Jurrasic World: Dominion - "Jurassic World? Not a Fan."

The Jurassic franchise has never meant all that much to me (as evidenced by my claim of Jurassic World being my favorite movie in the series a few years ago). I don’t hold the original film sacred, and I never even watched the third one (but does watching that clip of the talking dinosaur a hundred times on YouTube count?).In other words, I’m easy to please with this dinosaur shit. I didn’t even hate Fallen Kingdom, though I found it pretty boring. But the end of that film promised a world overrun with dinosaurs, and I thought, “Well, at least that next one will be badass.” Holy fuck was I wrong.

To be fair, my expectations are largely to blame here. I wanted to see a Roland Emmerich-type disaster movie with dinosaurs instead of aliens and natural disasters. I wanted raptors in the streets of New York. Pterodactyls bringing air travel to a halt as they reclaimed the sky. A T. Rex fucking up a baseball stadium or something. You know, some real cinematic shit. Instead, it’s glossed over in the intro that dinosaurs are just part of the world now, and the main issue isn’t that DINOSAURS ARE ROAMING THE FUCKING PLANET, it’s that there’s a corporation tinkering with the dino technology to control crops (which is only slightly more interesting than the Quantum of Solace villain’s plan to control the water of Bolivia). 

The James Bond movie reference is fitting because this movie really wants to be one for some reason. It’s a good thing that pterodactyls are cool with commercial flight because the characters in this movie are constantly flying around until they end up in a Bond villain-esque compound at the end. The movie is way too busy trying to explain why the characters from the new films will end up in the same place as the characters from the old films. This inevitable meet-up of two different generations is meant to be some awesome moment of nostalgia and current pop culture, but I just didn’t care. 

At first, I thought I didn’t care because I’m just not that into this series. That may slightly be the case, but there’s also the issue with an utter lack of character development aside from all the good guys wanting to stop the bad guy. The new characters are after their adopted clone daughter and a baby raptor, so I guess there’s a chance at some emotional attachment there for some audience members. But the characters from the first films are just there to wear their costumes that audiences will recognize. 

But who cares about the people because this is a dinosaur movie. But it isn’t, really. The dinosaurs are presented as a normal part of the world, so gone are the scenes reveling in the awesomeness of the creatures. There’s a chase sequence in the middle of the film with raptors, and you forget that dinosaurs are even a factor in it until the end when Chris Pratt holds his hand up like a dildo trying to use the Force. And even when the new giant killer dinosaur finally gets to fuck shit up, literally every scene is in the dark. In a series that is only popular because of spectacle, this film is oddly devoid of it. I get that six films in, it’s hard to get excited about dinosaurs. If these assholes have the nerve to keep cashing in on the nostalgia of dino lovers around the world, then they should at least try to justify the existence of their movie. 

It’s as if even the characters in the film don’t know why it exists. So many times characters look at each quizzically and ask, “What?” I’m starting to wonder if those were outtakes that got left in. Even the villain seems confused about everything. A very aloof Campbell Scott plays a Big Lots version of Steve Job whose only villainous trait seems to be a complete disconnect with humanity to the point that he can’t hold a full conversation with anyone. There’s a scene in which BD Wong (hey, he’s been in the other movies!) explains why they need the cloned girl, and Scott (rightfully) points out that maybe they shouldn’t just let her hang out in the lab. She immediately then escapes and is able to even break out the baby raptor on the way. It’s like Scott is still learning how to be a villain, and his heart really isn’t in it. 

And that’s the feeling I took away from the whole movie. No one seemed to care at any point. They know any movie with Jurassic in the title is going to make a fuckton of money, so why try? Just throw together some action sequences and make sure all the characters meet up at the end. And maybe that’s all some audience members want: let me see some familiar faces and some dinosaurs. But as an audience member I set the bar pretty low for myself, and I still came away very bored and disappointed. At least they claim this is it…for now. But like the character who always wears a black leather jacket for some reason said in one of these: “Life finds a way.” Well, when life finds its way back to this series in a decade or so, hopefully someone finds a way to make it interesting.

