SPOILER ALERTS

First off, pay a lot of attention to the vital first few minutes of the film. We didn't pick up on the fact that this was supposed to be THE asteroid and hence the entire movie takes place in an apparently alternate timeline from ours, a timeline where dinosaurs never died out. If you miss that implication, as we did, you'll spend a lot of the movie scratching your head.

I lost count pretty early in as to how many sharks this movie manages to jump over. Worse than the last 15 minutes of Dory even. I could maybe accept that these dinosaurs evolved intelligence, but how they built a sort of agrarian culture without opposable thumbs or tools is confounding. They plow fields with their nose (without worrying about bruises, breathing, or getting their nostrils plugged with dirt); they chop down trees by simply swiping their tail clean through the trunk in a single blow; they irrigate their fields by sucking up thousands of gallons of water into their lungs then blowing it across the field like a sprinkler. They build houses, silos, weave nets, set traps, and construct primitive seeding machines with nothing but their mouths. And this is all within the first 10 minutes or so of the film.

The dinosaurs in this film are apparently made of some sort of indestructible rubber substance. It's odd enough seeing an apatosaurus scaling vertical cliffs, but when they drop off of hundred-foot precipices and suffer no more harm than a few scrapes and temporary sprains and bruises it's a bit hard to swallow. Mud is apparently indelible and indestructible once applied to stone, in spite of raging storms that routinely cause massive flash floods downstream but somehow never wash away the homestead or even the simple footprints on the wall.

I’ve barely scratched the surface. I guess I can only suspend disbelief so far.

The characters seem kind of flat and uninteresting. No one with any of the charm of Dory, or Mater, or Buzz Lightyear. I couldn’t bring myself to care too much about anybody. The “Lion King moment” was predictable from the beginning. Motives were really hard to figure out: why did “Spot” follow Arlo around and try to help him; why would Arlo so quickly forgive Spot when Spot was responsible for — (well, watch the movie and find out); what the hell was up with the crazy styracosaurus? And so on. The obligatory Pixar touching-and-poignant plot resolution was confusingly unnecessary (why should “Spot” have to go off with the random strangers that show up when he has the best friend in the world already… just because they’re the same species as him? Our dogs don’t have to run off with every random dog family that shows up). This stole the thunder from the second and more important touching-and-poignant conclusion, which was so completely downplayed it almost goes by unnoticed.

On the plus side, the visuals are, in the Pixar tradition, stunning. Unbelievable sense of reality to everything except the animal characters. It’s just beautiful to watch. The complete disconnect between the incredible realism of the graphics and the utter nonsense of the storyline and situations may be the chief reason the film is confusing. If it was Wile E. Coyote I wouldn’t even care. Young children probably won’t care either. So if you want to watch a magnificent piece of computer animation, and your kids like a story with dinosaurs, you really might actually enjoy this film.

This movie is a tribute the nudist revolution stirring beneath our very own noses.

First off, there’s nudity in every scene! The titular character and his whole family live on a commune and are 100% in the buff the entire movie. In fact when a young homeless child shows up, he is met with aggression and distain just because he is clothed.

Throughout the entire movie the two main characters encounter nudist after nudist. And like many nudists, some are really strange, some are really scary, and some are very friendly. (too friendly?)

Near the end of the second act more clothed people try to save the boy from the nudists. But peer pressure from the nudists forces the clothed boy to turn his back on his own kind - echoing the harsh reality set upon him in act one.

(Spoiler) In the end, the two main characters (one nudist, one never nude) realize their lifestyles are not compatible and they go their separate ways, each returning to the sanctity and comfort of those who do share their lifestyle.

It’s fairly close minded if you ask me. However one could argue that the lesson to be wary of nudist strangers has value in today’s society.

Also, the animation is good.

Very charming family-oriented movie with great animation! When I say family-oriented, I don't mean that it's just safe for kids to watch, but that at its heart is a theme of what it means to be a member of a family. The premise of the movie is that the extinction of dinosaurs didn't happen 65 million years ago, (the asteroid misses the earth), and we have an alternate reality where dinosaurs (Arlo's family, the T-Rex family he later meets) have advanced to the point of being able to talk and run farms (for the plant-eaters) and cattle ranches (the T-Rex's). Humans are not the dominant species, as pack animals similar to wolves, they live in families (the theme, again), are intelligent hunter-gatherers, and haven't developed speech yet.

If you don't get caught up in the paleobiology and such realities that Apatosaurs were extinct millions of years before T-Rex was around, and other logical flaws (remember, it's just a movie), it's very enjoyable and fun. In homage to earlier Disney flicks, they retained the stylistic form of the mid-century Disney dinosaurs (think of Dino in the Flintstones rather than the realism of the raptors in Jurrasic Park movies).

The writing is well done, with verbal humor that is surprisingly subtle for a kid's movie. I enjoyed scene after scene of just the dialogue. The human critter, Spot, has no dialogue, but his facial and body language are superbly done.

The bonus features are very interesting, and one part explains the fallacies in the movie, setting the record straight, as well as detailing the people involved in making the movie, and how the movie developed from their experiences on their research working with a real family who runs a ranch.

