Jurassic World: Dino Friendship Motorcycle Adventure Supreme

[mauve]

So my sister and I took our dad to see Jurassic World for an early Father's Day today.

I haven't laughed so hard at a movie that isn't supposed to be a comedy in a very long time. I don't think they intended the "dramatic" final battle to be funny, but it really was. We actually laughed out loud in the theater for that fight. That said, I'm glad I went to see it. I liked it in spite of its many flaws.

Most of the reviews I've seen describe Jurassic World as "better than Jurassic Park III but worse than Jurassic Park," which is entirely true, although I am of the opinion that this description isn't really saying much as JP III sucked and JP was super great. So that sorta leaves a fairly wide spectrum for World to exist within.

Let's get something out of the way: Jurassic World is not a bad movie. I actually enjoyed it quite a lot. Granted, a good part of my enjoyment came from the sheer stupidity of several scenes (OH BOY, DINOSAUR FRIENDSHIP CO-OP FIGHT, MOSASAUR BUDDY COMBO TAKEDOWN!!) but I did in fact like it. Is it as good as Jurassic Park? No. Is it worth seeing in 3d? Not... really. I don't think it would be improved much (I saw it in 2d). Is it worth seeing? If you like movies where dinosaurs eat people, yes. It was fun. Stupid, but fun. It's not a movie with a stellar, well-developed plot, but let's face it: You're here to see dinosaurs eat people and run alongside motorcycles. And it delivers that much at least.

It had some good scenes and I appreciated that the older brother character wasn't the stereotypical teenage rebel-jerk. It was refreshing to not have to see the same character growth arc we see in every other movie involving a teenage sibling and a child sibling. The brothers actually cared about each other from the start. So bravo to that.

The CG was a little disappointing in some places, particularly in an opening shot that showed the classic Jurassic Park gate. The gate was an actual physical object, but the Jurassic World logo had been rather obviously CG'd onto it. I have no idea why. Also, some of the dinosaur CG was a little goofy, which was a little disappointing.

Logical flaws: This film has MANY. And I'm not talking about the scientific arguments over "Whether That Dinosaur Should Look Like That;" I mean logical flaws like "Why Did We Create A Park Ride That Lets Visitors Solo-Drive A Vehicle Into A Field Full of Giant Herd Dinosaurs Prone To Stampeding And Then Not Have A Way To Control The Cars From HQ or Kill The Engine If We Need To Evacuate." Also, I'm not sure why any parent would send their young children ALONE into a FOREIGN COUNTRY they'd never visited and then just assume their relative picked them up and is babysitting them. And then there's the issue of if the mosasaur could jump out of its enclosure at will, why the hell didn't it eat its trainers or the audience? What made the I. Rex a more appealing target than the millions of people looking into its enclosure every freaking day? And what's stopping it from jumping the fence on the other side and swimming off into the ocean? Also genetic modification doesn't work that way. I'm looking at you, "oh it has cuttlefish DNA for REASONS and so now it can change its skin color at will. We didn't expect that to happen." And many more.

And the film's cardinal sin: They changed T.Rex's roar. It's similar, I guess, but not the same. If you're gonna copy the original scene with the T. Rex, leave the original roar.

All of that being said, I had fun watching this movie. It lacked the wonder and soul of the original, but as far as Dinosaurs Eatin' People films go, it was decent. There were dinosaurs, there were people and dinosaurs bein' eaten by bigger dinosaurs, there was Chris Pratt on a motorcycle and velociraptor-mounted nightvision cameras. Basically, it's a fun movie, and it's a stupid movie. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Considering this movie made all the money in the freaking world, maybe we'll start getting some good dinosaur movies/games to break up the zombie/post-apoc trend.

I just really want the open-world Dinotopia exploration/social RPG that exists in my head to be real.

[Arcanum]

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

I just really want the open-world Dinotopia exploration/social RPG that exists in my head to be real.

So there's this early access game called Ark...

But anyway, I saw the movie a few days ago. I enjoyed it. Yeah it has a bunch of flaws, but it was still a pretty enjoyable movie for me.

[RickZarber]

Saw it last weekend and liked it, but we went and saw it again last night and I didn't get as much out of it the second time around. Kinda wish I'd seen Inside Out instead. Or Fury Road, still haven't seen that.

I thought the end dino fight was neat (didn't think it was dumber than any of the other stuff in the movie, honestly) but my roommate apparently thinks it was like the pinnacle of cinema or something. I dunno. He was so excited and edge of his seat that I think his heart actually stopped the first time around. He certainly stopped breathing. It took him a good five minutes to stand up after the movie ended.

I've read some scathing reviews online towards everything in the movie. But I honestly didn't think it was any dumber than stuff in The Lost World. And I certainly liked it better than JP III. Abby Howard and Aaron Diaz have been particularly vocal on Twitter, mostly towards its scientific inaccuracies (tail-dragging! Even TLW got stegosaurus tails right, how did we get less accurate than before?) and its insistence on being a monster movie more than a dinosaur movie. Also that lampshading the flaws with in-movie dialogue (inaccurate dinos, DNA monster 'cause been there done that, Claire's heels) don't excuse the movie from having them in the first place. Though I like Howard's idea that a much more interesting plot than the military application / DNA monster thing would have been to have like a Greenpeace group come in and fuck things up with well-intentioned but misguided shenanigans. That would have been at least an interesting reversal of the Science = Playing God Therefore Doom motif.

I also thought Chris Pratt was mostly wasted in this movie. What's the point of hiring him if you're just gonna have him be a stoic, charmless, well... prat? Most of the comedy was handled by Jake Johnson's character and while I really liked his parts, Pratt's the star! He should be more entertaining than the supporting cast. I liked his stuff with the raptors though.

