"Jurassic World Rebirth: Enter At Your Own Risk"
Jurassic Park installations aren’t very innovative. Usually someone wants power, wealth and thinks they can achieve that by manipulating gigantic pre-historic creatures. There’s someone who has worked closely with the species or studied them heavily who gets pulled in to an adventure or nefarious task. There’s always the cool rebel who has street smarts and perhaps a military background. Probably most importantly, there’s some kid in the mix. Jurassic World Rebirth is the same formula, different mission, but still has elements of spectacle.
Probably the most interesting thing about this film is that it takes place in a world where people don’t care about dinosaurs anymore. They’re no longer flocked after by the masses in zoos or theme parks. In fact, they’re dying in climates outside of the equator. Rather than stay in a community where extinction is happening, Zora Bennet (Scarlett Johansson) is propositioned to go to a dangerous island where dinos are thriving to retrieve blood from some of the oldest dinosaurs to try to eradicate heart disease. The gun for hire is desperate for one last job that will allow her to retire, having spent most of her life on special ops, she’s the best person to lead the team being pulled together by pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). From there, they pull in Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and some more rag tag mercenaries to round out the group.
Simultaneously, a family is crossing the Atlantic in the middle of nowhere. In yet another place that writers Michael Chrichton and David Koepp miss the boat (hehe), this family dynamic is explained just enough for us to fill in the blanks on their current relationship but is barely developed over the course of the film. Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) has his daughters, Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda) on this once in a lifetime trip. Teresa’s boyfriend, Xavier (David Iacono), is a lazy stoner who seemingly may have made the voyage under a condition for Teresa to go. Xavier is another character who is underwritten but may be one of the most captivating of the group.
With that we have our characters for the film. Director Gareth Edwards does well when he seemingly pays homage to the Spielberg style of filmmaking. He uses camera angles that show the scale of the dinosaurs versus humans. He pushes in for close-ups to give characters a pivotal line or to show the intensity of a moment. Cinematographer John Mathieson helps in these moments with the golden glow of light that captures a character in the frame. This is all counterbalanced by the visually alarming CGI that’s used. It felt more like the special effects from The Lost World (1925). A perfect example is a scene with a T-Rex waking up to come after the Delgados. The initial camera work and suspense of the scene will have you hold your breath, but you can breathe out once the dino gets moving alongside the family. It looks like they’re superimposed in the frame.
This film brings into question the length of movies made today. Rebirth could have started at sea (about 25 minutes in) and still worked. Why do we have to assemble a team for twenty minutes? What if we meet the team in progress and learn about them during the mission? There is a two to three minute expositional dialogue between Bennet and Kincaid on the ship that is a drag. However, maybe it wouldn’t have been so boring if that was the background info we received on the characters instead of the drawn out set up prior.
Jurassic World Rebirth is predictable and carries a nostalgic familiarity. There are glimpses of brilliance followed by segments of mundanity. It doesn’t know the film style it wants to rely on and is certainly two films in one that come together in the end. It’s entertaining for the moment and forgotten once you hit the lobby of the theater. I couldn’t justify the price for my family to see it in theaters, but nothing beats seeing a dinosaur on the big screen. Enter at your own risk.
Rating: D+
"The Mummy" Review
The Mummy is Universal’s second attempt in the past couple of years to relaunch their Universal Monsters series, now called the Dark Universe. Their first attempt, 2014’s Dracula Untold, was a bit of a misfire. This one is better then that. It’s also a step up from the last Mummy film, 2008’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. A good analogy would be that this was Universal’s Man of Steel to their Green Lantern (when that film was supposed to launch their DCEU). Now dubbed the first in a new franchise, The Mummy had to tell a story while at the same time launch the universe around the dealings of an organization known as Prodigium. For the most part, it’s a fun popcorn film.
On the plus side, Tom Cruise still commits himself to the role. Yes, this is another movie where he can outrun or out-swim you, but he does a good job with the performance he gives as Nick Morton, a soldier who pillages antiquities in Iraq. After unearthing a giant Egyptian tomb with archaeologist, Jenny Hasley (Annabelle Wallis), the evil Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) is unleashed on Earth.
Russell Crowe seems like he's having a blast as Dr. Henry Jekyll, the head of the organization. He’ll be an interesting character they can explore later. The music from Brian Tyler is epic and seems to be better then it should have been. Whenever the film works, it’s fun, with some funny lines sprinkled in here and there. Since this is supposed to set up the new Universal Monsters universe, be on the lookout for some of the other famous monsters along with a blink and miss it reference from the previous Mummy trilogy. The film also plays with the viewers’ expectations in a few places. Finally, the action sequences throughout the film, like the airplane sequence from the trailers, were well choreographed and not overly edited so it was easy to follow.
On the negative side, Boutella doesn’t get to do much as Princess Ahmanet. Since she was a scene-stealer in 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, this should have been a big breakthrough moment for her. Instead, it feels like she didn’t have anything to do other than stand there and try to look menacing. It’s a missed opportunity for her, and she deserved better. The film is derailed by some of its exposition scenes, especially during the opening sequence where it feels like someone is reading a book to you as they try to tell how Prodigium works. It’s also derailed by multiple, repetitive flashbacks to sequences that you saw literally a couple of minutes prior. The CGI is obvious in places and overboard in some places. You know it’s a problem when they repeat some of the same visual cues as the previous trilogy.
With an inconsistent tone, one minute the film is funny and knows what movie it’s trying to be, and then the next it takes itself way too seriously. This could be the case that this film had six credited screenwriters (screenplay from David Koepp and Christopher McQuarrie and Dylan Kussman from a story by Jon Spaihts and Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet). It’s easy to see which scenes were a part of the reshoots to help this film fit in to the larger universe at play. With the combination of writers and reshoots, the climax is a bit of a letdown since it feels like they ran out of money or changed the ending to fit their needs. You don’t need to see this in 3D because it didn’t really bring anything to the film, and instead make some of the night scenes look even darker.
Overall, when it knows what movie it’s trying to be, The Mummy is a fun popcorn film. It’s better then what the trailers advertise, but it does have problems. If you turn your brain off during it, you might have some fun with this, knowing it suffers from trying to set up future installments rather than focusing on The Mummy. This universe might be DOA before it even starts, but if they work on the problems, it could potentially work. If you have to see it, go with a matinee screening. It’s not a bad film, but it’s not a great film.
Rating: B-