Jurassic World

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Jurassic World is an amped up sequel/reboot of the Jurassic Park series, and is the best since the original. The tagline should be “Here we go again!” as this time the genetic engineers have spliced a T-Rex with a velociraptor to create the Indominus Rex, the biggest, scariest dinosaur we’ve seen yet, which serves as a metaphor for both the series and summer blockbusters in general.

Nick: I want people to know where I stand when in comes to the Jurassic Park series so here are my ratings for all of the films: Jurassic Park = 4.5 stars, The Lost World = 2 stars, Jurassic Park III = 3 stars. Jurassic World is easily the best sequel and brings the awe back to the dinosaurs.

Dustin: Jurassic Park is still a solid adventure/special effects film even seen today. I saw the sequels only once when they both first came out, which was enough. I remember being disappointed by The Lost World. I forgot Jurassic Park III within minutes of walking out of the theater. (I remember a few months later when it came out on DVD, I said, “They made a Jurassic Park III?!” Then I remembered I had actually seen it!)

Jurassic World is certainly the first of the sequels to actually feel like a worthy continuation of the series. I wouldn’t say it brought back the “awe” of the dinosaurs. There is no buildup like in JP. The characters seem mostly bored with the dinosaurs, as the technology to clone them has been around for 20 years now in the film’s universe.

Nick: I by no means meant to suggest this film brings back all the awe of the original, but it has more than the last two installments. There is a reason we follow around the youngest cast member and his slightly older brother through the amusement park. As the littlest one is impressed by everything, even a T-rex eating a goat, the older one is only impressed by the things we have never seen before and is suppose to represent the audience of today.  

Now to Jurassic Park III, I just want to defend it a little because director Joe Johnston seems to like to make his films with CGI that makes them look like B-movies, which I am a known sucker for, and it brought back Dr. Alan Grant who was just like Indiana Jones in my eyes growing up. Considering the original films were both made by Spielberg and they are both about scientists who are dragged into adventure I don’t think it’s that ridiculous of a notion.

Dustin: You know how much I hate bad CGI. I would rather have a puppet or a guy in a rubber suit.

I liked how this movie seemed to comment on summer blockbusters. I recently rewatched Jaws, which was the original summer blockbuster. In Jurassic World, a great white shark is fed to a Mosasaurus thing. The scale of today’s summer blockbuster compared to Jaws has gotten ridiculous, and the filmmakers know it.

Nick: Well if the CGI is solid in this film and makes other blockbusters look foolish then I’d say the characters are about on par with the $100 million movies of today. They make the main male character the James Bond where he knows everything and is, besides one little slip up, infallible.  While the main female character is a hundred times worse! She’s belittled for not settling down and having kids and is forced to watch her sister’s kids and treats them coldly until of course they get lost in the middle of the jungle with the Indominous Rex always lurking. She’s then made to chase after them in heels because the script requires her to do so, and yet we still get Chris Pratt giving her shit for wearing them. Then we get a lot of useless backstory for the two main characters, including one scene where they first meet (on screen) and it turns into a squabbling match between two people who went on ONE DATE, seemingly a very long time ago? I personally believe people can care for characters who have no relationship to each other before a dinosaur attack, especially when it entails two kids who are trapped out in the park… Would she not have gone out for them if they weren’t her nephews?

Dustin: There were a lot of people in the park, so I don’t think she would have gotten as invested in those two if they weren’t her nephews.

Nick: But the rest of the people were at least contained together and weren’t out in the park where the dinosaurs roam.

Dustin: I agree the characters weren’t very deep. I’d call them Crichton-esque. Characters in Michael Crichton’s novels tended to be treated as devices to keep the plot moving. So I guess they were true to the source material in that sense.

My wife and her friends also commented on the high heels Bryce Dallas Howard’s character wore throughout the movie. Saying it wasn’t realistic. I was like, “The movie is about a theme park that clones a new type of dinosaur, and you’re complaining because the footwear isn’t realistic?”

Then again, I would complain about that too if I were a woman, because the rules of genetic engineering as they exist in the movie are explained, but we know a normal woman couldn’t run around for hours in high heels.

Nick: My problem with that is not the realism, but how you said the movie looks at the current state of films and tries to fix them with using better CGI, but the story and its characters exist in a more ‘60s era adventure where the women and children are helpless and quite stupid, while the man is incredible and mocks the woman for her womanly ways.  

Jurassic World did have many fun Easter eggs such as the final fight scene that of course includes a T-Rex and velociraptors! The main characters also walk through the old park and kids stumble upon the old park vehicles. The movie served almost as much as an homage than a standalone film. That’s not a complaint because I quite enjoyed it! I was obsessed with Jurassic Park and had many toys representing that fact.

