Life, Uh...

Year: 2018

Director: J. A. Bayona

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall

Run Time: 2 hours 8 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies in the history of cinema, so I don't know whether that makes it shocking or completely understandable that I felt no interest in checking out Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The fifth entry in the long-running blockbuster franchise is about as far from that original film as you can get while still being about CGI dinosaurs. Jurassic Park has more in common with When Harry Met Sally than Fallen Kingdom.

Approach with caution.

So, Fallen Kingdom picks up several years after Jurassic World. Dinosaurs are living in peace on Isla Nublar following the destruction of the theme park, but a volcanic eruption threatens their survival. Dinosaur rights activist Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) are sent to the island on a rescue mission by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), a proxy for John Hammond's former business partner Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell). Because you can never trust the rich, in real life and especially the movies, this trip may not be as kosher as it seems.

Along for the ride are sharp-tongued paleobiologist Zia (Daniella Pineda) and wimpy tech dweeb Franklin (Justice Smith), as well as what the movie paints as years of emotional baggage and sexual tension between Owen and Claire, even though it's just thin air. Also there's a little girl (Isabella Sermon) running around, because what's a Jurassic Park movie without an unnecessary child character?

Better.

Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is a phenomenally dumb movie that takes the franchise in a phenomenally dumb direction that paints future Jurassic directors into a corner, forcing them to make a phenomenally dumb movie as well, whenever that should come down the pike. It's so dumb that its dumbness is literally infecting the future. Its dumbness has slipped out of the timestream, and not even Doctor Who can stop it.

Sometimes this dumbness is used to its advantage, like how every shot of Claire begins at her sensible shoes and pans up, throwing a hilariously overbearing number of winks at the "high heels in the jungle" controversy. Mostly it is used to its detriment, like the rapidly fluctuating number of guards around at any given time when our heroes need to sneak around the bad guy's lair that totally diminish any tension or stakes because they're never around when plot stuff needs to happen. 

Sometimes Fallen Kingdom hits the bad-good strides I was hoping for, including a sterling moment where Bryce Dallas Howard shrieks the word "Chair!" with a hurricane-blast of emotion like she was gunning for that clip to end up on her Oscar reel. In fact, she's frequently too good for the material, but in the completely wrong direction, turning random lines into scenery-obliterating grenades of diva drama that would make Gone with the Wind blush. 

"These raptors will never be hungry again!"

While Howard is busy either giving the best or the worst performance in the movie, the rest of the cast just flounders around, drowning in a sea of unmotivated decision-making, inscrutable dialogue, and CGI mayhem. Chris Pratt seems devoted to being as bland a male cypher as possible, and a heap of character actors dawdle around the edges with nothing in particular to do. And don't get me started on Jeff Goldblum, who I don't particularly like on a good day, and who is positively catatonic in his one-scene cameo.

The only person who seems to have actually showed up to work is J. A. Bayona, who directs the crap out of the movie. Not out of the actors, mind you. But as far as the imagery goes, Bayona is the second best director to ever touch one of these movies. His composition of light and shadow is frequently exquisite, especially in the bizarre turn the film takes toward gothic mansion horror in the third act. He directs the movie like a German expressionist masterpiece, only instead of using the implication to drive the horror, you also get to see a whole lot of CGI dino-monster.

If this were any other movie, I'd call that the best of both worlds. But Fallen Kingdom isn't the best of anything. Bayona really is working it (to the extent that I'd even recommend seeing this movie, just to bask in the way he captures the feeling of majesty and awe that Spielberg so capably honed in the original film), but it's still a dumb, milquetoast popcorn epic that doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of narrative, character, acting, fun, or much of anything a person would come to this movie for.

I mean, I came for the visual references to Nosferatu, but I ain't your average bear.

Oh, and the score isn't even good. John Williams' iconic themes are mostly shelved in favor of a bizarre choral piece that shrieks in your face how big and important every scene in the movie is. It's the movie in a nutshell: Fallen Kingdom tries very hard to be a lot of different things, and it fails in a lot of spectacular ways. The things that work really work, but if you made a list of those things, it would fit on a Post-It note.

TL;DR: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a bland nothing of a popcorn flick, although its director clearly has his head in the game.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 916
Reviews In This Series
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)
Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)
Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)

New Year's Resolutions: And Another Thing

Just when you thought it was over… My implacable backlog continues to grow, necessitating another slate of mini reviews.

