For a more detailed review of the movie, that I highly recommend, visit @Stevehouse11's review here. This post mostly deals with the "theme" of Jurassic Park.
The original Jurassic Park is damn near perfect. There is a clear thesis versus anti-thesis (Dinosaur theme park versus playing God), characters that are easy to root for and interesting, tension reminiscent of a horror movie, and a clear goal. There is also a subplot about the dinosaurs being animals, not monsters, which is reiterated in the final scene of the movie when Dr. Grant watches birds over the ocean. They are our dinosaurs and it should forever be that way.
Jurassic World however, is a mess. It still has the "don't play God" theme, but the characters are bleh, the tension is thrown away for ACTION PACKED ACTION DINO-ACTION, and the goal is weirdly confused.
Chris Pratt is fine even though he comes across as Dinosaur Lord. I complained on Twitter about his ability to control Raptors, but in retrospect, that's okay. Categorizing Raptors as similar to a pack of wolves was a good choice in my opinion. I was always skeptical of their super intelligence in previous films. My only real complaint is that his character lives in a trailer on the island because OF COURSE HE DOES. Can we please kill of this cliche? Dude makes a hefty salary working at this park. Like, what? Is he saving money for some character development thing that was edited out of the movie?
He has the same facial expression in every screenshot.
Bryce Dallas Howard's (I had to look up her name) character Claire was weird. She kind of came across as a villain in the beginning of the movie only to later become "Token Hero #2" without any real change. Her villain feel comes from her wanting to save the park and containing the situation instead of the more obvious EVACUATION plan any sane person would have called for. I know it's a PG-13 movie so all this stuff happened off screen but, a ton of people died on her watch. She's a hero?
Also, there was a couple kids in this movie but who cares? I remember nothing about them except for some bizarre parents getting divorced subplot that the movie just drops halfway through. Is that all the character development we get for these two? Seriously? Oh wait....no, we also learn that younger brother likes dinosaurs because obviously, and we learn older teenage brother likes girls because OBVIOUSLY. It's like these kids came out of the book "Complete Hacks Guide to Writing Child Characters." I don't even remember their names.
"Shire LaBeef and MopTop"
BY FAR, my biggest complaint about this movie, isn't really about the movie itself. It's the concept. Why does Jurassic World EXIST?
Are you going to tell me, that InGen can open another dinosaur park, on the same island as the original Jurassic Park, where five people died, and this is just okay? Don't get me wrong, I think people would still visit it, but from a business perspective, how? Wouldn't InGen be swamped with lawsuits from the families of the deceased as well as congressional hearings about the legality of the whole enterprise? Why would they sink their money into this a 2nd time? What, exactly, does InGen make money on OUTSIDE of dinosaur theme parks?
Obviously evil.
Also, if the first movie is canon, what about the other two? You know, including one where a T-Rex CASUALLY RAMPAGES THROUGH FUCKING SAN DIEGO? Did they cover this up or something? InGen has more money than the Umbrella Corporation.
Not obviously evil?
Sorry but this isn't a nitpick. This is never explained. If this was a hard reboot, where the other movies don't exist, then this entire complaint would be moot. Granted I liked all the callbacks to the original movie, but it opened a fuck ton of plot holes. And why the hell do we STILL know nothing about that shadow corporation that hired Newman from Seinfeld to steal Dino DNA in the first movie? Obvious story potential never explored. They are the reason the events of Jurassic Park happened!!! What....the....hell?
Okay. I feel you getting angry with me.
To be fair, as much as I hate this movie, I don't, like, "hate" hate it. It's still better than Jurassic Park 3. The movie also deserves a lot of props for explaining why the dinosaurs don't quite look right due to gene splicing and shit (recent scientific evidence suggests most dinosaurs had feathers...like BIRDS you evolution denying fucks). And the movie's action scenes, at the expense of any real tension, where pretty....
NOPE. Sorry.
The CGI is wretched. Like....did most of the people who liked the special effects never see a Final Fantasy cutscene before? What about Metal Gear Solid? The Raptors look about 3 feet shorter than they ever did, have fluorescent skin tone apparently, and act like pitbulls. The giant alligator dinosaur looked like something from a SyFy movie. Even the Indominous Rex (GODDAMN DO I HATE THAT NAME) had weird cartoon hands that look slightly better than Reboot.
Mmmmmm...maybe not.
Yes, the original Jurassic Park popularized CGI (along with Independence Day) but used it sparingly. Only two scenes used CGI exclusively, everything else was good ole practical effects. If there is one blight in AAA Hollywood movies that I could correct, it's this. Stop being fooled. Compare this movie's CGI to Sharknado and see what that massive budget did.
I'm not going to lie, I wish this movie was something else. I wish it was a hard reboot. I wish character development meant something (it doesn't take long, Mad Max:Fury Road did it in like 5 minutes). I wish the tone wasn't changed since it was a key part of the franchise. And I wish Hollywood would stop making movies that are all about the CGI and not about anything that actually matters.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow me on Twitter since most of you hate me now.
No comments:
Post a Comment