Random Thoughts

Every time Pratt held up his hand like a Jedi was so fucking stupid. I get that he did that in the other movies, but that was with dinosaurs he had been working with for years. It’s not every random-ass dino knows what the fuck he’s doing with his hand. And when he did it at the same time as Alan, the movie presents it like this amazing moment of two worlds coming together, but I found it so stupid-looking that I laughed.

Dinosaurs are so normalized in this movie that they bring home the baby raptor in a fucking dog crate that I would use for my tiny Bichon. 

So at one point in the film, a random evil lady has some dinosaurs that will attack people at her command. This works by her pointing a laser pointer thing at a person. If you have to be close enough to the person to point something at them to make it work, then wouldn’t you just fucking shoot that person instead of siccing a goddamn dinosaur on them? But I guess this is in keeping with the James Bond theme, because only a Dr. Evil-type motherfucker would have any use for such a stupid dinosaur.

The globe-trotting aspect of this movie is distracting. Laura Dern goes from Iowa (or maybe Oklahoma) to Utah (or maybe Nevada) to meet up with Sam Niell. Then they are suddenly in Pennsylvania…to get on a plane. And when the plane lands, they have to get in a helicopter. What the fuck is going on here?

Everyone is still way too underwhelmed with the fact that human cloning is now possible. Seriously, a human clone exists, and their main takeaway is that they can bio-engineer locusts with her DNA?

About those locusts. They seem designed to destroy any crops not grown with Biosyn seeds. But BD Wong and Big Lots Steve Jobs act like the locusts aren’t doing what they planned. So the villain is accidentally doing villainous shit. If he didn’t want to control the food supply, then what was the plan with the locusts? And is all this the film’s lazy way of condemning GMOs or something? Like everything with this movie, it feels like half a thought that they forgot to finish but kept in anyway.

Back to the pterodactyls. So when they disable the magic defense system at the compound, the pterodactyls immediately attack anything in the sky. So why is this not happening throughout the rest of the world? The movie makes it painfully clear that air travel is still possible. So the pterodactyls elsewhere are just cool with planes, but the ones at the compound hate them?

Why the fuck did the writers just decide to skip over all this kind of shit? I just think there’s a fantastically interesting and entertaining movie about what the world is like when the dinosaurs first make their way back to the rest of the planet. 

Ugh. Fuck this movie.

"Jurassic World" Is the Best Movie in the Series (Coming from Someone Who Just Liked [Not Loved] the Original).

Jurassic World

The Jurassic Park franchise has always had an interesting relationship with the concept of time. The basic premise, dinosaurs from millions of years ago recreated for modern times, is definitely about time and whether or not certain things belong in different eras. N ow the franchise itself faces that question after two lackluster sequels. Does Jurassic World have a place in the movie world? After a historic box office weekend, the answer is definitely “Yes.”

The original film worked so well because it was the first time people got to see realistic dinosaurs created for film. There was magic and a little nostalgia for those who went through a dinosaur phase as a child (full disclosure: I didn’t go through such a phase, and that is perhaps why I don’t consider the original film the beloved classic that many others do). Now the nostalgia has been doubled. Jurassic World will surely please any dinosaur-crazed children, and it will most likely please diehard fans of the original who have been waiting for a worthy sequel. World makes it easy to forget those sequels and fall in love with the spectacle of dinosaurs all over again. Nostalgic fans of the original will think this is blasphemy, but (to me) Jurassic World is the best film in the series.

World is the only proper sequel because it sticks with the theme park setting of the original. This time, the park went off without a hitch, but, ten years in, the investors feel the need to create something bigger and better. To the shock of absolutely no one (even most of the characters onscreen), things go badly. Therein lies the weakest point of the film: why does this place exist when everyone knows the consequences are deadly? The simple answer of greed suffices, but a bit more of an explanation for how the place ever got the okay to exist would have been nice. It’s easy to forgive the film for this minor issue because it’s such an enjoyable two hours.