Though the dinosaurs are stylized and somewhat cartoonish, the animation of the environment is jaw-droppingly realistic. It's clearly based on Yellowstone or the Grand Tetons parks, trees' leaves and needles sway in the winds, the moving clouds throw shadows on the hillsides, the coloration of the river pebbles and the dinosaurs' skin textures are hyper-realistic, the water in the rivers and ponds realistically move and scatter the light. In some scenes, as the "camera" pans around, there are computer-generated artifacts of internal reflections of the sunlight on the camera "lenses" that just subtly pop in and out to make you think that a real camera was being used, when you know it wasn't, which shows how painstakingly the artists worked on this! It's a very clever trick that subconsciously works well.

If you have kids, then get this and watch it with them, you may find that you enjoy it more than they!

This is the most stressful children's movie I have ever watched. Think end of Toy Story 3 where they all hold hands and accept their fate. Ya, it's those feels, for almost the while movie! At one point Arlo falls in the water and he's being swept away and he's calling "Mama! Mama!" but she isn't around and doesn't hear him. It is emotional and hard to watch, for this mama.

That being said, it does have a good message, Arlo grows a lot and learns to be brave and that he is strong. It's funny and adorable and my kids absolutely love it. My 6 year old got upset when the dad died (because Disney loves to kill parents) but by the 700th time they watched it, it didn't upset him. My 3 year old is completely obsessed with this movie, but he is a dinosaur lover.

It's a good movie and my 3 kids (6, 3, and 2) love it. I like it, it's cute and it has its adorable and funny moments, it's just hard to watch. But I'm an emotional person haha.

One of my top favorite animated movies. If you love Toy Story & most of Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar then watch this. It has top notch gorgeous animation. The scenery is beautiful & all the dinosaurs are awesome. The story teaches good lessons about how we each grow up at different speeds. Arlo is a smaller more timid dinosaur who takes longer than his brothers to grow up. One day he gets goes out with his father but a storm floods the river & they get separated from each other. He is all alone, hungry, & very frightened when a little human boy brings him berries to eat. He leads Arlo to more berries & that's the start of their friendship. They hang out from then on. Arlo slowly gains courage & learns how to survive. The ending is fantastic. Arlo saves Spot from some mean birds trying to kill him but then they both fall over a waterfall. Spot isn't breathing when they wash up on shore. Arlo blows air on his face which makes Spot gasp & take a breath. As they go about their adventures together Spot keeps howling at the moon & hears another human howling back. A couple times he catches a glimpse of other humans like him but Arlo doesn't want Spot to leave him so they walk away. At the end when Arlo finally finds his old home where he grew up Spot also sees those humans again. Arlo wants Spot to stay with him but sees that Spot belongs with the other humans. Arlo pushes Spot towards them & Spot checks them out but he keeps coming back because he can't leave Arlo. Arlo pushes him away & draws a circle around him & the humans signifying that he belongs with them & they make up a family. Spot understands & joins the humans. Arlo goes on to his home & is reunited with his family. I love how this movie shows how creatures that haven't mastered language learned how to communicate through drawings in the sand & how they found each other in the wilderness by howling. I was crying like a baby with happiness at the end. I don't see how anyone wouldn't like this. It's a really good movie. I highly recommend it.

Arguably Disney/Pixar's best film. Eye-popping scenery and visually beautiful throughout. The story content is just as suitable for adults as younger viewers. A wonderful experience for all ages. The story is masterfully written with humor and pathos for the characters. The character development is complex and multi-faceted. The characters are an expression of all our desires, fears, foibles, sorrows, and even baser instincts in some cases. It is a story of the bonds between family and those of friendship and how pre-eminent those bonds are to our well-being and survival. Do not miss seeing this film!

Thus movie was truly, just ok. I was very disappointed by it's lack of plot and plot holes. The CGI is beautiful, but it's strange why they chose to make the environment so realistic but make the characters still very cartoonish. I was also disappointed to see so many integral parts of the movie's plot were taken from The Lion King. It felt like the Disney Graphic Artists just wanted to try out some new effects and so they invented a movie to do so. And, why is the human acting like a dog??? I think it would have been better if the human was just acting more like a caveman that wasn't evolved enough to be a true human but was more like a pet. I feel this was a great idea for a movie that just didn't deliver. Wouldn't watch again. Kids might like it.

What if humans were the ones to barely survive the meteor crash? And dinosaurs were the ones who survived and evolved? Ridiculous concept? Perhaps. But this movie dealt with the idea quite cleverly in an imaginative rehashing of the ugly duckling except this time, not only does the "duckling" turn into a mature, responsible and even brave dinosaur, (predictably of course) but he also befriends a lost, "wilding" (little human) in the process. Their time together while trying to get back home is an endearing adventure, and of course, life lessons are taught, and learned, along the way. I'd give this a movie a 5, but it doesn't quite have the bones to achieve that rating. No matter. It is still something I would sit down and watch again with my 9 year old...and my 19 year old. :-)