Movie Review: Jurassic World

Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) revisits the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar (and even creates a new one) in Jurassic World.


Right away this movie does something a little different than the other three.  For three movies with the word park in the title, there sure were not many visitors.  Ironically, we change the title to Jurassic World, and the park finally opens.  Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard, The Help) is the operations manager of the park, and her two nephews Zach (Nick Robinson, The Kings of Summer) and Gray (Ty Simpkins, Insidious: Chapter 2) come to visit her and see the park.  She of course is the typical busy aunt who sends the kids off with an assistant.  Meanwhile in another part of the park, Owen (Chris Pratt, Guardians of the Galaxy) is off playing Beastmaster with four raptors.  He's developed a kind of bond with them.  Security guy, Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio, The Cell) sees this and decides raptors would make a good military weapon.  It seems the park has been open for some time, because they are already trying to find bigger and better exhibits for the visitors.  So, they concocted their own brand of dinosaur and called it the Indominus Rex.  He inevitably escapes.....because, duh!  The kids meanwhile had run away from the assistant and are out on their own when the rides and attractions get shut down.  Owen rounds up his merry band of raptor warriors and goes with Claire to save the kids.  Hoskins tries to get Dr. Wu (BD Wong, Jurassic Park) and his DNA samples off the island so he can build his army.  There's an awesome dinosaur fight, and Jake Johnson shows up occasionally throughout the movie to be funny, and there's death and destruction and people being eaten, and I'm assuming nobody will still learn a lesson from all of this and there will be another movie.....because dinosaurs!!


This movie had some hurdles to jump.  It was coming off of two not-so-great sequels before it.  I felt like it completely ignored the fact those even existed, but it gave many references and nods to the original masterpiece of Jurassic Park.  It already had the sequels beat just in the story alone.  I like that it changed it up and actually had a park that was up and running.  This brought back some of the fun and wonder of the first film.  There were kids riding baby dinosaurs, a crowd of people watching a giant Mosasaurus jump out of the water and splash them like Shamu, and a cool gyrosphere vehicle that allowed people to get up close to the big guys.  Did it get into familiar territory after that?  Yeah.  How can it not?  The only way to go with these movies is to have dinosaurs escape and eat people.  I felt like this one at least had a few new ideas.  Training raptors seems silly, but made for the interesting turn of having those little fellows fight with the humans.  The Indominus Rex was an unstoppable killing machine, so Howard's idea at the end for stopping him was quite fun.  There was a lot that you had to suspend your disbelief, but really, you're watching a movie about dinosaurs and humans living together....disbelief already suspended.


I will say the characters were pretty clichéd and tired, but the actors did well with what they were given.  Howard did fine as the aloof aunt.  The kids were a little overbearing at first, but it got better as the film went along.  Chris Pratt is awesome.


There are things that either don't make sense, or are just convenient.  Somehow the oldest kid knows how to fix up a jeep that's been stored for the last 22 years.  The new Rex has been spliced with other animals that make it convenient for certain scenes.  The things that didn't work were small enough that they didn't bother me.  What did work, really worked.  The effects were great.  The tension was there in all the right places.  The dinosaur fight at the end was just plain cool.  There were a lot of great little nods to the original movie as well.


Did this movie have problems? Yeah, a few.  Did it deliver on the fun factor though?  Yes.  There was just enough humor put in to keep it from getting too dark (although the Jimmy Fallon bit fell flat for me).  It was paced well with a lot of dinosaur action.  As clichéd as the characters were, they were acted well.  Will any Jurassic movie top Spielberg's masterpiece Jurassic Park?  No way.  But, here we have something that at least captured a little of the same spirit of that great film.  If you're a fan of the first film, then I really think you might find something to like here.


Rating: ********-- (8 out of 10) [matinee]


Memorable Quote:
Barry: These guys.  They never learn.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn (Slither) helmed this next installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's another great success in my opinion.

