Jurassic World Review

I maintain to this day that Jurassic Park is one of my all time favorite movies. It is still the best dinosaur movie out there. I was ten when I saw it in theaters back in the day and it was so scary to me then that I had to see it twice before I actually saw the whole thing; I kept covering up my eyes. I was elated to hear about the new Jurassic World (2015) along with countless other enthusiastic fan boys. While it didn't quite live up to the greatness of that first Jurassic Park, it perfectly catered to my nostalgia for that beloved movie.

Twenty-two years after the original Jurassic Park failed, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond and run by the park's operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). After ten years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitors' interest; the vicious and intelligent Indominus Rex. When the massive creature escapes, it sets off a chain reaction that causes the other dinosaurs to run amok. Now, it's up to a former military man and the park's Velociraptor expert and trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to use his special skills to save Claire's nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Grey Mitchell (Ty Simpkins), as well as the rest of the tourists from an all-out prehistoric assault.

Contrary to popular belief, Steven Spielberg, the director of the first two Jurassic Park films, did not direct Jurassic World, but acted as executive producer just as he had for the third film. Director Colin Trevorrow either took a lot of advice from Spielberg or he managed to replicate Spielberg's style, from the way the camera moves to the gradual rolling out of the big effects. There were many parts of the movie that felt a lot like Jurassic Park which will placate the many fans' nostalgia for the original film. There are dozens of references to the original Jurassic Park movie both subtle and overt. Make sure you watch for them because it made me so happy to see them.

There's a decent cast in Jurassic World. None of the characters are particularly deep, nor do they do anything entirely unexpected. Claire is this corporate, unfeeling ice queen that only seems to see the sales numbers and is completely, intellectually removed from the animals featured in the park she runs. She even refers to the dinosaurs as "assets", as if they were products, not life forms. Owen is also not deep, but is a whole lot of fun. Chris Pratt usually plays comical, goofy characters. While Owen has a couple of humorous lines, he basically serves as this manly tough guy, not unlike Indiana Jones. Owen and Claire bounce off each other really well and have great chemistry. They and other characters aren't very deep, but the whole cast is likable and are at least somewhat relatable.

Jurassic Park had this highly interesting theme of control; we try to control our environment, control is an illusion, life finds a way, etc. I thought Jurassic World would play on that theme, especially since the word "control" is used at least a dozen times in the first twenty minutes of the movie. It does play on that theme a little bit, however Jurassic World was more about consumerism and corporate excess, for which the Indominus Rex was the thematic embodiment. We as consumers are surrounded by wonder and yet we want more, and we want it bigger, faster, louder, and better. In Jurassic World the Indominus Rex is a genetic hybrid animal which was designed based on a series of corporate focus groups. That twisted mutation of nature says something about our greed as consumers and about the desire for profit we see within corporate excess. The Indominus Rex represents that desire left unchecked and it demands to be satisfied. This theme is further illustrated by all the brand names and corporate logos seen throughout the park. Claire represents the corporate excess, her nephews represent consumers who want bigger and better, and Owen represents the ideal harmony between balance the two. This was best illustrated in a scene where Owen and Claire are inspecting the Indominus Rex's containment habitat. Claire explains "Corporate felt that genetic modification would up the 'wow' factor." Owen ingenuously replies, "They're dinosaurs. 'Wow' enough." There also a subtler theme of "those who do not stop evil are supporting and encouraging it," which I also appreciated.

Jurassic World ended up being a great action adventure movie. There were plenty of scares, tension, and surprises. The action and fight scenes were phenomenally well choreographed. The camera moved steadily through high energy scenes without resorting to that irritating and sloppy "shaky cam" gimmick and still captured all the movement in such a way that you could always very clearly tell what was happening. There were surprisingly few jump scares. A lot of the surprises took the form of growing dread. For example, there's a scene where Grey and Zach are in the back of an armored truck with its back doors open and a velociraptor in pursuit at top speed. It's not a question of a surprise attack, it's not a question of will it attack, the raptor is going to attack within a few seconds and they can do nothing but watch it get closer and closer. There is lots of tension and it makes for an exciting movie. It's still PG-13, most of the implied gore takes place off screen, but this still might be a bit too intense for younger audiences no matter how much they want to see a dinosaur movie. You might end up taking your kid to see it more than once just so they can see the whole thing as was the case for me twenty-two years ago.

