The Good Dinosaur (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 2 Dec 2015

Remember when the Coen brothers released Burn After Reading right after No Country for Old Men? Remember how Burn After Reading subsequently didn't become the hit people were hoping for? I believe the word 'overshadowed' was used. This is what's happened with Pixar, which has decided to release Inside Out and then serve up The Good Dinosaur, which unfairly--but inevitably--comes across as the dessert to Inside Out's main dish, albeit a very fine dessert whose only faults lie with predictability, a feeling of been there, done that.

The film opens with the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs, except here it barely misses Earth. We're introduced to a couple of dinosaurs that own a farm near a looming mountain range. They have three babies, including the tiny Arlo who's a bit of a scaredy-cat. They grow up and do their chores. Dad makes a make-shift silo to store the food and tells the kids that if they work hard, they can literally make their mark on the silo (i.e. putting a muddy footprint on it). Eventually, Arlo is the only one who hasn't made his mark due to his anxiety issues. Dad tries to encourage him, but tragedy inevitably strikes and Arlo is swept along the river and wakes up in a place unknown to him. So begins his journey to maturity.

This is the first Pixar film where I was reminded more than a few times of other Disney films, particularly Bambi and The Lion King. If you've seen those, you've seen The Good Dinosaur. When a herd of longhorns come running, it can only remind one of the famous bull charge in The Lion King. But the similarities extend beyond a few winks and nods. The entire nature of the story, Arlo's maturation, is right out of the book according to Bambi. All that's missing is a 'circle of life' metaphor.

That being said, The Good Dinosaur is really well made. It takes a while to set things up, but it's quite engrossing once it really gets going. It's quite dramatic at times, though Pixar is careful to avoid showing any explicit deaths (despite the 'survival of the fittest' theme). 

One of the film's greatest achievements is the mute human boy, Spot, who Arlo ends up befriending. The keyword here is 'mute'. Pixar manage to fully realize this character, convey his thoughts and emotions, solely through facial expressions and movement, like they did in the first act of Wall-E. 

This single character made me wonder how impressive the film would've been had there been exactly zero dialogue. Pixar obviously knows how to tell a story and convey emotions in purely visual terms. In fact, some of the most gripping scenes here have no dialogue. A story about a dinosaur having to learn to survive and be responsible lends itself so well to visual storytelling and would reaffirm the power of animation. But I guess it would make Arlo's tale even more dramatic and we don't want to scare away the kids now do we...?

The Good Dinosaur is a well-crafted play on familiar themes. Overall, it's pretty clichéd and predictable, but effectively told. It's got some creative humor and even though you see it coming, it still tugs at your heartstrings. Not one for the ages, but The Good Dinosaur definitely makes true on the 'good' part.

Burnt (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 29 Nov 2015

It's always fun to review films centered on cooking, because it allows for plenty of culinary wordplay. I could make a joke about how Burnt is an appropriate title, but I'm not going to, because I'm better than that. You'd think with all the talent involved in this production, the end result would've been something to see, but it's not.

Adam Jones used to be a great chef. Then he got hooked on liquor, drugs, what have you and he lost it all. Then he started to atone for his sins by shucking a million oysters in a restaurant. Eventually though, he decides to go back to London and help a restaurant attain a third Michelin star.

The big problem with Burnt is that it doesn't render Adam as a particularly likeable character in its first act. How do you have a character seeking redemption, played by Bradley Cooper no less, and make him so unlikeable as to render you inert to his inevitable character development? That's the kind of achievement that deserves a Michelin star all on its own...if that star was a picture of Gordon Ramsey flipping you off. You've got the basics like the main character falling from culinary grace through sex, drugs--and everything in between--and then trying to get his life back in order. I get that the script has to therefore make Adam unlikable in the beginning, but it's too much and irrevocably harms the way you view the rest of the film. All the references to his dramatic past that are never fully explained don't help things in the likeability department either. When Adam has one of his temper tantrums in the kitchen, you just want to smack him instead of empathizing with his feelings of frustration. 