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

Year: 1999
Director: Trey Parker
Cast: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman
Run Time: 1 hour 21 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

The kids of South Park become obsessed with a vulgar Canadian movie, prompting a parental crusade against Canada that erupts into all-out war.

South Park: The Movie. It’s just like South Park the show, only bigger! If you like the show, you’ll love the movie! Otherwise, steer very clear. I could just end my review there, honestly, but I would like to take this time to commend Trey Parker and Matt Stone for being two of the leading musical theatre songwriters of our generation. That statement sounds less ironic following the success of The Book of Mormon, but the fact remains that the duo has been writing incredibly rewarding musical theatre essentially since their careers began.

In addition to ramping up the vulgarity and offensiveness of their show, the movie also expanded their fairly frequent lyrical moments into a full scale musical extravaganza that’s just as much Les Misérables as it is South Park. That is, if Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg had seen fit to include a truckload more F-bombs. With an endless array of catchy tunes including the Oscar-nominated “Blame Canada,” the über-catchy “What Would Bryan Boitano Do,” and the downright genius, reprise-laden “La Resistance (Medley),” SP:BLaU is legitimately one of the better original movie musicals of all time.

Fun music with a sharp political agenda is most certainly an ironclad reason to recommend South Park, although the plot sequences do lack a bit of the thrust required to render the film itself a true blue classic.

Rating: 7/10

My Soul to Take

Year: 2010
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker
Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Seven kids were born prematurely on the same night a notorious serial killer died. Now they’re being hunted down on their 16th birthday. Could one of them carry his reincarnated soul?

I love Wes Craven and end to appreciate his works, good or bad, but boy am I glad that My Soul to Take didn’t wind up being his final film. His first self-penned script in nearly a decade and a half, My Soul to Take certainly contains nuggets of his typically idiosyncratic ideas, but it flops in its execution. Craven is nothing if not a skilled storyteller, but as a 70-year-old man, it becomes understandably difficult to write teen dialogue and situations. His script is littered with sub-Diablo Cody slanginess and a nigh-on incomprehensible story flow. It’s like one of those arcade games where your quarter bounces randomly down the pegs, with every turn almost exclusively going somewhere unpredictable and frustrating.

There is a lot to dislike about My Soul to Take, all of which I heartily do. The killer is everything Craven’s villains never were: Vulgar, crude, and loudmouthed. The less hardcore mindset he acquired as he grew older is queasily unsuited to bring this character to life, and his direction leans a little too heavily on MTV-style quick flashes and arbitrary slomo. It’s a garbled mess with subtext that pretty clearly announces that he’d rather be out bird watching than working on this film. Every genius has their duds, and their willingness to try new things make my appreciation for them even stronger, but damn is this ever a flabby, sputtering dud if I ever saw one.

Body Count: 12

1. Sarah is killed offscreen.
2. Doctor is shot in the head.
3. Ambulance Driver explodes.
4. Kay is stabbed in the gut and tossed into the river.
5. Penelope has her throat slit.
6. Brandon is stabbed in the gut.
7. Brittany is stabbed to death.
8. Quinn has his neck broken offscreen.
9. May is killed offscreen.
10. Cop is stabbed in the back.
11. Jerome is stabbed in the chest.
12. Alex is stabbed in the gut.

Rating: 3/10

Jurassic Park III

Year: 2001
Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni
Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Dr. Alan Grant is tricked into visiting Isla Sorna by a rich couple who want to save their stranded son.

So, the third Jurassic Park movie. This is the one that absolutely nobody talks about, so I was definitely apprehensive. Fortunately, no JP movie could be worse than The Lost World with its quiet bongo antics so I was in for a treat. I didn’t love it with quite the spittle of Friend Hunter over at Kinemalogue, but I certainly feel it doesn’t deserve its ignominy. It’s a popcorn flick through and through, but that doesn’t mean it ain’t worth a watch.

The stunning action setpieces that typically define these movies are back in full force, with a third act that leaps from stellar moment to stellar moment like stones across a stream. JPIII knocks its characters down, slits them up, drags them through the mud, attempts to drown them for good measure, and still comes back for seconds. It’s an exhilarating whirl, like being trapped in a washing machine. As an overall story it’s a little more generic, but it does the trick, bringing an estranged family together with the power of Amblin.

