So this weekend I decided to subject myself to all 5 available Jurassic movies. I'd already started my journey before deciding I'd refuse to see the new movie as I'm tired of supporting the rampart hollywood nepotism surrounding it plus its the Pacific Rim: Uprising writers, thats an even better excuse. I'm undecided if I feel like writing so I'll just summarize my thoughts for now.
Jurassic Park 9/10
At this point Jurassic Parks rough edges are just starting to show in the special effects department, but I remain unable to pick apart the narrative or acting. I can't help but wonder if the fact that Michael Crichton was directly involved in production didn't have some impact on that. Being a hardened author he's used to having people pick apart the fine details.
I was watching Mr Sundays movies comedy reviews of the Jurassic Park films last week and they noted Hammond is actually a bit of asshole. On rewatched I'd never really noticed, but yeah for most of the movie it's clear he doesn't give a fuck about dinosaurs, he's a huckster and its not until late in the film, after being lectured multiple that he shows any humanity.
In retrospect Nedry is the most three dimensional villain of the franchise. He's selfish and money grubbing much like all the other villains in this series, but you have a clear picture of his overall character and why he does what he does and when. The setup and payoff his comeuppance works.
I've probably seen Jurassic Park 30-40 times since it's release. It was so popular it was in theaters for a year I believe. I know I was dragged to it in theaters by friends and family many times. It was one of those movies somebody always had next to the VCR right by Independence Day, Die Hard and Aliens etc. Despite that I always manage to rewatch it once every couple years and it never really gets old.
Jurassic Park: Lost World 4/10
Or as I like to call it - fucking awful. I really get the impression production had a lot of confusion and mishaps because the movie is just all over the place literally and figuratively. By the end of it I felt like Spielberg filmed several movies and edited them together. It relies on most of the cast consistently making stupid and illogical choices to move the plot forward. They start off the island for too much of the movie, then do a plot about saving dinosaurs, then a plot about villains stealing dinosaurs, then a lengthy plot of them escaping, then hunting the T-REX, and then they fast cut back to mainland for the escaped T-REX story.
Theres some editing issues as well with the female second T-REX disappearing from the movie inexplicably (I looked around online just to make sure I'm not crazy, its gone after the waterfall scene.) as well as the strange fastcut from island to the harbor which makes it seem like only minutes pass between and finally the strange scene of the dead boat crew and the T-rex escaping and then being locked in the hold.
This all isn't to say the movie doesn't have fun scenes and solid acting, but it's struggles to take the audience on an adventure with people they care about. Theres no real time spent with any of them, its in all just incohesive, meaningless noise and too many storylines.
Jurassic Park III 6/10
I'm lying when I say its a 6/10. Its closer to a 7/10, but I suspect I'm a minority on this one. Unlike the Escapist movie critics I'll happily eat peanut butter ice cream everyday. I do not deem "different" to always be "better", and in this case I'm not bothered in the least by Jurassic Park III being a retread of Jurassic Park. I'd absolutely agree it's more of the same, but I wouldn't call it a shitty remake, it's more like a solid expansion DLC. Kid is trapped on island parents kidnap Sam Neill and force him to rescue kid and help them escape while they gawk at pretty dinosaurs. Everybody claps at the end.
I think the cast and the dialog is great. I never felt like any stupid decisions are made outside of whats expected from the fish out of water characters and theres no "snidely whiplash" this time around which is nice. I liked the mercenary was like "These two are idiots I'm following you guys." I also appreciated that, unlike lost world, I was seeing more of the islands and dinosaurs, specifically I thought it was about damn time we got to see the Pterodones.
The movie benefits greatly from being a hot 1 1/2 hours. I have this weird thing where every couple years I'll watch this again on its own and I think part of that it not really having any story investment. There's rough 15 minutes of setup establishing the characters and then its running and screaming literally until the last 2 minutes of the film. This is intercut with barely 30 seconds every 15 minutes or so adding subtle depth to the characters motivations. In a way it reminds me of "Honey, I shrunk the kids". Just a fun popcorn movie.