This is coming off more negative as I ramble on, but I'm tired and it's easier to point out the stuff I didn't like than to sit and think about the stuff I did. It was there, though. I liked the boys' dad, I wish he'd been in the movie more. I liked Gray calling his brother out on his creepy girl-staring. I liked Claire's arc from corporate cog to more in-tune badass, even if she did keep those stupid high heels on throughout the entire freaking movie and HOW DID THEY STAY ON IN THE JUNGLE and THERE IS NO GODDAMN WAY SHE COULD HAVE OUTRUN THAT T. REX FUCK YOU MOVIE. (But reading interviews, it seems like that was Bryce Dallas Howard's choice, so I can't get too mad about the director not overruling a woman's opinion on how her own character would dress? And, y'know, she was actually running around in them. So, not physically impossible but still distractingly illogical.) While I disliked that they were simply going to the same well again, I liked how Dr. Wu just unabashedly embodied the Create Stuff Just Because, What Are Morals? thing. He was surprisingly sinister and I think would have made a much more interesting villain than Mr Military. Hopefully we'll see more of him in any potential sequels.

The only part I flat out disliked was Zara's death. It was way too drawn-out and horrific, especially for someone who hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant such a death. It distressed me.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

I haven't laughed so hard at a movie that isn't supposed to be a comedy in a very long time. I don't think they intended the "dramatic" final battle to be funny, but it really was. We actually laughed out loud in the theater for that fight.

Originally Posted by RickZarber

The only part I flat out disliked was Zara's death. It was way too drawn-out and horrific, especially for someone who hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant such a death. It distressed me.

I couldn't agree more with both of these statements. As soon as they did the slow motion shot of the last living raptor heroically charging in at the I. Rex I couldn't stop cracking up. I'm honestly surprised they didn't have the T. Rex and raptor brofist after their showing of mutual respect at the end.

And Zara's death was especially weird because the villains specifically didn't die in the same glorified fashion. Hoskins was only shown getting his arm bitten into before the camera cut away and Dr. Wu got away completely unharmed after his completely telegraphed heel turn. She's apparently the first notable female character to die in the series, and I guess the idea was that they wanted to make it really special or something? But that becomes worrisome if you do something that brutal and masochistic to a character specifically because she's a woman.

Anyway, I went to see it in 3D because the 2D showing we went to turned out to be a special closed caption version they do on monday afternoon for hearing impaired audiences (which is really cool of the theater to do and I'm happy it's a thing even though we ended up doing the more expensive thing instead), and it didn't do anything to add to the experience even though it looked nice.

I don't regret seeing it at all because it's a Jurassic Park movie and I knew I was going to see it regardless because I've seen all of them even though only the first one was actually good. And I knew that it was going to be rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreally stupid. My only disappointment is that we keep getting stupid sequels in a series that started with a fairly smart movie that I love, but I guess a lot of that has to do with the fact that the first Jurassic Park really said everything it needed to and everything after that was studio execs throwing money at something that never needed to become a franchise.

Here's an article that says a lot of things about JW and the current braindead state of most summer blockbusters that's probably worth a read, too.

[Bum Bill Bee]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

Here's an article that says a lot of things about JW and the current braindead state of most summer blockbusters that's probably worth a read, too.

Damn, what a bad place to put white text at!

But that was still a good way of putting it, about why there ought to be standards in entertainment.

Also, his listing of who acted the most dumb was a good laugh

[mauve]

I completely agree about Zara's death, especially considering how relatively tame the rest of the deaths were. It was fairly intense and definitely too drawn out, and it's not like she was a villain or a well-developed character whose death would make a big emotional impact. It just ended up being uncomfortably over-the-top.

[mauve]

To me that entire ending fight sounded like it was written by a 10-year-old with a box of toy dinosaurs and a bucket of Halloween candy. "And then the raptor and the t rex are friends and they're both fightin' the big dinosaur like ROAR ROAAAAR AAAAHHHRRGGH and then they're best friends so they corner him and then THE BIG SWIMMING ONE JUMPS OUT AND EATS HIM LIKE RAAARRRRGGGHH!! And then the raptor and the t rex, um, they go and live in the theme park but now they're free to go on the rides and play with the gift shop toys whenever they want and don't have to live in the cages and they're all friends now. The end." "That's brilliant, Billy! Call the writers!"

[Magus]

I've heard it's good.

I refuse to believe it.

I will probably see it next week or something though as it's not exactly playing against anything action-packed, is it? Well, I guess Magic Mike XXL is packed with something, if you know what I mean...

[POS Industries]

I think one of the saddest realizations I've had during some discussion of this movie is that three not-so-great sequels has given a lot of people a lower impression of the first Jurassic Park. The idea that all the movies have been like this, which is 75% true, but the first film really was as good as the hype makes it out to be. It required some suspension of disbelief in terms of some technical science stuff, but the characters all behaved in ways that you could see people doing. Even the dinosaurs acted in ways that made sense for wild animals. And, at its heart, Jurassic Park was a film about the beautiful, terrifying, and ultimately uncontrollable wonder of life itself, which is something none of the sequels ever recaptured, though The Lost World kinda half-assedly tried at the end.

Jurassic Park is a good movie. You don't have to stop thinking in order to enjoy it. Which is great if you're someone like me who can't stop thinking about what you're watching. Hell, even Jurassic World admits that in the first act.

"That park was legit!"

Originally Posted by Magus

I will probably see it next week or something though as it's not exactly playing against anything action-packed, is it? Well, I guess Magic Mike XXL is packed with something, if you know what I mean...

Is Fury Road still out?

Because if you haven't seen that yet, see it instead.