There were certainly aspects of Jurassic World I didn't appreciate so much, but I think the only thing that truly bothered me was the use of John William's original Jurassic Park theme song at the wrong time. When we first hear this song it is accompanied by Jurassic Park's main characters (and the audience) seeing a heard of dinosaurs for the first time. Nothing quite like this scene had ever been done in film before, The magnificence of the scene as captured by Spielberg's camera work, coupled with the brilliant technical achievement of special effects, was only perfected by the dramatic swelling music provided by the iconic movie composer. This same song was used as we and Zach and Grey simply see the park for the first time. Sure, the park looks good, but the majestic, dramatic music almost seems cheapened by the fact that we're just looking at the entry of a theme park, rather than a never-before-seen cinematic achievement.

Jurassic World offers one-dimensional characters with nonsensical motivation, a decent cast, retrograde gender politics, some silly pseudo-science, and a whole lot of fun. It combined enough nostalgia, technical wizardry, and over-the-top thrilling moments to make fans of the original feel like kids again. Let us just take a moment to reflect on the fact that Chris Pratt rides a motorcycle to lead a pack of velociraptors to take down genetic monster which is terrorizing tourists. That preposterous situation alone is so ridiculously awesome that you can't help but enjoy it. As a fan of Jurassic Park, I loved Jurassic World. It did some lousy things here and there, but it also did lots of the sort of thing I wanted to see from a Jurassic Park movie. The 3D effects were even good. I highly recommend seeing this on the big screen, and it's very much worth getting a copy when it hits blu-ray.

What is the best non-Jurassic Park dinosaur movie out there? Comment below and let me know!

The Help Movie Review

I enjoy watching movies of simpler times, and of romanticized decades of the early-to-mid-1900s. Occasionally I let myself daydream of living in such times. Then I see a movie like The Help (2011) which makes me realize that these “simpler times” were rife with their own sets of problems. These problems are often downplayed or even ignored in movies for the sake of depicting a sense of nostalgia.

During Civil Rights era Mississippi, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) is a southern society girl who returns from college determined to become a writer. She gets a job writing a cleaning column for her home town’s newspaper, and seeks the advice from one of the local African-American maids. Between observing how the wealthy white families treat their hired help and being told that the nanny who basically raised Skeeter spontaneously moved to Chicago without notice, Skeeter sets out to write a book about the perspective of the black maids and nannies that are so obviously mistreated. She gains the trust of Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and later Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), a nanny and a maid respectively, and sets about anonymously writing their stories and opinions about working for white people. Skeeter’s perspective on things change and before the story is even sent to the publishers, the whole town has a thing or two to say as they become unwittingly, even unwillingly, caught up in the changing times. The town’s racist, snooty social ringleader Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) is bent on stopping the stories from becoming public knowledge for the sake of her own reputation and to keep the hired help where she believes their place is.

I’ve reviewed a couple of movies that are set in the 1960’s; Hairspray and X-Men: First Class both depict a fun and exciting vision of the 1960’s. Even Panic in Year Zero had an innocent, Leave It to Beaver sort of quality to it. On one hand, The Help reminds us of the civil rights movement as well as the gross inequality and injustice that were prevalent in the day. But on the other hand, The Help also seems to downplay the pain and widespread suffering of the day, similar to how Hairspray did. The Help is a story about pain, but it seems to avoid actually being painful. Really, we don’t typically go to the movies to see abrasive truths, we like feel-good movies. The Help certainly is a feel good movie with intermittent moments of uncomfortable reality. Still, it takes place in racially segregated Mississippi.

The feel-good quality of The Help doesn’t make it a bad movie, though. It’s well written, and very well acted! The characters were either generic or unique. Hilly isn’t very different from Hairspray’s Velma Von Tussle, and Skeeter is another single girl trying to make it big just like CoyoteUgly’s Violet Sanford. Where the movie really shines is in Aibileen and Minny’s characters. I can’t think of another character that is as downtrodden in quiet sorrow and still shows genuine love for the children under her care like Aibileen. I also can’t think of another character that is as amusingly vindictive and even vengeful towards her own oppressors while still trying to help and teach them the way Minny is. Both Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer stole the show in any scene they happened to be in. They were great!

