The Good Dinosaur (2015)

Director: Peter Sohn
Starring: Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Raymond Ochoa

Synopsis:
A young dinosaur finds himself far away from home and makes the perilous journey back with the help of a feral human.

Impressions:
I'll admit that I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to see this one, but it became the feature of a family outing. We'll see how things shape up, but it seems that reception is somewhat lukewarm and it's not entirely unjustified. While this is a perfectly unobjectionable family film, it's not the cut above you usually expect from Pixar. I noted in my review of Inside Out that the studio seemed to be coming out of their slump. This movie originally dates to that period, its release having been pushed back multiple times due to troubled production. The troubled production and the ultimately good but not great impression echoes the situation with Brave. Before I read about the problems behind the scenes, I honestly thought this movie was made primarily as a testbed for some of the new tech. There's some very impressive fluid sim and gorgeous photorealistic vistas. This clashes a bit with the cartoony character design, which may or may not be a problem for you. The story and characters are decent. Honestly, it feels like a fairly standard Western only with dinosaurs (I mean, heck, they have Sam Elliott as a rancher T-Rex). It's not a must-see and you don't need to be rushing to the theaters to see it, but if you're thinking about giving it a watch, I'd say it's worth it.

Rating:
Watch It