It’s got its action, a healthy sprinkling of comedy bits, a splash of theme about paleontology becoming defunct no that real life dinos are alive and stomping… There’s naught to complain about. It’s certainly tackier than the original masterpiece, and a talking raptor dream sequence is just about one of my worst movie watching moments of the whole year, but it’s a fun jaunt back into Crichton’s world, minus his heavy-handed political bleating.

Rating: 7/10

Getting Go: The Go Doc Project

Year: 2013
Director: Cory Krueckeberg
Cast: Tanner Cohen, Matthew Camp, Ramon O. Torres
Run Time: 1 hour 31 minutes
MPAA Rating: UR

A college student pretends that he’s shooting a documentary to get close to a go-go boy he’s obsessed with.

I’ve always been a proponent of applying the found footage style to non-horror genres, so this low key vérite romance is right up my alley. Part Weekend, part Breathless, all pretentious, it’s an interesting look at modern romance without getting too obnoxiously hung up on that “modern” part. It’s not all treatises on social media and tech trends, but a human portrait of a relationship between two people who fundamentally don’t work together. One is obsessed with his perfect ideal, the other is confident enough to know not to change himself for a man.

Mostly just conversation-based, Getting Go could very easily have been a snoozefest, but a layered script and some colorfully innovative editing keep the pace brisk, save for a closing ten minutes that could really use a trim. The acting is a little rough, especially from the nonprofessional Matthew Camp, but the two leads have enough chemistry to smooth out most of the clunkier line readings. Getting Go lives in its silent moments, which let the dialogue-packed scenes settle into your brain with contemplative stillness. It’s no new classic, but it’s sexy, it’s stylish, and it has a great soundtrack. What more could you want?

Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1207
Reviews In This Series
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)
Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)
Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)

They Don't Move In Herds

Year: 1997

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn

Run Time: 2 hours 9 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG -13

In between the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993 and The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997, two very important things happened: 1) Jurassic Park became the highest grossing film worldwide, and 2) Schindler’s List. Both of these explain, in turn, exactly why The Lost World exists and why it’s not so great.

Much like Scream 3, which I also happened to review recently, The Lost World is a sequel helmed by an auteur that had, quite frankly, checked out. Spielberg had already mentally moved on to his, arty, Important phase and was only directing the film out of a beleaguered sense of commitment to the fact that – if the franchise had to be screwed up, it might as well be by him.

It’s the popcorn movie version of senioritis.

The Lost World is helmed by returning screw-up Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), the rock star mathematician – an oxymoron which could only exist in a Crichton novel. In a scene that’s clunkily written and contradictorily sequelly in the most threadbare, irritating way possible, he learns from the defamed billionaire John Hammond (a palpably bored Richard Attenborough) that not only is there another island of dinosaurs (on which the monstrous creatures have roamed free for four years, only recently revealing themselves by attacking a young Camilla Belle in a desperate attempt to prevent her from remaking When a Stranger Calls), but his girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already there, part of a crack team that Hammond has put together to study these creatures in the wild.

When Malcolm joins the team along with Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) and Dead Guy (Dino Meat), he only does so to rescue Sarah and get the hell out of there. Unbeknownst to him, his daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) has snuck along for the ride because she feels neglected. The lesson here is the becoming an Important Filmmaker does not make the daddy issues go away.

Once on the island, Ian and the team discover that Hammond’s company InGen, which has been taken over by his nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), is leading a safari team to capture the animals and take them to the mainland and create a zoo, because that idea worked so well the first time. So it’s Good Science vs. Bad Capitalism until Big Scary Monsters get pissed and start eating everything that moves, leading the groups to band together in an attempt to escape the island intact.

Also, Sarah is studying the parenting habits of T-Rexes because dinosaurs can have daddy issues too.

The Lost World is to Jurassic Park as a paper cut is to an axe wound. It’s much shallower, less visually interesting, and you can make a big deal about it if you feel like it, but it’s just not the same. It’s an utterly flat film. Where the original comes alive and crackles with tension at nearly every second past the hour mark, The Lost World squelches along, reading a newspaper, pausing only at intervals to look up and remember that it’s supposed to be doing something and ramp up the tension once more.