Jurassic World 6/10
I remember being kind of eeh about Jurassic World when it first came out but on 2nd/3rd viewing I find myself softening a bit. Its like Jurassic world is a fun friend that has a fart joke that they just have to do every where you go. Jurassic World is Jurassic Park again with new cool dinosaurs, fun chase scenes, but this time everyone is stupid.
Because the Park is only making billions of dollars a year in profit they decide to actually start genetically engineering Dinosaurs to be Super villains, but they take no real precautions, they don't do any studies, and theres an actual scene where the guy who owns the park demands to know whats in the Boss Monster and the head scientist is both baffled by its abilities, but also actually says "he's not at liberty to say"? The F? I assume there's some external movie online material or AR crap that explains that while the Billionaire guy owns the park and is in charge INGENE owns the gene stuff, but if you just watch the movie it all comes off as inept morons running the show. Theres also the question of why, if the Monster is missing, they'd immediately go in the paddock to investigate without being absolutely confident there isn't an error with the thermal system. The monster then escapes despite the fact it still has the tracker and hasnt torn it out yet. Lot of logical leaps. The billionaire decides to be an action hero and with all the security on the island hes "only" helicopter pilot? Theres a lot of this throughout the movie. Promptly crashes into the Pterodones cage, causing chaos ten fold.
The snidely whiplash villain this time around wants to use raptors as weapons. It would be nice if the villains were actual people and not silly SNL characters. Like why can't he just be a military guy out of options? Speaking of silly, theres a lot of oxygen wasted on Jake Johnson throughout the film as a comp troller. They have him make some snarky remark every couple scenes and do comedy relief. I feel like when you "put" comedy relief in your movie that's when you know your vision just isn't quite there. Overall the movie is enjoyable, I just wish it wasn't built on stupid logic to function. I just can't see myself ever watching it again, but it was ok. I thought family & kids surrogates were fairly genuine. I was sad for the dinosaurs.
Jurassic World Dominion 5/10
You know, I just finished JWD this morning I'm already kind of forgetting what all happened. It's very forgettable. So the hook is the dinosaur are all gonna die, and go extinct so we gotta save them. Well here's my first problem - No they're not, they can just clone more. The writers want you to gloss over that fact. I'm tired of hollywood using LCD test audiences and just hoping the rest of us won't ask questions. It feels like every shitty tentpole movie does now, like "wtf would an old dagger point to a crashed deathstar?". Shit like that. Respect your fucking audience.
Anyway yadda yadda action, explosions, they were actually capturing the Dinosaurs snidely whiplash selling dinosaur to fund genetics to make dinosaurs. Why use a gun when you can point dinosaurs? clone girl, why? who cares, but you just had to take time give us the exposition for it anyway. Actually there's two snidely whiplashes in this one - Idiot Billionaire who wants to sell dinosaurs and then evil henchmen who hunts dinosaurs. The henchman this time around literally walks up and lets the super monster out despite the fact that earlier in the movie his tranquilizer darts failed to disable a velociraptor so he should at least be cautious. Fuckin whatever (RESPECT YOUR AUDIENCE).
What I found interestingly stupid about this one, and I can't be the only that raised my hand, was how cheaply they were selling the Dinosaurs. If you actually watch the auction most of them go for like 2-15 million dollars which I thought was strangely out of touch. In todays economy thats chump change anymore, like elephants cost a million dollars. Houses cost a million dollars, A living dinosaur would be like half a billion dollars realistically. I'm surprised literally no one production found that curious.
Jurassic World Dominion ultimately is kind of just a rehash of Jurassic Park: Lost World fumbling with the same problems. It starts and ends off the island and is largely just noise. There's no real arc for any of the characters. This time around you genuinely don't care about anybody. I think they would have been better served to have Chris Pratt sacrifice himself or something to add some emotion to the movie.
