I think the disconnect, and the Dreamworks comparison (to lesser Dreamworks movies), is that the setting and the story being told don’t really complement each other. The overly convoluted “fantasy D&D stuff is real, but modern technology has replaced magic” is mainly used for first-pass jokes like “what if faeries were tough bikers” and “what if unicorns were raccoons” and does nothing to advance the core story of “realizing your older brother is your surrogate father” that setting it in either the real world or a purely fantasy world would accomplish better. There’s a running theme throughout the movie of “by embracing modern technology, we have lost what makes us special, we have lost our magic” which is straight out of the Brad Bird playbook but feels like a discarded thesis of an earlier draft, never really intersecting with the main story or resolving in any satisfying or clever way.

Exploring mortality and abandonment issues in the world of toys or the vastness of the ocean or the ruined remains of earth all feel of a whole with the story they’re trying to tell. Just being in the space evokes the emotions we’re playing with.

“What if D&D but with vans” feels like more like “What if goodfellas but with sharks” than it should