The film is wracked with a profound sense of weariness, going through the motions without ever challenging itself to be something more than a routine popcorn pic, save for two sequences. One of these sequences I have the profound and annoying pleasure of being able to name drop: My father was the film’s liaison from Fleetwood, the company which provided the mobile home that hangs off the cliff in the only truly memorable scene. So you’re welcome. Without him the film would have nothing to recommend itself save a raptor attack so short it could buy ad time on the Super Bowl without breaking the bank.

Industry jokes always kill in these reviews, you’re welcome.

Of course, John Williams has the audacity to score all of this – even the pulse-pounding, genuinely thrilling RV sequence – with some hideously limp, sanctimoniously light bongo music. It is perhaps the single worst tune the man has ever composed, and I’m counting any particularly on-key flatulence. What the film hasn’t already torn to shreds in terms of tension, characters (Ian Malcolm’s behavioral traits are put in a blender and almost completely rearranged for this film), and logic (Did I not mention that they bring a T-Rex to San Diego? Well, they bring a T-Rex to San Diego), are blasted into smithereens by this woeful, dreadful score and flushed straight down the U-bend.

With that out of my system, it must be said that, for all my complaining, this film is only truly bad by the high standards set by Jurassic Park. Except for that John Williams score. Screw that John Williams score and the whimsical island mule it rode in on. It’s a disappointment that The Lost World is nothing more than a popcorn movie, but it’s reasonably diverting and at the very least, it’s not as woefully idiotic as Jurassic World.

Again the film is well shot (this time by long-time Spielberg compatriot/best friend bracelet-sharer Janusz Kaminski), with well placed shafts of lights delicately playing amidst the dusky forest. Again the dinosaurs are well realized, though none have the sheer weight and terror provided by pre-Schindler Spielberg’s keen direction. Only the effects on the raptors are in any way improved from Stan Winston’s master class in animatronics.

And finally we get some goddamn stegosauruses!

The thing about The Lost World is that it’s outrageously uneven, which is why this lumpy review is jerking from place to place like a scooter on a gravel driveway. There’s a dollop of cheery humor here, a dash of undercooked gore there… It’s like Spielberg got out the Jurassic Park mix packets and was busy whisking the ingredients together in the bowl when he noticed the he’d accidentally thrown away the box with the instructions on it.

There’s some jabs at a theme in the beginning (Malcolm is only a good boyfriend/father when he can make dramatic gestures, not in the everyday things) that get completely lost by the finale (a T-Rex visits a swimming pool!), the acting is largely decent but totally forgettable (Moore hasn’t quite yet settled into her talents, and Chester is at least more palatable than the Murphy siblings), and the action is shallow but present.

The most I can say about The Lost World is that it’s there, and I don’t begrudge it of that. It’s an absolutely workable film and sometimes that’s all a film is. It’s not awful. It’s not great. It’s not Spielberg, that’s for darn sure. And that’s why it’s so painful to watch, despite its blandly pleasant qualities. The loss of what could have been is so plainly, palpably there, throbbing behind the screen.

Oh well, at least they never made any more of these.

Ah. Damn.

TL;DR: The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a disappointment after the high standards set by the first film.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1185

Reviews In This Series
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)
Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)
Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)

Life Finds A Way

Year: 1993

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum

Run Time: 2 hours 7 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

This review is an epic adventure two years in the making. You see, back when I was first starting my blog in 2013, it was right around the time that Jurassic Park was re-released in theaters in 3D. During that time, I was still using my training wheels. I was still transitioning from my cruddy, Tumblr-based format, and it would be a couple months before I made the kamikaze commitment to pen a review of every movie I watched.

Unfortunately, a lot fell through the cracks, though it did lead to some very strange and insightful articles that are far from disappointing. Anyway, this all comes back to me sitting in that dark theater, re-experiencing Jurassic Park for the first time since childhood on the big screen. All big, puffed-up talk about Spielberg and popcorn blockbusters and the rise of the film school generation aside, that is the kind of experience that you can’t fail to be profoundly affected by. You wanna know why? I’m just gonna say it, professionalism be damned: Jurassic Park is freaking awesome. And I’m sorry I didn’t find the time to review this back then.

Yes, it has a brain in its head, yes, it’s marvelously composed and shot, and yes, the computer imagery is revolutionary, but before we get down to brass tacks, let’s take a moment to step back and look at the big picture that those tacks are pinning up.

Jurassic Park is freaking awesome.