Dustin: The movie also had plenty of visual nods to the first film, with shots that looked almost identical. This Web site did most of the work: http://www.thegeektwins.com/2015/02/jurassic-world-trailer-scenes.html#.VZGAfmMmyNU

I remember a few more, like Indominus Rex doing the same pose as the T-Rex in the original and a shot of a velociraptor giving chase to a moving vehicle from the side mirror.

Nick: I like that the film ends with the possibility of the sequel being like one of my favorite childhood cartoon shows, Dino-Riders!  The commandos take the DNA and it sounds like they might equip them dinos with a whole lot of armour!

Dustin: I don’t think they need to do another sequel. How much bigger can these movies get? And what comments can they make on man playing God or how big and loud blockbusters have gotten that they haven’t already?

Nick: I’m not saying there should be another sequel, but considering how much money the movie has made in two weeks already makes it a certainty there will be a sequel. If it’s like Dino-Riders I could find myself enjoying it on a B-movie-like scale. Or maybe this is one of the next three Mad Max sequels that have already been greenlit! It will be dinosaur-with-guns chases instead of vehicles!

Guardians of the Galaxy

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 4 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Guardians of the Galaxy is the latest Marvel comics movie about a team of heroes out to save the galaxy (after The Avengers and X-Men). An earthling abducted by aliens as a boy and becomes an interstellar thief calling himself “Star-Lord” teams up with a bioengineered Racoon, a talking tree, a sexy green humanoid and a macho alien whose species takes everything literally to save the universe from a villain who has a MacGuffin that can wipe out all life form.

So what did you think of Guardians of the Galaxy, Nick?

Nick: The movie was enjoyable enough to the point that it didn’t bother me that almost every scene was determined by a MacGuffin. Sigh… very Transformers-esque. Almost every scene is about the Orb! There are even three different villains we see and how they also want the Orb. That’s a lot of villains who ultimately are useless towards anything that happens within the film. It felt as if the filmmakers were trying too hard to tie this film to other films in the Marvel Universe.

Dustin: I agree the plot itself wasn’t too strong. Too much focus on the MacGuffin, and I kinda zoned out during much of it, as well as the action scenes. I had trouble keeping the bad guys and their motivations straight in my head because I couldn’t really get invested in the story.

For me, the movie was strongest in the quieter moments. The five heroes were very enjoyable. I loved the dynamic between them, the entire “assembling of the team” sequence and their character arcs. The comic banter in the quieter scenes following the action set-pieces were my favorite parts. I would have liked this movie better if it was more of a comedy with some action than an action movie with some comedy.

Nick: It was basically a comedy with action! The sequence of four of the characters meeting for the first time was superb. They kept escaping each others’ traps and the camera did a good job of framing from each character’s point-of-view during that battle sequence. James Gunn was a good choice as director. Gunn loves infusing comedy into… um… let’s say serious situations with his films, such as Slither (which I love) and Super and then this awesome web series PG-Porn.

Dustin: I liked the set-pieces that weren’t related to the main plot. My favorite part of the movie was the prisonbreak sequence. Those were more clever and exciting than fighting Emperor Palpatine for the Orb. I took advantage of the latter moments to go to the bathroom.

The movie did have some great fantasy elements. There was the head of the giant “celestial being” that was being mined for elements I found fascinating. That was some fantastic world building. I liked the characters and the world of the movie so much I would gladly go back for the inevitable sequel.

Nick: The movie was so expletive fun! Though I found it strange that the cities best defense was for them to use thousands of soldiers in planes that combine and create a shield. They lost a shit ton of soldiers that day.

Dustin: The movie also had emotional variety along with variety in scenery. A movie that can make you laugh and cry without feeling manipulative or mushy is a minor triumph in itself.

Nick: When did you cry?

Dustin: I didn’t literally cry, but there were emotional scenes like Star-Lord’s mother dying and Groot’s line toward the end that slightly melted my icy heart.

My favorite of the characters was Drax (played by pro-wrestler Dave Bautista), the alien who takes everything literally, which leads to a lot of comedic moments. While being totally straight, Bautista delivers laughs with impeccable comedic timing.

Nick: It’s also nice to see Vin Diesel back to doing voicework. First he made me cry as the voice of the Iron Giant and, like you said, he came that close doing the voice for Groot. Amusing how they both don’t say too much.

Dustin: Anything else to add?

Nick: Oh, and it was fun!