The other downside is the amount of well-known actors. Usually, this strengthens a film, but here it just makes the film feel clogged, like an overly stuffed chicken. The presence of familiar faces automatically makes you assume these will be well-developed at some point, but they never do, though Sienna Miller carries herself well as usual. 

It's frustrating to watch all the talent involved and see the final product go to waste. From the unlikable protagonist to the bevy of underdeveloped supporting characters, this is a chapter in the history of film we'd better just all forget asap.

Bridge of Spies (2015) Review

Lucas Versantvoort / 28 Nov 2015

Spielberg's been more and more interested in 'true stories' lately, what with him directing War Horse, Lincoln and so on. The same goes for Bridge of Spies, the story of how one insurance lawyer managed to negotiate the exchange between a Soviet spy and an American army pilot in East Berlin during the Cold War. Spielberg, armed with a script co-written by--of all people--the Coen brothers (oh ya betcha, yaaa!), manages to bring this piece of history to life, as a film about history should.

1957. A Russian spy, Abel (Mark Rylance), is arrested in New York. James Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer is brought on to defend him. But, he is told, it's basically a farce, since everyone and their mother wants to see this guy hang. The trial is merely to show the world he was treated fairly. Donovan takes his duties seriously, however, and defends Abel to the best of his abilities, to the dismay of pretty much the entire populace. During this time, his relationship with Abel seems to develop into a strange friendship, a sort of mutual understanding despite their differences. The judge presiding over the case wants to see Abel found guilty as much as anyone, but Donovan manages to persuade him to sentence him to jail rather than the chair. At this point, the film's second half begins. An American pilot on a top-secret mission is shot down and captured by the Russians and the CIA asks for Donovan's help in arranging the exchange: Abel for the pilot. Donovan travels to East Berlin, around the time the Berlin Wall was being built, to meet with the Russians, to have the conversations their governments can't.

What I found most appealing is something that is ironically also probably the source of that Spielberg-ian sense of Americana: James Donovan's sense of honor. James and Abel find each other in a way. They value each other's sense of honor and duty. Donovan argues in court that America should behave according to its own well-established rules, even during wartime, otherwise you're also dismissing the Constitution and how could you possibly represent American and all it stands for if you do that? Spielberg must have felt Donovan's message was relevant today. Then again, whenever we see Abel being fairly treated in prison (the way Donovan would've wanted), it's immediately contrasted with how the American pilot is harshly interrogated in Russia, so there's also a righteous America vs brutal Russia undertone, perhaps referring to how the Russia of today is fairing under Putin. Maybe both meanings apply simultaneously, with Spielberg urging humane behavior from both world powers.

If there's one thing the film doesn't sell well, it's the family scenes. Amy Ryan gets the unfortunate role of the nagging wife. That's selling her a bit short, but every time we see her, she's worried about Donovan, the family, the way society perceives them. That's her primary emotion: worry. And what about the son? There was not a single scene where I believed I was watching a father-son relationship. I get that he symbolizes the poisonous influence of those prepare-yourself-against-the-Russians video's from the fifties, but how am I supposed to take him seriously when their house is fired upon and they first thing this kid does is eagerly say he followed the correct procedure in case the Russians attacked them? If they wanted to increase the emotional stakes with the family scenes, well, they failed miserably.

Another (minor) complaint is the build-up to Francis Gary Powers’ plane crash. It's just technical stuff we learn here. We're not becoming emotionally attached to Francis at all. Therefore, the only tense part of his inevitable capture is the CGI-ridden crash itself. You introduced the student only minutes before his capture, so why does the pilot deserve all this endless build-up? Either do a build-up like this right, or let it end up on the cutting room floor. The film's long enough as it is. 

Overall though, the film's quite good. The drama is never overbearing, the film manages to infuse the proceedings with a sense of humor that essentially ridicules this strange part of history (perhaps à la Strangelove) and, even with what I consider some superfluous scenes, it's wonderfully paced. Definitely not a bridge too far.