Jurassic World - Dinosaurs are Fun Again

[vagabondwillsmile]

This is what I've always felt was missing from not just the sequels but even the original; Just big fun dinosaur carnage.

It also very cleverly circumvents comparisons to Jurassic Park by making it clear that that park (movie) was the OG. And instead of trying to replicate that sense of awe that the original had, it presents you with some pretty cool world building. The little dinosaur petting zoo where kids could cuddle with little sauropods and get triceratops pony rides was one of the stand-out moments in the film. I also liked the full-size dinosaur holograms that allowed attendants to interact with a velociraptor or dilophosaurus. It's little touches like that that made this version of the park really come to life.

And the raptor training was handled very well. I know beforehand people were all worried that the raptors were now going to be turned into pets or something, but they feel as dangerous as they did in the original.

And the violence really was surprisingly vicious. There's one scene that gets excessively nasty despite not one drop of blood getting spilled...

Spoiler

That nanny bought it real bad. I mean first she get snatched up by a pterodactyl, who then drops her into the mosasaur tank. It then swoops down into the water, grabs her in its beak, shakes her around, drops her again and picks her up in order to fly away with her, but before it can get high enough both it and the nanny get chomped up by the breaching mosasaur.

Goddamn that was brutal.

And the ending... What can I say? I can see a lot of people hating it, but I was pissing myself laughing. And not in a 'laughing at it' sort of way. I got what the movie was going for and I was right there with it.

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on that scene. That was way out of left field, and by far the most brutal scene in the entire film. She's not even a character we don't like. Just some side character with a grand total of three lines. Serious question: What the actual fuck what that all about even?

As for the rest of the movie - here's my spoiler-free review. 80% of it was absolute shit. 20% was cool enough to ALMOST make up for the shit. STUPID PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS. Cell phones and radios conviniently (for the plot) don't work in this state-of-the-art facility full of living murder machines, which really should have robust communication infrastructure as a top priority. The whole place has only two dispachers in it's com center. High school kids operate attractions of aforementioned living murder machines. Every character is a flat, one dimensional stereotype, with no reason for the audience to care despite some half-assed attempts the most basic of heartstring pulling. Some cg smacks into some more cg and it was impossible to be invested in it. Heals to FLATS in one scene for a brief instant (if you blink you'll miss it) then back to running in heals again (WTF). I spent the whole movie wishing I was doing something else. Please don't make another one of these. Ever.

Raptors are really fucking cool though.

 

[rorychief]

Didn't enjoy the movie. Something that really bothered me was the villain. He wasn't a villain. He was excited by the prospect of dinosaur soldier replacing human soldiers and lessening human casualties. That's all. And Chris Pratt punches him out of nowhere, for no reason, and we're supposed to go 'Yeah! That's what you get!' But he didn't do anything except express excitement.
Meanwhile Bryce dallas howard's character 1. breeds a dangerous monster in the name of profits despite the park owner not being interested in profits. 2. Shows no interest in the wellbeing of park animals and refers to them as assets. 3. complains about having to implement adequate safety measures to contain the monster after a worker was mauled like it's a huge imposition. 4. Refuses to evacuate the park immediately or even inform guests what is happening because the scandal might affect attendance and profits. 5. Callously abandons her nephews to attend to profits. 6. sends an inadequately equipped security team to their deaths despite Chris Pratt's warnings in order to capture her profitable asset alive. 7. Leaves her control room with the orders to do nothing toward evacuating the island while she personally searches for her nephews, who she abandoned, effectively prioritizing two relatives over the lives of twenty odd thousand guests.
Yet the hero never confronts her on any of this and she never takes responsibility despite each and every death in the movie being directly her fault. Her accountability as park manager is so obviously brushed over in service of a contrived romance between her and Pratt. They have to kiss and blame the fat military guy. The person who did nothing except suggest that Pratt ride a motorcycle alongside the raptors he was training in order to stop the monster from killing everyone, something that should be heroic and badass but is instead framed as a massive chore Pratt is reluctant to take part in. Boo military guy. You are the wrong kind of military guy and Chris Pratt is the right kind. He is handsome and you are fat. Your ideas, but not your actions, are disagreeable so die.

Am I wrong or did he take over the control room in order to enact a state of emergency and organise the killing of the I-rex? In any other movie this guy would be the hero, or at least commended for taking charge when the authorities had ruled that nothing should be done, keep the guests oblivious until its far too late, think about the loss in attendance.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Completely disagree about the good acting. I thought it was pretty atrocious. Maybe it was partially the dialogue, but every time the main lady spoke it felt like she was parodying something and not trying to be a real character.

I lost track of the amount of plot conveniences (or... inconveniences mostly) and while those don't bother me that much if the movie itself is great, I found myself noticing them constantly in this one.

Also, as mentioned, the guy the movie was trying to portray as the human villain, really wasn't villainous. He did some really stupid things, but so did just about every other character in the movie. His primary goal was to save lives at any cost. Other people were more worried about the dinosaurs getting hurt while the "villain" was concerned with saving people now, and in the future with non-human soldiers. Not only that, it seemed like they were trying to make the CEO out to be some great guy who was morally superior to his scientist underlings which, as the scientist laid out, doesn't really make sense.