Of course, Jurassic Park has the audacity to open straight onto its very worst scene: A tragically silly raptor attack littered with an uncomfortable profusion of extreme close-ups of mouths. But the effect of that front-loading means that it’s only uphill from there, and between this scene and the film’s grand finale, that slope is like Mount Frickin’ Everest.

When the movie settles down into its plot proper, we learn several things. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is a man with a dream. And a bank account that would make Donald Trump weep tears of liquid gold. His life’s ambition is to create an unforgettable theme park populated with live, cloned dinosaurs on the South American island Isla Nubar. When his investors demand a thorough inspection of the site before opening it to the public, they call in prominent mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). 

For his defense, Hammond brings in famed archaeologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his wife/girlfriend/general long-term commitment person, the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern). To his dismay, his guests don’t want to play on his elaborately-designed rides, rather preferring to marvel at the science behind the cloning and discuss just how dubious an idea it is to toss kids onto an island with a herd of hungry velociraptors.

Right on cue, Hammond’s grandchildren – Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) arrive. Together with the inspection team, they set out on a jeep tour of the park that goes horribly wrong when a bit of subterfuge by disgruntled employee Dennis Nedrey (wayne Knight – Hello, Newman) causes the gates to malfunction, setting the ravenous dinos on the rampage. Dr. Grant finds himself stranded with the kids and, in the process of escorting the little buggers across the island, begins to shake his firm resolve against ever having one, because Steven Spielberg.

Also, Laura Dern could teach Bryce Dallas Howard a thing or two about sensible footwear in survival situations.

At its core, Jurassic Park is an astounding act of creation. Combining top dollar animatronic effects supervised by SFX superstar Stan Winston with an extremely clever, tastefully discreet use of nascent CGI technology, Jurassic Park brings prehistoric mayhem to impossible life. Computer graphics were about as sophisticated as a Nintendo game back in 1993, but by using them to augment brilliant practical effects and disguising the biggest deficiencies beneath the cover of night, the film holds up mind-bogglingly well. The dinosaurs here have weight and autonomy bestowed upon them thanks to the tender, loving care of the filmmakers, making Jurassic World’s collection of pixels look like a kids’ cartoon. 

Jurassic Park is ultimately a celebration of what technology can achieve* when it’s applied with some good, old-fashioned elbow grease. And that’s the thing about the film that makes it such an enduring classic: Yes, it’s an enormous popcorn spectacle, but the showstopping effects are generously ladled over what is already a terrifically solid film qua films.

*Ironically, the story is staunchly anti-science, but that’s more Michael Crichton’s fault than anything.

I would say that the movie would be just as good without the dinosaurs, but even I know that would be going at least a smidge too far.

Beneath the wondrous layer of dino mayhem, Jurassic Park is an appallingly clever film. The subtext (which is largely about chaos theory and how any manmade attempts to alter the course of nature are bound to go horribly wrong) manifests itself in a variety of subtle, layered ways, many of which are achieved with the help of ace cinematographer Dean Cundey (who also did Halloween and everything else that matters). In moments like a computerized DNA pattern being projected onto the rough, scaly skin of a hunting velociraptor, or the billowing “when Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth” banner that flutters from above a roaring T-Rex, Jurassic Park is both rapturously beautiful and visually inventive.

And this rampant creativity doesn’t just stop at frame composition. The film’s action sequences are among the best ever committed to celluloid, ranging from the unbearably tense (the raptors in the kitchen), the heroically cool (the jeep crashing down the cliff face), and the intoxicatingly intense (the kids fighting to keep the jeep’s glass ceiling between them and the T-Rex’s slavering jaws). All this cinematic carnage is peppered with instantly iconic shots that any movie producer would sell their left lung just to have one of, pushed over the edge with bombastic glee by John Williams’ brassy, epic score.

After all this time, we’re still trying to break through the glass ceiling.

Now here’s the part where the imperfections hiding in the shadows come out to pounce now that our guard is down. This was a film made in the early 90’s after all, and the only unquestionably perfect thing to come out of that entire period is me. As such, Jurassic Park hails from the early days of home computers, in which thriller directors found endless captivation in lavishly depicting people clicking through blocky filed systems.

But there’s one thing that betrays the film’s 1993 vintage above all else…

Hold onto your butts.