Jurassic World is everything a good blockbuster should be. There is the spectacle of it all: the theme park looks like an awesome place to go, even with the inevitable danger of it all. There are plenty of tense moments, though nothing equals the iconic cup of water trembling from the original. It balances enough comedy (Jake Johnson is a standout) with deadly serious situations. In short, there’s a lot going on in this movie, and some subplots (a pointless divorce storyline) get lost along the way while others (a military subplot) are there just to set up the inevitable sequel(s). But this is bound to happen when the goal is to please as many filmgoers as possible.

Any shortcomings not overshadowed by computer effects or action are compensated for by the actors. Chris Pratt is officially the go-to movie star for everyone. He’s the perfect blend of traditional hero and modern funnyman. His presence elevates any scene in the film. He works well with the uptight Bryce Dallas Howard, who does what she can with a cliché “too busy for life” professional character. Ty Simpkins, as Howard’s nephew, provides the emotional core of the film. While the subplot involving his parents’ divorce seemed tossed in as an afterthought, it still provided plenty of moments for him to play up the role of a kid on the cusp of dealing with the real world. Watching him try to hold on to the last shreds of childhood joy and innocence at the theme park made the film surprisingly emotional at times.

The comedic and emotional elements are what made this film such a pleasant surprise. The action and dinosaur stuff is cool and great, but there’s nothing about it that is groundbreaking. The dinosaurs are interesting, but the novelty is gone. This means that Jurassic World the film had to do what Jurassic World the theme park had to do: come up with something bigger and better for an audience that needs more than just dinosaurs. While the film does have more impressive battles and dinosaurs (the Mosasaurus was definitely awesome), it’s the small elements that combine to make a truly fun, enjoyable experience.

Jurassic World features funny, emotional, tense, exciting, and awesome moments. It’s all over the place in a good way. It’s busy enough to keep you entertained throughout, and even though the plot might leave you with a few questions (Why did they even open this park? Attendance seemed pretty good; did they need a new attraction? Shouldn’t they be testing out new, dangerous experiments on a different island?), it doesn’t matter in the end. It’s a good time, and when you’re dealing with a movie about genetically engineering dinosaurs for a theme park, you have to expand your suspension of disbelief. If you allow yourself to simply enjoy it, you’ll see that Jurassic World is the perfect blend of a nostalgic throwback and a modern blockbuster.

Jurassic World receives a:

Random Thoughts

David Chen over at Slashfilm.com wrote an article that encapsulates what I loved about this movie. I recommend reading it yourself, but the gist of it is that the idea of the movie itself is referenced throughout in regards to the plot. There are lines like, "This is happening with or without you" that speak to the inevitability of the sequel and why any filmmaker would tackle it. If it's going to happen, we might as well try to make it as good as possible. I liked the article because it helped me reconcile my biggest issue with the movie: why? Well, the film answers my question. Why are they making a new dinosaur? Money. Why are they making a new Jurassic Park movie? Money. It's a simple answer, but it's usually true.

Speaking of money, this movie definitely wanted to have its cake and eat it too regarding product placement. One of my favorite lines was Jake Johnson bemoaning the corporate sponsors of the new dinosaur with a possible example, "Pepsisaurus." It seems a bit hypocritical that a character complains about corporations in a film that is loaded with product placement. I didn't mind, though. In fact, I don't mind product placement at all as long as it's not a blatant commercial or the camera doesn't stay on a logo too long. The only logo I noticed getting maybe too much screen time was Mercedes-Benz. As for the rest, that's the world. I'm looking at a logo for a computer company just below my screen as I type this. We live in a corporate world, so if a movie can get made a bit easier with corporate sponsorship, so be it. 

My favorite corporate tie-in was Margaritaville, but only because Jimmy Buffett cameos as the park guest who manages to salvage two margaritas as the dinosaurs attack. I didn't know it was Buffett until later, but that made the moment even funnier to me.

