Movie Review: Pixar Adds Another Tearjerker with The Good Dinosaur!

This review is spoiler-free, that I promise you!

Before I begin to expose my thoughts of my The Good Dinosaur experience last night, I would like to say a few words about the Pixar short Sanjay's Super Team that accompanied Good Dino before it was shown to anticipating viewers.

Sanjay's Super Team is hands down the best Pixar short I've ever seen, eclipsing La Luna (supported Brave) by a long mile as my favorite animated short film; as well as redeeming the studio after their corny and lousy Lava (premiered with Inside Out).

Sanja Patel directed the short film, based on his childhood with his parents living in America. He used to play with Superhero toys while his family performed Hindu ritual, which was not what he wanted to do.

His Super Team is closely based on that, a 7-minute film that takes Sanjay into a daydream adventure with Hindu deities while his father performed their daily ritual. The story is somewhat like all superhero films, but the visuals and color palette took it to another level!

After seeing the short, I think Mr. Patel is really a creative and intuitive director, somehow managing to capture all the elements that would have made a great animated superhero film like Pixar's own The Incredibles.

Now, here's the main part, my review for The Good Dinoasur:

First and foremost, I think the most important aspect of this film are the animated VISUALS. God knows the budget for this film must be very huge, everything just looks GREAT! The landscapes were beautiful, the rivers looked like they were actually real, the underwater scenes were stunning, and the characters were so well structured you might as well think you are in 2020's. I swear, NO FILM STRUCK ME LIKE THIS VISUALLY SINCE GRAVITY. If only animated films were eligible for Academy's Visual Effects category, then this one would likely take it!

Critics are unfairly harsh about it though, having to follow-up Inside Out's universal acclaim and humongous Box-Office results. True, it's not as intellectual as the story of Joy and Sadness but, if other animation studios delivered this one, critics would praise it to high heavens! Pixar really set a high standard for their films, and while The Good Dinosaur fell short of it, the main core value of a Pixar film is still there, heart and emotions.

While the story seemed familiar, it was not necessarily dull. It had the visuals that engaged people to watch it without ever trying to look away from the screen. And no, whoever said that it is similar to Ice Age or Croods needs to validate this point, because as far I what I have seen last night, it is far from those two!

Personally, I think this film is finding ways to deal with your fears. Arlo (the dinosaur) had been really afraid of almost everything, since the time he hatched. And the ending brings a nice closure to the development of his character, eventually finding his way to Spot (a human child) and meeting a lot of dinosaurs in his journey home. "You can't eliminate your fears, but you can outrun them!" is perhaps the best line in this movie, which says it all!

While the score (film music) is neither as emotional as Michael Giacchano's score for Inside Out, it is still pretty memorable, it sets the tone quite nicely in the beginning of the film, and the main theme is gorgeously happy, but also adds a little bit of melodrama.

It is fairly comedic, in fact I laughed way more than I ever did with Inside Out, but then again, they were 2 different movies that shan't be compared to each other. I think it's comically in line with Croods, without the help of a lot of characters, which goes a lot to say! There was a scene when Arlo said, "Hello?" and an audience right behind me replied, "It's me." loud enough that the whole theater bursted into laughter!

As I said in the title, it is another TEARJERKER, and yes I did not lie with this one. I cried near the end of the film, it was super emotional and powerful, perhaps because I could relate it too with what is going on in my real life right now, but I really felt it, and I know that the girl right beside me sobbed too! Pixar really made a unique way of telling it, an improvisation that a lot of other films tried to do but failed.

I would love to pay again for this film just to look at this scene:

IT WAS ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT, it really gave me goosebumps for more than a minute. It was an experience beyond words, same thing that happened with Gravity. I know it will never look as much as good in my 720P screen, but at least I've managed to experience this phenomenal scene!

I think I will leave it here. This one's a really good and fun watch, teary at the end and contains some nice lessons as well that kids will eventually eat up. For people like me who loves to watch Pixar flicks, I could never let this go, so I had to watch it. And while it fell short of the "Pixar story standards", I would still give it an A+ for touching my heart, for making a world that was so breathtaking and almost realistic, and for delivering a scene that was worth way more than the ticket price I paid! 

If you have some questions or reactions, feel free to comment. You can also look for me on my Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts! Thanks for reading.