That’s right, Samuel L. Jackson is cast as the resident computer nerd. Pulp Fiction was a year away, so nobody could quite figure out what to do with him. This is mystifying, but it’s also a good segue into the acting, another unfortunate victim of the stranglehold of the 90’s. Along with a slate of malnourished characters that are more broad strokes than nuance, there are wild peaks and valleys in the film's overall performance quality. Attenborough, Dern, and – shockingly – Knight make it through without a scratch, but Sam Neill is a little too puffed-up, the kids are a little too shrill and wheedling, and I hate to admit it, but I’ve never uh… been um- a huge fan of –uh… Jeff Goldblum.

I appreciate that his acting style emulates the natural processes and rhythms by which actual real people formulate their speech. I really do. But if I had a nickel for every godforsaken syllable he uses to infinitely prolong his (admittedly well-crafted) dialogue, I’d make more than his entire salary. Plus residuals.

But aside from these slight speed bumps, Jurassic Park is and will always remain an indefatigable classic of popcorn cinema. It’s a superbly crafted work of art with a beating human heart hidden beneath its shining, high-tech exterior. And, after my next entry in this marathon, we’ll find out once and for all if quality blockbusters do move in herds.

TL;DR: Jurassic Park is an epic, delightful popcorn adventure.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1359
Reviews In This Series
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)
Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)
Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)

Raptor Buddies

Year: 2015

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins

Run Time: 2 hour 4 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Jurassic World is not a better popcorn movie than Jurassic Park. But to be fair, I can list the number of popcorn movies better than Jurassic Park on a Post-It. With room to spare. But as a peer to this summer's Mad Max: Fury Road, which is also a decades-later followup to an inordinately successful trilogy, I can comfortably say we're two for two in fourth sequels that aren't total garbage wastes of time. 

Mind you, Mad Max is a luminescent, damn near perfect masterpiece of balls-to-the-wall action that challenges the very notion of what cinema can be and Jurassic World merely isn't quite as dumb as Jurassic Park III. We're measuring on vastly different scales here, but two successful franchise continuations in the new Millennium? For Hollywood, this is like Christmas.

Though I daresay Santa's reindeer have slightly fewer teeth.

Jurassic World is a direct sequel to Jurassic Park, depicting the successful application of John Hammond's dream to create a fully functioning theme park with genetically modified, de-extinct dinosaurs. Run by the eccentric billionaire Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), Jurassic World is now a well-oiled machine attended by thousands of happy tourists a day. Hoewver, as time has passed, children have become immune to the technical wizardry of the past. They long for bigger, better, more exciting adventures, and Jurassic World is prepared to give it to them. The park, that is. The movie is content to slop a bucket of CGI onto the screen and call it a night. But I digress.

Headed by the emotionless businesswoman Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park has been developing a new attraction designed by the noteworthy scientist Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong, the only returning cast member from the original film). Called the Indominus Rex, this massive creature has been designed to be scarier, deadlier, and larger than any creature the park has ever attempted before. Evidently they failed on that front, because we learn from a too-early reveal (and a quick scan of any nearby Toys R Us shelves) that the creature is pretty much just a kinda tall, albino T-Rex. Wheeeee.

Needless to say, the highly intelligent animal escapes, putting Claire's nephews - surly teen Zach (Nick Robinson) and his wide-eyed younger brother Gray (Ty Simpkins of Insidious) - and the entire park at risk. Together with the gruff raptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt), they must work to bring the theme park back from the brink of total disaster, butting heads along the way with Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), a militaristic meathead who wants to use the raptors to bring down the beast in order to prove their viability as military weaponry.

As you can probably tell, Jurassic World has a bit too much on its mind, and that's without even mentioning the subplot about Lowery (Jake Johnson), the comic relief control panel worker, or the ongoing divorce proceedings of the kids' parents, Karen (Judy Greer) and Scott (Andy Buckley).

Trying to keep track of them all is like trying to keep four raptors from biting your pretty hands off.

Jurassic World has too many plates spinning in the air, which prevent it from ever truly realizing its full potential. 

The first plate to wobble and crash to the floor is its characters. There's too many of them drifting on and off the screen to really find a hero to root for, only two of them have any semblance of an arc (Claire, who seems to be the protagonist, if only because she happens to be onscreen the most and her costume design actively reflects her transition, is the first; the second is Zach, who goes from being a surly teen to a less surly teen, so let's not dust off our Oscar shelves just yet), and the rest are shallow ciphers: Hoskins is a picture of avaricious evil, Gray is the whiz kid, Owen is the badass knight in shining armor, and so on.