"Guardians" Is the Weirdest, Possibly Best* Marvel Movie Yet

Guardians of the Galaxy

*I say "possibly best" because I need to let the movie sink in for a while before I claim it to be the best among a lot of very entertaining movies.

And you thought Thor was the weirdest part of the Marvel movie franchise.  As the superhero movies have branched out beyond Earth in recent years with the Thor films and The Avengers, I wondered how far mainstream audiences would go with Marvel into deep sci-fi territory.  Very far, it turns out.  Guardians of the Galaxy (which I will refer to as GotG from here on out because I’m lazy) presents an entirely new group of superheroes who only comic book fans will recognize in an entirely alien setting.  That’s exactly the kind of stuff I like, but I assumed regular audiences wouldn’t be so thrilled since they wouldn’t have an iconic character to get behind.  It turns out audiences and critics alike will go with a movie as long as it’s one of the most fun films of the summer.  (Side note: This shouldn’t be all that surprising since Star Wars could be described the exact same way, and people seemed to like that.  I would point out, however, that “Star Wars” didn’t get the marketing blitz that GotG did.)

GotG works so well because the titular galaxy it takes place in is so large and diverse.  Like most deep sci-fi works, there are many worlds in GotG, so when one is threatened it’s not as big of a deal as it normally is in a film.  What this means is that the film can still be fun while the stakes are quite high.  Characters can joke around at the direst of moments, and it feels normal.  That wouldn’t work if someone was trying to stop a nuke from blowing up America or something.  But when the planet on the line is Xandar, then who cares if we’re laughing while it is potentially destroyed?  (No offense to the fictional Xandarians.)

A goofy sci-fi action film needs a goofy cast of characters to inhabit it and GotG definitely has that covered.  This might just be the high of recently watching and loving this movie, but I’m leaning towards the Guardians over the Avengers at this point.  The group is led by Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a kind of Indiana Jones/Han Solo hybrid.  He is joined by Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a green-skinned step-daughter of evil titan Thanos (and she’s not the weirdest member of the group by a long shot…); Drax (Dave Bautista), a literally literal (meaning he takes everything people say literally) vengeance seeking hulk; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically-altered raccoon who can talk and is a weapons specialist; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a living tree that can talk, sort of (he only says, “I am Groot”).  With a group like this, the movie pretty much has to be goofy and fun.

Marvel has succeeded with all of these increasingly weird properties for multiple reasons.  The cast is usually spot-on, they spend plenty of money for each film, but, most importantly, they hand off the riskiest films to fellow geeks.  Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to helm The Avengers, and lesser-known geek-friendly writer-director (hey, that’s the first time I’ve used three hyphenates in a row!) James Gunn is equally perfect for GotG.  I am a huge fan of Gunn’s first feature, Slither, so I knew when he got this job that GotG would be something special.  Hats off to Marvel for handing off their properties to people who know what they’re doing.  By the way, if you haven’t seen Slither, check it out.

Gunn (and co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman) bring a great sense of humor and nostalgia to the film that makes it stand out even more from the “traditional” Marvel properties.  All of the films in the series have their comedic elements, but GotG is a bit different in that it’s a bit more self-aware.  An example of this would be the fact that Star Lord refers to the mysterious orb at the center of the movie (like the Tesseract or Aether from other films) as having an “Ark of the Covenant vibe” essentially saying the film is a bit like Indiana Jones and these movies always involve some mysterious powerful substance that is never clearly defined.  My least favorite part of all of these films are the Infinity Stones for the very reason that they’re mysterious, are simply called “powerful,” and bad guys want them for bad reasons.  It’s just too vague and uninteresting.  GotG at least calls itself out for it, which makes it easier to stomach.  Moving on, the nostalgia aspect sets the film apart even more.  Star Lord is taken from Earth in 1988 and happens to have an “Awesome Mix Tape” and a Walkman with him.  This allows the film to be scored to music from the late 70s and early 80s.  The contradictory nature of that music set to sci-fi action and locales is funny and kind of cool, really.  And since Star Lord is the only character from Earth (that we see, anyway), he gets to do some Marty McFly-esque referencing as he discusses Footloose in a mythical fashion and refers to John Stamos as a famous outlaw. 