I couldn’t help but get caught up in the story and become invested in the characters. It was well written and well acted. The sets and costumes were spot on. There was a brief scene in a grocery store. Even it looked like it was taken out of the 1960’s with all the products in 60’s style packaging and everything illuminated with a dull glow from the halogen fixtures above. There was lots of loving detail that went into The Help.

Even though it was a lengthy film at two hours and twenty six minutes, it’s still good. There are some shocking scenes, some funny scenes, touching scenes, and sad scenes. The movie isn’t going to appeal to everyone. You probably won’t enjoy it if you don’t like dramas in general. In spite of good intentions, I felt like some of the characters had subtle bits of racial stereotyping woven in from time to time. It’s subtle, so I didn’t find it terribly offensive. At any rate, I enjoyed The Help. It’s worth seeing if you don’t mind long drama films. It may even be worth buying a copy of should you find it to be entertaining enough. I might do that.

What's your favorite historical movie? Not necessarily a drama; X-Men: First Class was an action movie, after all. Comment below and tell me why!

The Village Movie Review

In most cases, directors go from bad or mediocre films to good films as they progress in their career. M. Night Shyamalan seems to have managed to do the opposite. He gained renown with The Sixth Sense (1999), but his movies started to fizzle out with Signs (2002). He really began to lose credibility with audiences after The Happening (2008). When The Village (2004) was released, we still had high expectations, but it was with The Village that he really started to disappoint.

There is a small village of about 60 puritans in rural Pennsylvania. For the most part these puritan settlers live a quiet and peaceful life, but fear the terrible creatures that lurk just outside the borders of the village. The villagers have reached an agreement with these beasts in which each side allowed to go about their business as long as neither one crosses the village’s boundaries.  This delicate balance is upset when a young man, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Pheonix), ventures into the forest to see what lies beyond the borders. Animal carcasses, stripped of their fur, being to appear around the village, causing the council of elders to fear for the safety of the village, the agreement with the creatures, and more. After Lucius gets injured, the village patriarch, Edward Walker (William Hurt), sends his daughter Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) through the woods to retrieve medicine from the outside towns. Ivy is blind and cannot tell where she is going or where the prowling creatures might be.

All the characters in this movie are pretty flat and uninteresting. They don’t develop, they aren’t deep, and they are remarkably reserved. It’s almost as if the puritan qualities of simplicity and humility are over insinuated upon the characters to the point that they are scarcely even one-dimensional. Everyone gets along with such ease that they end up feeling unrealistic. The characters (and the tone of the movie itself) are so somber that they almost seem afraid to make the audience aware of their presence.

The best part of The Village is when we are focused on Ivy. About halfway through the movie, Ivy becomes the central figure; she gets to learn about some of the village secrets and she stumbles around in the woods, completely blind. To put the viewer on the same level as Ivy, we see her hand stretched forth to the edge of the screen as she tries to feel her way around. When she comes across something, she feels it with her hand and then it comes into full view on the screen only after Ivy figures out what it is. We are shown shots of the front of Ivy’s feet as she walks through the unfamiliar forest; we (like Ivy) cannot see where she is going or what obstacles may be in her way. Not only is this a brilliant way to visually depict the world through Ivy’s perspective, it also intensifies the sense of being completely lost in the woods and amps up the suspense.

M. Night Shyamalan is known for his twist endings. Generally, a good twist ending blows your mind as you realize all the subtle little things previously in the movie all add up to a big surprise at the end. The twist in The Village was completely out of the blue. There was no logical build up to it, no hints leading up to it, and no subtle clues to take into account. It’s established that there are secrets in the village, but when we see the big secret it’s just too out of place with the story, and even the setting, such that that it’s impossible to swallow.

The Village was the movie that caused M. Night Shyamalan’s credibility as a director and writer to take a significant downswing. The story is pretty forgettable. In fact the only thing that seems to stick out in people’s minds even years after seeing it is how unjustified the ending was and how disconcerted it made them feel. The only redeeming value is the creative camera work while the blind girl stumbles around in the woods. If you haven’t seen The Village, you’re only really missing out on a disappointing product of a formerly good writer and director. If you did see The Village years ago, you probably only remember how non-sequitur the conclusion was. This movie is “okay” at best, but isn’t really worth going out of your way to see.

What did you think of The Village? Did it have some endearing qualities? Did you think the twist ending was acceptable? Comment below and tell me why!