The emotional impact of the storyline lacks sinew thanks to the protagonists' lack of inner life, and many of the broad strokes masquerading as character development only weakly prop up the cardboard cutouts populating its world. The parents' divorce adds next to nothing to the film (save about 5 more minutes of screen time), and the awkward, forced romance between Owen and Claire is about as credible as the McDonalds "Healthy Choices" menu.

Just look at that crackling chemistry. You can feel the heat from here.

The second, and largest, plate to fall is the special effects. CGI graphics are improving as time goes on, and nothing here is quite as egregious as the weightless copy-and-paste construction robots in Tomorrowland, but the fact remains that Jurassic Park was a success thanks to its conscientious use of computer graphics. Instead of using computers to augment and aid practical effects, Jurassic World  liberally - and lazily - slathers the film with pixel grotesqueries. 

The only abominably unconvincing dinos are the T-Rex and occasionally the raptors, but there is no lasting spectacle to be found in Jurassic World. Chockablock with flat, obtrusive CGI that lingers even in the furthest corners of the film (Really - A gate? A bird? You're telling me there's no birds pecking around the windowsills at Amblin that you could grab?), even the most convincing visuals lack impact thanks to their remarkably spotty brethren.

When you set uninspiring CGI monsters against a cadre of dull stereotypes, all running around the island madly bumping into one another, it becomes extremely difficult to muster up any cobwebs of suspense.

I mean, look at this. I'm pretty sure I played this computer game in third grade.

The third and final plate is the script. Along with a complex tunnel system of plot/logic holes, nearly every decision made by any human is the worst possible outcome for whatever situation it happens to be. I of all people am willing to accept some gaps in logic from dumb characters in suspense movies, but many key moments (and nearly every aspect of the "release the raptors" subplot) are idiotic and, worst of all, generic.

It would be one thing if the flaws in the story were in service of unparalleled action and suspense, but for the most part they form a loud background hum to one of the most hideously cliché adventure movie beats in years. Bad government, mad science, wan romance, and blockbuster drama collide in Jurassic World, careening pointlessly in all directions. The film is self-important in the worst way, packed to the gills with Important Lines that characters say while staring off into space. In fact, I don't think a single shot exists in the first act, where Chris Pratt doesn't saunter into frame (even if he's already in the middle of a conversation) to say something Badass and Insightful.

Chuck in a production team that somehow thinks it's appropriate to resurrect John Williams' classic theme when the characters are riding an escalator and you've got yourself a bit of a mess on your hands.

Nothing a good barber can't fix.

OK, are we done complaining? Good. Because, in spite of its ample flaws, Jurassic World is still a fun, dumb summer flick. The shadow of Jurassic Park is a terrifyingly tough one to escape, and of course this film - with its supremely rickety foundation - does not manage it. But it does manage to scrape together a pretty decent thrill ride for the new generation of dino lovers.

There's a negligible amount of genuinely effective suspense in this film thanks to its thin characters, but more than a couple scenes have moments that startle the senses into something above complacency. Likewise, there are a handful of comic relief moments that strike gold and have the capacity to elicit actual, bona fide peals of laughter. The rest of the film coasts on effects-filled action and, when it gets a chance to abandon its pretenses at telling an authentically human story, it does not disappoint.

Jake Johnson is funny as always, and Bryce Dallas Howard is more effective than the trailer gives her credit for, but the real conflict comes with Chris Pratt. He does more than enough to prove himself as a viable candidate for future non-comedic roles, but Owen gives him absolutely nothing to work with. He's awash in the contradictory pages of the script, relying only on his natural charm to get the point across rather than any act of true character creation.

It's shallow and it's messy, but it's still a good time at the movies. Maybe the rampaging dinos don't have they heart they used to. Maybe the humans they tread upon fall short of interesting. But as a slick, surface level thrill ride, Jurassic World does its job. No more and no less than that, but it's something I don't dread seeing again.

TL;DR: Jurassic World is a totally fine popcorn movie, all things considered.

Rating: 6/10

Should I Spend Money On This? I ain't gonna stop ya.

Word Count: 1514

Reviews In This Series

Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1997)

Jurassic Park III (Johnston, 2001)

Jurassic World (Trevorrow, 2015)

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Bayona, 2018)