Jurassic World Dominon Review: Fans Will Love It! Anyone Else Should Wait For Streaming.
Let’s cut straight to the point on this. Jurassic World Dominion is great for fans of the franchise and may be disjointed and unbelievable to anyone else. If you are looking for fan service, it’s rich with it. Otherwise, this may be a good streaming pick later.
First, with a word like dominion in the title, you would think that dinosaurs are assorting their dominance in the world. Semantics don’t matter as the species just live among us in this film. Credit goes to screenwriters Emily Carmichael and Colin Trevorrow for creating a world that feels lived in and thought out. What if dinosaurs really lived among us? What would a black market for dinosaurs look like? What would the PETA equivalent look like in this world? They’ve thought of it all, accept how to tell a cohesive story.
The film has a Steve Jobs-like CEO, Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), as its villain. Dodgson was a minor character from the original film and was a corporate rival of the park’s creators. He’s now is the head of a massive company called Biosyn. It’s the type of tech company that is heavily guarded and you have to have an invite to get on campus. He’s bioengineered locusts that eat the crops of the world, in order to control the world’s food supply.
This is where the gang loosely comes together. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are looking after Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), a teenager who Fallen Kingdom revealed to be a clone of a deceased scientist. She holds the key to stopping the disaster and everyone wants a piece of her…kind of literally. We get a globe trotting race to stop impending disaster and the re-introduction of fan favorites Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. How they all link up is where you have to suspend disbelief. It’s that kind of a film where you really need to just, not think. “It’s a film about dinosaurs!” I hear you yelling at me. I get that, but that doesn’t mean that we have to accept characters being in one location in one scene and appearing in a distant location in the immediate following scene with no context as to how they got there unless they were The Flash.
This film introduces the always interesting Mamoudou Athie as Ramsay and DeWanda Wise as Kayla. Kayla is a black pilot who smuggles whatever for the right price. She provides a source of keep it real comedy that is needed for some of the unrealistic moments in the film. Sermon is the heart of the film as she wars with is she real or not. Jeff Goldblum is his charming, old man swagged out self as Ian Malcolm. His humor is much welcomed as well.
There is a major gripe I’ve had with big beasts/monster movies in cinematic history and that is the fact that, since King Kong (1933), we’ve seen how a white character can bring a beast under control with a touch. This is a film where white characters lift their hand and stare down a dinosaur to make it back down. It happens multiple times throughout this film and this imagery is worrisome because seeing yourself on the big screen is important. King Kong, Godzilla, Frankenstein (before it tosses the girl into the lake), any Potter film and more beasts are always under this spell. Shot sizes and cinematography matters. There is a subconscious message that, against impossible odds, white characters can tame a beast. Hollywood needs to stop planting this in its viewers’ minds or at least spread the wealth in these preposterous situations and reflections of power. Let a little girl from Nepal stare down the next dinosaur!
Off of my soap box, it would definitely be of use to revisit Fallen Kingdom, Jurassic Park, and maybe even Jurassic World for this to catch easter eggs. For fans of the franchise, this is likely to be a good time. If you’re not a huge fan, save your money this weekend, or go see Top Gun: Maverick again!
Rating: C-
"Avengers: Infinity War" Review: It's All Led Up To this!
Wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me catch my breath! We’ve been leading up to this battle for ten years, and I don’t think anyone who sees Avengers: Infinity War can say that they are disappointed. For the few people who inevitably may, at minimum you have to respect the gargantuan charge that Marvel had in bringing everything and everyone together.
You’ll know the film’s tone and stakes from the opening scene. Things are grim. The villains (Thanos and his cronies) are extremely powerful. They have a power that feels like we haven’t seen before. It’s exercised in such a way that it feels like they can’t be taken on one on one or even two on one at times. The main bad guy in this film is Thanos (Josh Brolin), the purple giant that we’ve only caught glimpses of up until now. He’s bent on collecting all of the Infinity Stones now that he has the gauntlet that can wield their power. Marvel gives us a complex villain in Thanos in that through his twisted logic, he believes he can bring balance to the universe by wiping out half of it.
Doing the math on the number of stones, and where to find them, the Avengers quickly spring into action on taking a stand. Throughout the film, different heroes are in different place across space but they’re all working towards the same goal: stopping Thanos. It’s a desperate situation that literally has the fate of the universe in the balance.
Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely had an extremely large task on their hands in weaving a tapestry of different characters together while creating one cohesive story. For the most part, everyone gets some time to shine. Characters like Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) are more than just eye candy in this film. They have a heft to their story that makes them feel more apart of the story than they have in the past. It’s great to see the continued evolution of characters like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Shuri (Letitia Wright) in their power or intelligence. The writing suggests that in between films thing happened rather than spelling it out for us.
The Russo brothers did a great job in making sure that they respected the directors work that has come before them. So Thor (Chris Hemsworth) feels like Taika Waititi’s Thor (thank God). Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Wakanda feels like Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and his vision of Wakanda. The pacing of the film is on the money as well. The 156 minute run time is earned in such a way that you want to see more.
The biggest issue I had with the film is that at times it did feel like you could see the stitches in the segments being put together for the overall story and to give each character some screen time. While there were plenty of emotional moments throughout the film, some of them felt hollow due to either the writing not setting up the weight of its importance or the power of the Infinity Gauntlet.
With that said, I haven’t seen a movie where the audience was one in experiencing it together in a while. Funny moments receive uproarious laughter, grim moments received pen-drop silence as we all held our breath, and awesome fight scenes and choreography got us all cheering. This was a daunting task. It’s the type of task that you say shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll be among the stars! Well Marvel shot for the moon, and in my opinon, planted their flag as Titans in movie magic. The ending will send you reeling!
Rating: A-
"Jurassic World" Review: The Park's Lost some Magic
“Jurassic Park” exploded on the big screen in 1993. It was magical, it opened a new world to CGI, and simply entertained. Since then we’ve had two films trying to continue that magic that didn’t fair as well. “Jurassic World” may be the best of the films that have followed, but the numerous plot holes can’t be excused to make it more than an OK film.
For some reason Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) thought it wise to create Jurassic World, a theme park where dinosaurs are the main attraction, on the same island that Jurassic Park was created barely twenty years before. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the straight laced business woman in charge of the park. In order to see a boost in attendance, they’ve created a new dinosaur with the help of lead scientist Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) (a nice throwback to Jurassic Park). While their creation is smarter and bigger than a T-Rex, the Indominus Rex has also been in isolation its entire life. The combination troubles resident velociraptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) who thinks of the animals as beings rather than assets.
To give us a view of the park, Claire’s nephews Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson), have come to visit their aunt. They’ve been sent out with VIP passes to enjoy the park since Claire is too busy with work to spend time with them after seven years of not seeing them. It’s in the scenes with the boys that we get to see the spectacle of the park in extreme wide and aerial shots. It allows us to imagine what it would look like if we were able to live and interact with dinosaurs. The grand scale of a brontosaurus, triceratops and other prehistoric creatures are displayed beautifully in these scenes. As lovely as it is, we’re really just waiting for the Indominus Rex to break out!
When the Indominus Rex finally gets out, the movie seems to finally start! Attempting to not have a PR nightmare, Clair and Masrani try to keep things under control as quietly as possible while security mogul Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio) attempts to use his militant security squad to take out the beast for his own self interests. In the meantime, Claire and Owen team up to save her nephews and protect park patrons.
In the beginning of the film Claire says something to the effect of “20 years ago dinosaurs were magic, these days it just doesn’t matter to kids.” The same could be said about this film. “Jurassic Park” was original and magnificent. “Jurassic World” has the same plot as any mad science gone wrong film that has come out since then. Why humans think they can control dinosaurs and why Claire runs around in heels for the entire movie while trying to run for her life is lost on me! How do you train raptors? How does a jeep run after 20 years by simply replacing the battery? Where as many instances in “Jurassic Park” did have some, logic has absolutely nothing to do with this film.
Thankfully, the action and suspense is what you would desire to see in a film like this. The writers did a great job of sprinkling humor throughout the film to break up the intensity of certain scenes and monotony of the plot. There are plenty of laugh out loud, light hearted moments in the film, for the right reasons! There are also quite a few homages to the original film that will be delightful for JP fans.
If you decide to spend your hard earned cash on “Jurassic World” this weekend, you will be entertained. Just remember to hand over your brain with your dollars. Don’t rush the kids if you’re running behind and may miss a bit of the beginning of the movie. While seeing the film in IMAX was nice, the 3D effect didn’t do much for the film. Choose wisely.
Rating: C