Diplo’s Mighty Adventure Review – Family Dinosaur Animated Film Breaks the Fourth Wall Revolting Versus ‘Adorable’
We begin in well-trodden space for children’s entertainment: a little sincere dinosaur, a mildly annoying protagonist, a sarcastic sidekick, and a collection of supporting creatures. However this co-produced film makes an unexpected shift.
Unexpectedly, the narrative shifts into a physical scene. Viewers witness a cartoonist creating in a dim studio, crafting the very same animation we’ve just been watching.
The artist is interrupted by an extremely grating figure – reminiscent of a wildly eccentric film trope. She demands that he remove his current characters and produce something mainstream and “adorable”.
What follows is a devastating destruction of the insufficiently cute. The dinosaur loses his parents and, though he is slightly tiresome, it’s moving that he believes the loss happened because of him.
The meta narrative develops as more eccentric characters are removed to pave the way for something more palatable. This gives the feature deeper meaning – given that animated film are the medium most affected by the appeal of the cute.
However, even if the themes are more interesting than run-of-the-mill family films, the personalities don’t captivate. It’s not that animated critters having to be adorable, but rather you do have to be engaged enough with them. In this case, that’s not entirely the case.
Diplo: The Mighty Dinosaur releases in UK and Irish cinemas on 19 September.
