ANIMATED FILMS AS STRESS BUSTERS
The Good Dinosaur has lifelike landscapes and mountain vistas, while The Peanuts Movie is a blissful, cute, funny and big-hearted tribute to the comic strip
When you’re mentally fatigued, a good animated film can soothe the mind. After rewatching The Good Dinosaur and The Peanuts Movie with my niece on AppleTV+ (an iPhone app), my stress melted away.
The Peanuts Movie, especially, seems made for tired adults.
The Good Dinosaur (2015) Disney-Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur is a combination of the bizarre and the familiar.
In an imagined world where dinosaurs avoided extinction and evolved with human intelligence, and where human beings are the inferior species, our hero is Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), a clumsy, cowardly Apatosaurus runt from a family of farmers, and who is dearly loved by his Poppa (Jeffrey Wright) and Momma (Frances McDormand).
A tragedy throws Arlo into unfamiliar ground, but he is aided by a vicious “critter,” a primitive human toddler, Spot (Jack Bright). The unlikely duo journey through the stunning and hostile American Northwest, encountering a variety of odd characters along the way.
The film boasts intense animation. The landscapes, mountain vistas and river are lifelike. But the contrast of the rather plain rendering of Arlo is slightly disconcerting — making him seem like a doodle on a page from National Geographic. Or Arlo finding his way into the Cheryl Strayed biopic Wild.
Furthermore, the story falters — time and again it stumbles like Arlo, kind of lost even as it manages to survive.
The lack of buildup and the confused narrative, as well as Lion King elements — along with eyebrow-raising violence and questionable moral lessons thrown into the surreal mix — make the movie challenging to wholly embrace.
The chief redeeming factor is the T.Rex named Butch (delightfully voiced by Sam Elliot), a Clint Eastwood-like cattle rancher who tells campfire stories that are more vivid and hilarious than The Good Dinosaur’s plot.
Butch has the best lines: “If you ain’t afraid of a croc biting you in the face, you ain’t alive.”
Despite its weirdness and flawed screenplay, The Good Dinosaur, directed by Peter Sohn, succeeds. The glorious wilderness, poetry in the quiet moments, superior animation and the presence of Butch make it all worthwhile. 3 out of 5 stars
The Peanuts Movie (2015)
If you think that the 3D computer-generated imagery (CGI) treatment of the first Peanuts feature film in 35 years will ruin the oldfashioned charm of the enduring comic strip, fear not.
The technique actually enhances the classic character design by Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz. Viewers will delight at how director Steve Martino and his writers’ brought back the 100-percent original Peanuts universe — simple, sweet, hilarious and philosophical since it first appeared in 1950.
In The Peanuts Movie, beloved underdog Charlie Brown (Noah Scnapp) is smitten by a new kid in town: The Little RedHaired Girl. Charlie works hard on self-improvement activities to become a winner in her eyes — and bury his clumsy ways for good.
With the help of his dog Snoopy and the town’s resident shrink, Lucy, will Charlie succeed in finally transforming from a loser to a true champion?
Charlie’s story is interspersed with a visual narrative of Snoopy’s ongoing fiction novel. This segment is a bit dull, but Charlie’s tale is more than enough to save the entire movie.
Peanuts the Movie is pure nostalgic delight. It’s a reunion with our childhood friends Linus, Schroeder, Peppermint Patty, Pigpen, Sally, Franklin, Woodstock — and, of course, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, as well as a fun reintroduction to the grown-up undertones that we missed when we were kids.
Devoid of big action and modern-day sensibilities, it’s a blissful, cute, funny, and big-hearted tribute to the comic strip. Even the original black-and-white drawings are lovingly recreated in think bubbles.
It’s a gesture of reverence for Schulz’s creative genius and a delightful nod to the legions of
Peanuts fans. 4 out of 5 stars