CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘The Good Dinosaur’ is Pixar Studio’s Most Ordinary Film
CHICAGO – The animation in Pixar Studio’s latest feature ,“The Good Dinosaur,” is nothing short of extraordinary. At times throughout the film, the images looked like they came right out of National Geographic, and I truly couldn’t believe i was watching animation. However, this delightful animation is in service to an undistinguished prehistoric buddy comedy that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of “The Flintstones.”
Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
The studio’s worst film, “Cars 2,” was hitched to the comedy of Larry The Cable Guy as Mater. It was a dimwitted personality, but at least it had a personality. – this film shows almost no hints of personality at all. “The Good Dinosaur” most closely resembles one of Walt Disney Studios’ confused and rambling projects from the 1970’s. It lacks direction and overarching vision, plus much of the film seems just thrown in to see if it will work – this is the first Pixar film that seems assembled from scraps.
The story is a fairly simple one. This is an alternate world where an asteroid never hit the earth and dinosaurs still roam. A young dinosaur named Arlo is the smallest and weakest in his family of farming apatosauruses, but he’s washed away chasing a caveboy into the mountains. He’s knocked out, and carried far downstream. He wakes up far from home, and he becomes reluctant friends with the caveboy as they find their way back home.
Scene From ‘The Good Dinosaur’
Photo credit: Walt Disney Pictures