THE GOOD DINOSAUR
Seenitbeforeus Rex
released OUT NOW! 2015 | PG | Blu- ray 3D/ Blu- ray/ DVD
Director Peter Sohn
Cast Jeffrey Wright, Frances
McDormand, Raymond Ochoa
Pixar’s second big- screen outing of last year isn’t a patch on the innovative Inside Out. It’s Pixar by numbers, an affable but generic talking animal movie that looks stunning, yet never escapes the sense we’ve seen it all before.
That’s despite a great alternate history premise, which ponders what might have happened if the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs had missed Earth. Evolution takes a very different route, one where dinosaurs have become farmers, and cross paths with early humans. It’s an intriguing world, yet the opportunity to explore it is rapidly consumed by Lion King- esque family tragedy which sends two mismatched characters on a literal and figurative journey that Finding Nemo did better.
The relationship between cowardly apatosaurus Arlo and his dog- like human sidekick Spot is undeniably touching – even on autopilot, Pixar can tug the heartstrings like nobody else. Unfortunately, the supporting players don’t get the time to develop into fully- rounded characters, ultimately upstaged by scenery so jaw- droppingly beautiful that it looks like John Ford’s been resurrected and given state- of- the- art computers to make a Western. After Inside Out, which reminded us of a time when every new Pixar release promised something we’d never seen before, this feels like a bunch of talented people going through the motions.
Extras Don’t expect the low- down on Pixar’s decision to replace the original director and most of the voice cast. Instead you get commentary by various crew, three deleted scenes, short “Sanjay’s Super Team” ( in which an Indian boy imagines Hindu gods as superheroes), faux- B- roll of the dinosaurs messing around, and brief featurettes on topics such as animating the characters and meeting real- life ranchers. The DVD has just the commentary and the short. Richard Edwards
Pixar sneaked in their now- standard A113 reference – the number appears in a fence when Arlo goes out to feed the chickens.