Much of the humor is thanks to the delivery of the cast.  Pratt is a natural as Star Lord.  He has received the most attention for getting in such great shape for the role, and that is impressive, but what makes him stand out in a Marvel movie is his delivery of goofiness, which isn’t surprising given his work on Parks & Recreation.  Regardless of why he gets recognition, he definitely deserves it and carries the film easily.  Saldana is fine as Gamora though the tough sci-fi girl role she always plays is wearing kind of thin.  Dave Bautista surprised me the most with his matter of fact delivery.  The fact that he takes everything literally made for some of the funniest moments.  The voice work for Rocket and Groot is fine, but what’s more impressive about these characters is that they ended up being the most sympathetic members of the group, and they were created through motion capture. 

GotG is still an action film, though the action feels like an afterthought.  That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of impressive fights and whatnot, it’s just that, at this point, we’ve seen a world or galaxy or whatever saved from annihilation by some vague cosmic power so many times that it’s no big deal.  How many times can we see a giant ship of some kind crash into stuff before we get kind of bored with it?  That’s really not a knock against the movie; it’s just that this film handles everything else so much more interestingly that the action isn’t the focus. 

Guardians of the Galaxy (I’ll write it out one more time) is also unique in that almost everyone seems to love it.  That is truly refreshing because I am very used to loving a movie only to see the message boards filled with hate (to be fair, that’s still happening, but it seems much lighter than usual for a movie this big).  That said, I don’t think everyone will love this, and I certainly don’t recommend it to everyone.  The first fifteen minutes of the film involve so many different extremely sci-fi settings and situations that it starts to sound like gibberish.  That could possibly put people off of this movie.  If you can get past that kind of stuff, however, I think there is a movie here for everyone.  It looks pretty crazy, but it offers the kind of fun entertainment that almost anyone can enjoy.  Now let’s see if The Avengers: Age of Ultron can top this next year.  Honestly, I don’t see how it can.

Guardians receives a:

"Zero Dark Thirty" Is About Much More Than Torture

 

Zero Dark Thirty - Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by Mark Boal, starring Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, and Mark Strong - Rated R

 

 

 

 

The killing of Osama bin Laden, or UBL, as he’s referred to in this film, captivated me much as it captivated most of the western world.  It was one of those strange moments in history when we found ourselves cheerful and exuberant because of a death. Okay, not just “a” death, but “the” death of the world’s most infamous terrorist. After the good feelings subsided, the questions began. How did they find him? Who shot him? Where’s the body? Are their pictures? Those types of questions can hold interesting answers, sure, but there are much more important questions, such as: Does this change anything? Was all the work and money spent really worth it? Had people died in vain during the long search? Zero Dark Thirty, the latest from director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), attempts to answer, and at least asks, most if not all of both types of questions.

Zero Dark Thirty handles the why and the how of the manhunt expertly. We’re given multiple examples of the terrorism that explain the need for UBL’s capture, most notably the sounds of 9/11 played over a black screen. Then we are presented with how information was procured not just for UBL’s capture, but also in the attempt to thwart any terrorism. This, of course, is where the film ventures into controversial territory because torture (depending on your definition of the word) was used in the early years of the war on terror. The debate is whether the film condones torture as an effective means of gaining intelligence. Some are using the film as evidence that, yes, torture brought us the information to get UBL. Is that true? Sort of. Certainly advances are made by the investigators in the film thanks to torture, but in no way is this film some ringing endorsement of the practice. If anything, the film makes it clear that torture messes people up on both sides of the situation. It also shows that information can be gained through nonviolent means, as well. Anyway, this film will only start an argument about torture; it won’t finish it.