Its only real redeeming quality is finally getting the Dinosaurs off the island to hopefully blow up the statue of liberty and turn humans into mindless savages, or hollywood writers.
Jurassic Park 9/10
At this point Jurassic Parks rough edges are just starting to show in the special effects department, but I remain unable to pick apart the narrative or acting. I can't help but wonder if the fact that Michael Crichton was directly involved in production didn't have some impact on that. Being a hardened author he's used to having people pick apart the fine details.
I was watching Mr Sundays movies comedy reviews of the Jurassic Park films last week and they noted Hammond is actually a bit of asshole. On rewatched I'd never really noticed, but yeah for most of the movie it's clear he doesn't give a fuck about dinosaurs, he's a huckster and its not until late in the film, after being lectured multiple that he shows any humanity.
In retrospect Nedry is the most three dimensional villain of the franchise. He's selfish and money grubbing much like all the other villains in this series, but you have a clear picture of his overall character and why he does what he does and when. The setup and payoff his comeuppance works.
I've probably seen Jurassic Park 30-40 times since it's release. It was so popular it was in theaters for a year I believe. I know I was dragged to it in theaters by friends and family many times. It was one of those movies somebody always had next to the VCR right by Independence Day, Die Hard and Aliens etc. Despite that I always manage to rewatch it once every couple years and it never really gets old.
Jurassic Park: Lost World 4/10
Or as I like to call it - fucking awful. I really get the impression production had a lot of confusion and mishaps because the movie is just all over the place literally and figuratively. By the end of it I felt like Spielberg filmed several movies and edited them together. It relies on most of the cast consistently making stupid and illogical choices to move the plot forward. They start off the island for too much of the movie, then do a plot about saving dinosaurs, then a plot about villains stealing dinosaurs, then a lengthy plot of them escaping, then hunting the T-REX, and then they fast cut back to mainland for the escaped T-REX story.
Theres some editing issues as well with the female second T-REX disappearing from the movie inexplicably (I looked around online just to make sure I'm not crazy, its gone after the waterfall scene.) as well as the strange fastcut from island to the harbor which makes it seem like only minutes pass between and finally the strange scene of the dead boat crew and the T-rex escaping and then being locked in the hold.
This all isn't to say the movie doesn't have fun scenes and solid acting, but it's struggles to take the audience on an adventure with people they care about. Theres no real time spent with any of them, its in all just incohesive, meaningless noise and too many storylines.
Jurassic Park III 6/10
I'm lying when I say its a 6/10. Its closer to a 7/10, but I suspect I'm a minority on this one. Unlike the Escapist movie critics I'll happily eat peanut butter ice cream everyday. I do not deem "different" to always be "better", and in this case I'm not bothered in the least by Jurassic Park III being a retread of Jurassic Park. I'd absolutely agree it's more of the same, but I wouldn't call it a shitty remake, it's more like a solid expansion DLC. Kid is trapped on island parents kidnap Sam Neill and force him to rescue kid and help them escape while they gawk at pretty dinosaurs. Everybody claps at the end.
I think the cast and the dialog is great. I never felt like any stupid decisions are made outside of whats expected from the fish out of water characters and theres no "snidely whiplash" this time around which is nice. I liked the mercenary was like "These two are idiots I'm following you guys." I also appreciated that, unlike lost world, I was seeing more of the islands and dinosaurs, specifically I thought it was about damn time we got to see the Pterodones.
The movie benefits greatly from being a hot 1 1/2 hours. I have this weird thing where every couple years I'll watch this again on its own and I think part of that it not really having any story investment. There's rough 15 minutes of setup establishing the characters and then its running and screaming literally until the last 2 minutes of the film. This is intercut with barely 30 seconds every 15 minutes or so adding subtle depth to the characters motivations. In a way it reminds me of "Honey, I shrunk the kids". Just a fun popcorn movie.
