Friday, June 26, 2015

Jurassic World (a movie review post)

The first thing I want to say about Jurassic World is that it was much better than I expected it to be. Much. I liked Jurassic Park well enough but the sequels were... well, they were less than good. None of it inspired high expectations from a movie that has the appearance of being nothing more than a car on the Chris Pratt star train. Which is nothing against Chris Pratt, because I've been a fan of his since season one of Parks and Recreation.

Since we're already talking about Pratt, let's just continue to do that. Pratt was fine. Good, even. But it wasn't a part that called for Pratt, and he didn't do anything to make it his, not like with Guardians of the Galaxy. Peter Quill is inseparable from Chris Pratt, because Pratt made that part his. The most that the part of Owen Grady called for was for Pratt to be "a badass," or at least to look like one. He pulled that off, but it didn't take any particular acting skill.

Bryce Dallas Howard, on the other hand, does show considerable skill as the aloof Claire. It's not a role I've seen her play before; though, to be fair, I haven't seen her in a lot. Still, I think she did a good job as the woman trying to be in total control. Of everything.

The one I was really impressed with was Vincent D'Onofrio. I kept looking at him and wondering where I'd seen him before and just couldn't put my finger on it. I had to look up that he's the Kingpin in the current Daredevil series from Netflix. The two roles are widely divergent and, while I think he is the weak link in Daredevil, I now think it's because of some combination of the writing and directing rather than him just being a poor actor.

For Jurassic World, the kids prove to be the weakest element. Neither of them are completely convincing, though I think it's due at least in part to weak writing. Like the scene where Gray unexpectedly breaks down comes out of nowhere and is included just to make explicit something the writers had failed to be previously explicit about. Also, Zach's interest in girls. Which isn't odd except that they firmly establish that he has a girlfriend then repeatedly show him checking out other girls but that doesn't go anywhere have any impact on anything. It adds nothing to the story other than to muddle his personality.

Beyond that, the issues are only details, though there were two that bothered me more than the others. The first was the eggs hatching during the opening credits, which was completely wrong. Things that hatch from eggs hatch with their beaks and, if they don't have beaks, they generally have an egg tooth. Sometimes, they have both. The other thing was the kids getting one of the abandoned cars started, a 20 year abandoned car. I don't know much about cars, but I know enough to know that 1. car batteries don't hold a charge for that long and 2. even if they did, gasoline actually goes "bad." The idea that the boys, who had only ever helped work on a car once, could get one of those jeeps working was pretty much ludicrous.

BUT! Overall, it was a pretty decent movie and certainly worth seeing on the big screen. Despite Pratt not really being in a role that called for him, he was good, and his character was certainly the most interesting. Besides, the scene where he rides his motorcycle along with the velociraptors is almost worth the cost of the movie.

13 comments:

  1. The kids were indeed the weakest part. Someone else posted that they were completely unnecessary characters - take them out, and the story still happens the same.
    Although I was disappointed with the film, it was still entertaining. Dinosaurs on the rampage - what's not to like? Just wish the plot holes had been plugged better (if all the dinosaurs had an implant, why didn't they zap the pteranodons?) and that it wasn't so similar to Jurassic Park. (Although the nods to the first one were great.)

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    1. Alex C: I think you could make an argument that the story wouldn't have been the same, because the dinosaur wouldn't have been following them if they hadn't been in it, and their aunt wouldn't have been out looking for them, etc., etc.

      I think the story is supposed to be about how all the dinosaur stuff brought the family back together again, but, then, there's not really enough of the family stuff in the movie for us to care about it.

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  2. I expect we probably won't see this one. My wife has Spielberg issues. I realize he didn't actually direct this installment but it's still his franchise. Still, glad to hear you enjoyed it.

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    1. TAS: My wife has been known to have Spielberg issues as well, specifically his tendency to do movies about kids being in danger. This one certainly fits that.

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    2. I think my wife resents his overt, heavy-handed emotional manipulation. Kids being in danger is actually an excellent example.

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  3. I heard it was really good. Considering that it was a Jurassic movie, you can’t really be surprised that there’s scientific fudging. They wouldn’t exist without it.

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    1. Jeanne: The general science of the movie was okay, the gene manipulation and stuff. That's what makes it kind of aggravating that the couldn't do the correct egg hatching.

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  4. I really didn't enjoy this one. Which made me sad. I felt Pratt was underwhelming (and I liked him in his other stuff), and I really wish they'd just cut the first 30 minutes of the movie. Why cast the girlfriend at all and give her a stunning intro to never have her shown again...? Why have the parents going through a divorce? Cut both of those things out and the story doesn't change, except to give us a better ratio of dinosaurs to family drama.

    I also felt like they simply didn't do enough divergence from the original story. I get that there's a brand to uphold, but this was all of the last three movies put into one. Nothing new occurs, except for the fact they don't explain why they were greenlighted to be on the SAME island as Jurassic Park, or why each pen didn't have it's own computer system to contact HQ with... that seemed really bizarre that she gets the info about Indominus Rex over the cell, instead of being able to corroborate via computer AT the pen. Etc, etc.

    So yeah, I was pretty disappointed. :/

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    1. Alex H: I agree with you about Pratt. They didn't use him as Pratt, they used him as a name. He probably did what he could with the part, but the extent of that was really the scene where he's fixing his motorcycle.

      The divorce and the girlfriend are both part of what I mean by "the kids are the weakest part." Those are vague attempts to give their inclusion meaning, but neither thing is developed.

      I don't remember the other three well enough for comparisons. It's been more than 20 years since I saw Park, and the other two were so bad I've mostly blocked them from my mind. I went into this one without anything to compare it to, in essence. And without any real expectations. Well, that's not true; I probably expected it to be horrible, and found that it wasn't that bad. So I enjoyed it.

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  5. They didn't do any development with the whole "wah, my parents are getting divorced" thing. I still don't understand why they bothered with that. It was stupid. Poor writing. Don't throw that in just to have that conflict, then not take it anywhere. Weird.

    Vincent D'Onofrio freaks me out a little. He was in The Cell.

    I also didn't understand why they bothered with the implants thing. They could have pushed a button and been done with the whole deal. I was highly amused by B.D. Wong being in this one. Glad they included him. Though you'd think he would have learned a bit more from his first experience.

    I must say, it looked much more like an amusement park than the first one did. Very modern, consumer-driven.

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    1. Shannon: No, they didn't, and the scene they stuck in with the younger kid crying about it was completely out of context and character. Again, the stuff with the kids was weak.

      And I think the park was supposed to look like a Disneyland kind of place. This is the world we're heading to and all of that.

      I don't know if I have an opinion of D'Onofrio, yet. I should probably see more with him in it.

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  6. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to see this. While it sounds like it turned out okay, any movie which can be summed up as "People nostaligic for the first one will pay for this one too" is not something I'm interested in watching.

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    1. Briane: I probably wouldn't have bothered with it except that my kids wanted to see it. Amazingly enough, this one has been in some stage of development since before #3 came out.

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