Because of the torture elements, Zero Dark Thirty can be a difficult film to watch, but that’s the point. The main character, CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain), appears to serve as a representative of the audience when we first see her. She is in the interrogation chamber, and she seems sickened by what she sees. Thankfully, Maya is not simply a personification of how the audience should feel because, once left alone with the detainee, she does not cry or turn into a sympathetic, helpful woman. Instead, she coldly lets the detainee know that they want information, and they are going to get it.

 

If Zero Dark Thirty is anything more than a procedural about the UBL manhunt, then it is a character portrait of Maya.  Perhaps Maya does not necessarily represent the audience so much as she is the personification of the war on terror.  Are terrible means justified by the ends?  Just how long can people keep fighting this war?  Maya has to go through all of that along with being faced with actual terrorism.  It is because of this focus, and Chastain’s amazing performance, that Zero Dark Thirty becomes much more than a docudrama.  Chastain is equal parts victim and perpetrator.  I don’t mean that legally speaking, but emotionally.  It’s a very hard balance to strike without seeming completely inconsistent, but Chastain is able to convey, believably, a character than can cry one moment and face down her boss or a detainee the next.

 

The rest of the cast is impressive, as well, if not for performances then for the sheer variety of it.  The standout, aside from Chastain, has to be Jason Clarke, as a slightly eccentric interrogator.  He brings some serious intensity to the role and a surprising amount of much needed comedic relief.  I’m not sure why he’s being left out of the previews so much because he carries a bit of the film’s weight.  The rest of the cast is great, but those two performances really stood out to me.

 

Watching the previews, one would assume that this film is largely about the raid on UBL’s compound.  This is misleading, just as the focus on Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt in the previews is misleading (they are minor characters in the overall film).  Zero Dark Thirty is a modern spy film in that the majority of it is about the inner politics of the CIA and how information is gathered, lost, painstakingly analyzed, ignored, etc.  It is interesting that James Bond is experiencing a resurgence the same year that this film is released because Maya represents a realistic Bond character in that she is not allowed to do all the things Bond can do even though her ultimate goal is similar to Bond’s in that she wants to stop the bad guy.  There is nothing glamorous about the work Maya does.  To be honest, most of it is boring.  The tediousness of the work explains the lengthy running time of the film (over two and a half hours).  This was not a simple task, and it was also bogged down in politics.  There’s no need to try and spice that up and lie about how things work in the modern spy world.  It may seem strange to praise a film for focusing on tedium, but I feel that it helps the audience identify with Maya’s struggle throughout. 

 

Perhaps tedious is not the best word because I truly found all of the film to be interesting.  It’s just that at some point, since we all know the ending, you start to think, “Okay, come on, we get it, move on.”  This is what Maya is thinking the entire time, as well, though, which is why it works. 

 

There are certain spy elements that may seem a bit boring as Maya goes through files and videos, but Zero Dark Thirty also features some extremely skillfully filmed action elements.  Director Kathryn Bigelow (who was inexplicably snubbed by the Academy) has done an amazing job of recreating events and filming them in a clear way that is easy to follow.  And while Zero Dark Thirty may not contain as many insanely tense moments as The Hurt Locker, it still surpasses that film in ambition and technique.  Bigelow is certainly experiencing the apex of her career right now.  Credit is due to screenwriter Mark Boal, too, as he has turned in an exhaustively researched script that never feels fake or too extensive. 

 

Overall, I am glad I held off from compiling my top ten list until I had seen this film because it will certainly be on it.  Zero Dark Thirty is an immensely effective, entertaining, and thought-provoking film that features a masterful leading performance.  It pretty much does everything that I think a movie should do, and it does it well.  Don’t look to Zero Dark Thirty to form your opinion on torture, look to it for a much larger picture of the war on terror and what it has all been about.  It won’t answer all of the questions for you, necessarily, but it will make you think, and that is much more effective.