Jurassic World 6/10
I remember being kind of eeh about Jurassic World when it first came out but on 2nd/3rd viewing I find myself softening a bit. Its like Jurassic world is a fun friend that has a fart joke that they just have to do every where you go. Jurassic World is Jurassic Park again with new cool dinosaurs, fun chase scenes, but this time everyone is stupid.
Because the Park is only making billions of dollars a year in profit they decide to actually start genetically engineering Dinosaurs to be Super villains, but they take no real precautions, they don't do any studies, and theres an actual scene where the guy who owns the park demands to know whats in the Boss Monster and the head scientist is both baffled by its abilities, but also actually says "he's not at liberty to say"? The F? I assume there's some external movie online material or AR crap that explains that while the Billionaire guy owns the park and is in charge INGENE owns the gene stuff, but if you just watch the movie it all comes off as inept morons running the show. Theres also the question of why, if the Monster is missing, they'd immediately go in the paddock to investigate without being absolutely confident there isn't an error with the thermal system. The monster then escapes despite the fact it still has the tracker and hasnt torn it out yet. Lot of logical leaps. The billionaire decides to be an action hero and with all the security on the island hes "only" helicopter pilot? Theres a lot of this throughout the movie. Promptly crashes into the Pterodones cage, causing chaos ten fold.
The snidely whiplash villain this time around wants to use raptors as weapons. It would be nice if the villains were actual people and not silly SNL characters. Like why can't he just be a military guy out of options? Speaking of silly, theres a lot of oxygen wasted on Jake Johnson throughout the film as a comp troller. They have him make some snarky remark every couple scenes and do comedy relief. I feel like when you "put" comedy relief in your movie that's when you know your vision just isn't quite there. Overall the movie is enjoyable, I just wish it wasn't built on stupid logic to function. I just can't see myself ever watching it again, but it was ok. I thought family & kids surrogates were fairly genuine. I was sad for the dinosaurs.
Jurassic World Dominion 5/10
You know, I just finished JWD this morning I'm already kind of forgetting what all happened. It's very forgettable. So the hook is the dinosaur are all gonna die, and go extinct so we gotta save them. Well here's my first problem - No they're not, they can just clone more. The writers want you to gloss over that fact. I'm tired of hollywood using LCD test audiences and just hoping the rest of us won't ask questions. It feels like every shitty tentpole movie does now, like "wtf would an old dagger point to a crashed deathstar?". Shit like that. Respect your fucking audience.
Anyway yadda yadda action, explosions, they were actually capturing the Dinosaurs snidely whiplash selling dinosaur to fund genetics to make dinosaurs. Why use a gun when you can point dinosaurs? clone girl, why? who cares, but you just had to take time give us the exposition for it anyway. Actually there's two snidely whiplashes in this one - Idiot Billionaire who wants to sell dinosaurs and then evil henchmen who hunts dinosaurs. The henchman this time around literally walks up and lets the super monster out despite the fact that earlier in the movie his tranquilizer darts failed to disable a velociraptor so he should at least be cautious. Fuckin whatever (RESPECT YOUR AUDIENCE).
What I found interestingly stupid about this one, and I can't be the only that raised my hand, was how cheaply they were selling the Dinosaurs. If you actually watch the auction most of them go for like 2-15 million dollars which I thought was strangely out of touch. In todays economy thats chump change anymore, like elephants cost a million dollars. Houses cost a million dollars, A living dinosaur would be like half a billion dollars realistically. I'm surprised literally no one production found that curious.
Jurassic World Dominion ultimately is kind of just a rehash of Jurassic Park: Lost World fumbling with the same problems. It starts and ends off the island and is largely just noise. There's no real arc for any of the characters. This time around you genuinely don't care about anybody. I think they would have been better served to have Chris Pratt sacrifice himself or something to add some emotion to the movie.
Its only real redeeming quality is finally getting the Dinosaurs off the island to hopefully blow up the statue of liberty and turn humans into mindless savages, or hollywood writers.