Finally, the giant crocodile dinosaur getting the final fuck you was a bit annoying. All of the dinosaurs coming together to kill indomitable rex was one of the cheesiest things I've seen in a long time. Not really in a good way.

 

[Ralancian]

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on that scene. That was way out of left field, and by far the most brutal scene in the entire film. She's not even a character we don't like. Just some side character with a grand total of three lines. Serious question: What the actual fuck what that all about even?

I suspect she had quite a few 'scenes' on the cutting room floor. For one why is taking the kids to Sauropod petting zoo and not to see the T-Rex? It's like the kids have to escape her to go see the gory attractions but none of this is really fleshed out. I suspect there was a quite a bit more dialogue between her and the kids but was thrown away as it didn't really add to the movie. However as the sequences to kill her was probably expensive and complex they kept it in even though it had no real bearing on her characters from the audience perspective who probably originally found her annoying enough to want her killed.

 

[vagabondwillsmile]

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on that scene. That was way out of left field, and by far the most brutal scene in the entire film. She's not even a character we don't like. Just some side character with a grand total of three lines. Serious question: What the actual fuck what that all about even?

I suspect she had quite a few 'scenes' on the cutting room floor. For one why is taking the kids to Sauropod petting zoo and not to see the T-Rex? It's like the kids have to escape her to go see the gory attractions but none of this is really fleshed out. I suspect there was a quite a bit more dialogue between her and the kids but was thrown away as it didn't really add to the movie. However as the sequences to kill her was probably expensive and complex they kept it in even though it had no real bearing on her characters from the audience perspective who probably originally found her annoying enough to want her killed.

Ah - that is an interesting possibility. I wonder what could have been cut out, and what her character was originally written to be. And I agree, that sequence was deffinitely one of the more complex, so the production team probably wouldn't have wanted to lose it. The Jurassic Park series does seem to have a signature brutal death in each installment, but up to this point there seems to have been a set-up and a pay off. Perhaps you're correct, and editors took scissors to the set-up in this one.
------------------
On another note, the first 15 minutes were "Product Placement: the Movie". Starring: Beats by Dre, Nissan, Verizon Wireless, Coke, AND Pepsi, and Starbucks. I know Jeep and Mercedes have been part of the series; and Jeep makes an appearance here too. And I know sponsorship helps a budget, but there is an artful way of doing it (like the billboards and dirigibles in Blade Runner), comedic ways of doing it (the cops at McDonald's in The Fifth Element), satire (ALL the restaurants are Taco Bell in Demolition Man), etc. Even in this movie Jeep (and Mercedes in a different installment) appear as part of the world rather than a blatant ad. Similarly Triumph in this movie gets a pass (one of the characters rides a scrabler) for truely being a part of the film's world in general, and specificallly, part of a character's personality. In these examples there is either a subtext to the ad that also functions in service of the film or the ad is so interwoven into the film's world that it is easy to accept as part of the larger story taking place. And then there is what happens in the first act of this movie when company names are mentioned with all but a nudge and a wink directly at the camera, or logos awkwardly turned directly to the audience as a focus. Advertising doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it's tacky and distracting when it's so on the nose.

 

[TakerFoxx]

I'm so glad someone else has picked up on that scene. That was way out of left field, and by far the most brutal scene in the entire film. She's not even a character we don't like. Just some side character with a grand total of three lines. Serious question: What the actual fuck what that all about even?

As for the rest of the movie - here's my spoiler-free review. 80% of it was absolute shit. 20% was cool enough to ALMOST make up for the shit. STUPID PEOPLE DO STUPID THINGS. Cell phones and radios conviniently (for the plot) don't work in this state-of-the-art facility full of living murder machines, which really should have robust communication infrastructure as a top priority. The whole place has only two dispachers in it's com center. High school kids operate attractions of aforementioned living murder machines. Every character is a flat, one dimensional stereotype, with no reason for the audience to care despite some half-assed attempts the most basic of heartstring pulling. Some cg smacks into some more cg and it was impossible to be invested in it. Heals to FLATS in one scene for a brief instant (if you blink you'll miss it) then back to running in heals again (WTF). I spent the whole movie wishing I was doing something else. Please don't make another one of these. Ever.

Raptors are really fucking cool though.

That was my feeling about it as well. It had its moments, the raptors kicked ass (hell, I was rooting for their survival over any of the human characters save maybe for Owen. And boy, did I want those kids to get chomped), and I'll admit to enjoying the final fight in all of its ludicrous glory. But the rest? Pretty dull.

Seriously, where in the hell was the suspense? Say what you want about Spielberg not having it anymore, but the man knows how to build suspense. Even Lost World had it's scary moments. But this? It's all just running and screaming. No real suspense, no feeling of dread, no terror whatsoever. And without that, no sense of wonder or genuine heart, save for the raptors.