The general audience may not know who the Guardians are, but watching this film they'll definitely be hooked on a feeling of complete joy.  The film starts off in 1988 with a small boy named Peter Quill.  After seeing his mother pass away, he runs off and is abducted by a spaceship.  Cut to present day and we find an adult Peter, played by Chris Pratt (The Lego Movie), hunting down this small orb for a buyer.  We find that in the last 26 years he has been raised and trained by a group of ravagers, essentially space pirates.  He tries to sell it on Xandar, the homeworld of the Nova Corp.  It turns out to be a powerful weapon that the Nova's enemies, the Kree, want to steal for themselves to destroy Xandar.  From there it becomes a fun romp through space with Quill (or as he likes to call himself, Star Lord), and the unlikely group of heroes he accumulates, fighting the good fight to save Xandar and the Nova Corp.

It's a pretty basic plot, but the real fun of the movie comes from getting to know the characters.  Peter Quill is a wise-ass womanizing space pirate.  Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista, Riddick) is the literal-minded, muscle-bound alien hell-bent on getting revenge on the Kree.  Gamora (Zoe Saldana, Star Trek), is the "daughter" of the Kree leader, Thanos, whom she incidentally hates.  Then there is the walking tree named Groot (Vin Diesel, Boiler Room) and his little partner Rocket (Bradley Cooper, Limitless), the space-raccoon (although don't call him that to his face) with an attitude.  This group doesn't even like each other to begin with, so the bickering just makes for a fun time as they get to know each other and start to realize that they need to work together.  The role of Quill seems like it was written just for Pratt.  I think it may be the best bit of Marvel casting since RDJ as Tony Stark.  Not knowing the characters ahead of time, I don't know if the part was adapted to him or if that really is the way the character is.  Either way, it was just a ton of fun to watch.  The others did just as well, especially Diesel who did voice-over for the CGI Groot and could only use a vocabulary of three words to get his point across by using different inflections of his voice.  There was also a lot of greatness in the supporting cast with the likes of Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, and Michael Rooker.  One of the standouts, however, was Lee Pace (Lincoln).  He played Ronan, the leader of the Kree army that was after the orb.  He dove so far into the role of the power hungry alien that I didn't even realize it was him until the credits rolled.

Besides the top-notch cast, this film has a lot else going for it.  There's a little something in it for everyone.  The dialog is one of the best things going for it.  This movie had me laughing throughout most of it.  The dialog was just really witty and sharp.  I am a huge fan of 80's movies and this film managed to work in a lot of 80's dialog and references.  It was not shoehorned in either.  It all made sense within the context of the film, since Peter Quill was abducted from earth in 1988.  That would mean all knowledge of Earth for him only goes up to the 80's.  In keeping with this trend, it also had the feel of an 80's action/adventure/comedy.  It's hard to describe.  It was like watching an old Indiana Jones, mixed with a little Ghostbusters, set in space.  I don't mean similar subject matter, but rather tone and feel.  Also, without shoehorning it in, but rather flowing it into the narrative, this film may have the best soundtrack since Almost Famous.  It has a soundtrack that just makes you want to get up and dance.  In fact, there's even some fun dance scenes in here that also seem like they have no place in film like this, but somehow work oh so well.

Well, after this whole love-fest for this fantastic movie, I do have to point out one or two minor things that did not work for me.  First, I was worried in the beginning about the dialog.  These are characters that, as I've said, the general public are not even going to know the names of.  Therefore, that's the one thing they did have to shoehorn in.  I thought the dialog when introducing a couple of the characters was a little hokey.  You'll give this a pass, once you realize that it is only to get the introductions out of the way, which is necessary.  The other thing is, I did not like the camera work for the heavy action scenes.  When there was too much action going on, the camera was all over the place.  It was also full of fast cuts.  Luckily there were not a lot of scenes like this, and when there was a little less heavy action it was perfectly acceptable.  It just seemed like when there was too much going on at one time the director and cameraman didn't know where they should be, so they tried to be everywhere at once.

Other than those small complaints, I highly recommend you go out and see this film.  It doesn't matter if you know these characters or not going in.  By the time you leave, you'll be hungry for more.  And in true 80's fashion they let you know you'll get more with the pre-credits title card telling you "Guardians of the Galaxy will be back".  Also, being a Marvel movie, there is a stinger after the credits.  I will tell you that it does not progress any storyline, but for anyone in their mid-30's like me, there's a fairly unexpected fun little cameo.  This movie has it all, action, adventure, comedy, dancing, and a killer soundtrack.  If you're looking for a fun time at the movies, this is your ticket.

Rating: *********- (9 out of 10)

Memorable Quote:

Gamora: We're just like Kevin Bacon!