows they don’t have a consistent plan to maintain another good streak. When I saw the trailer for Finding Dory which appears next Summer, I have serious doubts they won’t be releasing a good movie until 2017 at the earliest. The only thing I can say in Dinosaur’s defense…it’s better than Cars 2 but worse than Monsters U. Then again, only a Gastoenterologist cares about or can discern any relevant differences between turds. Pixar raised the bar for a decade on animated fare. Now with Disney as the true parent company over the last few years, Pixar tends to crank out direct-to-video (or today, streaming) crap to keep yard apes quiet in the minivan during a long drive. I would expect something this mediocre from Disney’s main studio, Dreamworks and the many imitators via Fox and Universal.
To give you an idea how weak it is, I’ll go with a quick synopsis.
Sixty-five million years ago, the theoretical meteor responsible for the dinosaurs’ extinction doesn’t happen. Fast forward millions of years later, dinosaurs continue to dominate the world while humans have been relegated to pests. Then we meet a family of Apatosauruses (the correct term for the misnamed Brontosaurus) who manage their little farm growing corn and raising Jurassic chickens. Amongst them is Arlo. He’s the runt. He’s the one scared of everything. He’s the one trying to make his mark. Yawn! Since Arlo isn’t very strong or large, dad dinosaur gives the boy the task of capturing the critter eating all the corn in the silo. Arlo obviously fails due to his “weird” sense of empathy; when he sees the little human kid choking in the net, he releases the critter. Dad’s pissed so Arlo joins his father in pursuing the corn stealer. A storm begins and dad dinosaur is killed a la The Lion King as the river floods. Time passes, the critter returns, Arlo gives chase and both are swept away by the same river. Next comes the cliché and mandatory journey home in which they have to work together. They meet helpful and harmful dinosaurs along the way, blah blah blah, 100 minutes of my life I would like to have back.
Pixar does nothing innovative nor interesting. I should’ve asked for a refund upon arriving at the box office and went to Victor Frankenstein after I read how this movie was being released 18 months late. Never a good sign whenever the initial director is removed (aka fired) and replaced…unless the person hired to turn it around is Brad Bird (he saved Ratatouille). Brave and The Emperor’s New Groove suffered Dinosaur‘s fate. You can see the sudden shift in the story’s direction in the latter too. Quality, sophisticated and intelligent used to be adjectives synonymous with Pixar. Unless Dory can pleasantly surprise me and prove that Inside Out will be the new rule, not the exception, then lazy, cynical and crappy will become the words tied to Pixar’s current era.
There was one bright spot. The short (Sanjay’s Super Team) rocked. It was about a little Indian boy (Asian) wanting to watch a superhero show while his father meditates before the family’s shrine to Vishnu, Hanuman and Durga. The cartoon is a flurry of action and color while it shows the similarity between Western and Eastern cultures with their storytelling.
Alamo Extras: Gertie the Dinosaur set to music, it’s one of the first cartoons made by Hollywood; Scandinavian guy singing about Brontosaurs in Spanish or Italian; another silent movie of people watching dinosaurs in some Jules Verne-like story; Daffy Duck cartoon with him outwitting a caveman and his pet dinosaur; Sinclair’s exhibit at the New York World’s Fair in the Sixties; The Land Before Time trailer; Opening to the awful Eighties cartoon Denver the Last Dinosaur; A Spanish band wearing dinosaur cartoons singing and playing instruments at an amusement park while gorillas run around; and the worst was saved for last…grade school kids rapping about how they love dinosaurs, probably made in the Nineties.
A little girl handed out little drawings to the employees and me in the lobby too. Very sweet of her.