Jurassic world: fallen kingdom – a review

Owen Grady and Claire Dearing travel back to Isla Nubar to rescue the dinosaurs –and in particular the velicoraptor named Blue- from the impending destruction due to an erupting volcano. Once there, however, they find themselves duped by the most dangerous predator of all: humans.

Jurassic Park is back and even more gleeful than ever before. But, by now -the fifth outing-, it is about time to cut the umbilical cord linking it to the original blockbuster.

I’m talking about the numerous nods to the original Jurassic Park J. A. Bayona put in his movie.

Ticking toenails, The T-Rex roar, The T-Rex deux ex machina, the Gallumise run,
the rear-view mirror, several inversions of the kitchen-scene and many more.

It’s not like 2016’s Ghostbusters-annoying; as a desperate attempt to stay connected to the original- while making soup-jokes. But all these nods do hinder Fallen Kingdom in claiming its own place in the fictional Jurassic world in which dinosaurs walk the earth.

Having this said Fallen Kingdom has an aura around it which tells the audience in the end, without parsing words, that this is the new direction the Jurassic Park-franchise is taking. And I, for one, think this is a great move.

SPOILER: The dinosaurs are off the island. 

Truth be told it is about time. Just look back at the previous sequels: one failed and one (slightly) successful theme park reboot, some great-white-hunters, mercenaries, a rescue mission after somebody crashes on the island and some unfortunate souls who happen upon the island. The bottom of the barrel to get (children) lost on the island is reached. There are only so many ideas left.

The notion that ends Fallen Kingdom gives moviemakers all kinds of possibilities to play with both big- and small-scaled. Fallen Kingdom breaks down the restrictions.

One could even do a Dawn of the Dead with dinosaurs hunting people in an enclosed mall.

Then topping off this new direction with a mad scientist (Henry Wu) who is all about creating the perfect –highly psychotic- carnivore and all kinds of fun can be had.

I think Fallen Kingdom has taken the right direction. Everything is possible now and Fallen Kingdom explores one of those posibilities: haunted house horror.

A brave new world

Because the main goal of the story of Fallen Kingdom was to take the next logical step, the movie, as a result, is rather tongue in cheek playful. Starting off at the island the movie takes a genre-U-turn halfway through and reinvents itself as a 'haunted house horror'. this time 'round not with ghosts chasing the protagonists but a hungry dino.

However, the 'tongue in cheek remains' as the movie almost spotlights that the villain’s plan isn’t the wisest choice in the world. So the movie lets those villains ‘do their thing’ without any forced suspense whether or not they are going to make it.

Ted Levine is the clearest example of this, whose character takes ‘Jurassic-stupidity’ to a whole new level.

Moreover, fifteen minutes in you –the worldly movie-knowing viewer- knows full well who are going to be dino-food and not (slight spoiler: the ethnic minorities and the child will be fine).

As a result Fallen Kingdom is a bit twofold: one the one hand it is a blockbuster that doesn't take itself to seriously whilst, at the same time, does try to pull off some real horror in the second act (which, because of the first doesn't quite work as well as it should). This makes the movie a bit uneven.
Then there are some other things I noticed:

Feminism? Not in Jurassic World

On a feministic scale Fallen Kingdom still is nowhere near the original it constantly refers to. Where the original Elle Sattler didn’t need rescuing once and actually advanced the plot by carrying out dangerous missions on her own. In this movie Claire still depends too much on her on/off-boyfriend Grady to take action.

Slight spoiler, even though it is in the trailer: in fact she is the sole reason he gets into this mess. She persuades him.

Taking this reasoning a step further: one could even read the movie rather sexist:

as a woman being duped while the men are all smart enough to know better.

Please, please some basic physics!

Another bothersome thing is Hollywood’s ineptitude to understand basic physics. In Jurassic World Dr. Wu smartly addressed the elephant in the room by stating that the dinosaurs on the island aren’t real dinosaurs but, rather, genetic creations.

Something the internet has been going on about since 1993.

But Fallen Kingdom quickly stampedes over this by having our heroes do things that in real life would kill you: the biggest one being: getting too close to lava. It didn’t work in 1997’s Volcano and (even though hilarious) it doesn’t work here. Rule of thumb: getting closer that ten meters to lava is rather deadly.

Yes Kate Capshaw in The temple of doom would’ve been toast.

I know I’m cruel but in 2018 the time for marvellous escapes is over. Nowadays (thanks to the knowledge of Wikipedia) realism has kicked in hard. It’s a phase that happened before in the 1930’s, 1970’s and (now) 2010’s. Each time the quest for realism destroys a bit of ‘what was before’.

We will never have a great white jumping on a boat again. As, after Fallen Kingdom (I hope) we will never have characters centimetres from insanely hot lava.

What the heck online people?

As I did my homework and read up about the public opinion on this movie I was suddenly confronted with some rather insane people online.

The comment section of course; always a dangerous place to venture.

Apparently the environmental message in Fallen Kingdom –which has been present in every Jurassic-movie to date- gives all kinds of people online a reason to rant against democrats and liberals.

It truly is an interesting time to live in now when some people are constantly politicising everything they can find to attack the left-winged world view (or at least: as left-winged as The United States of America can get).

Reviewing it all

That’s the nitpicking bit done. What’s left is to praise the wonderful fun Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom delivers.

Cinematographically Fallen Kingdom is a treat. There are all kinds of shots hidden in there that are (even though, to be expected) marvellous to witness. It even includes a rather well thought out sequence of escaping a flooding vehicle shot from the inside. Truly Fallen Kingdom is a visually outstanding movie.

More so, scripturally this movie brings the bucks. I said above that this movie takes the next logical step. But what I failed to mention there was that it also skims the padding to the extreme. There isn’t a scene out of place in this movie.

As Jurassic World was a soft reboot of the original. Fallen Kingdom is a soft reboot of The lost world.

Coming to acting it is clear that Pratt and Howard hung out together. They play off each other vividly. The forcefully included kissing-scene works because the two of them are so comfortable around each other. Relying on the groundwork from their previous movie, whenever a dinosaur attacks they happily bicker while running- because they, by now, know how to handle carnivores: run!

The rest of the cast, however, are scripturally poorer. They don’t have the Jurassic World back-story to get them through this movie. Justice Smith is set as the pun-delivering side-kick. Whilst Daniella Pineda's character is too linear to have any dept. She’s there to save the dinos and send people on dangerous missions.

Which brings me to the –it’s Jurassic after all- kid. Purists online love nothing more than to bash on the Jurassic children. And, truth be told, the kids in the franchise aren’t always up to the challenge.

However, I do honestly believe that children are an essential part of the Jurassic-formula.

Jurassic Park has always been about ‘wonder that can kill you’. An astronomer might enjoy the heck out of a supernova but she sure as hell doesn’t want to be near it.

What better human can portray wonder than kids? And what better human can get into trouble better than kids?

From a scriptural standpoint kids and Jurassic Park are a match made in heaven.

The new kid on the block is called Maisie Lockwood: The granddaughter of the main financer in this movie. Now, differing from the other kids in the franchise that, sometimes, got shoehorned in she actually has an interesting story at her base. At least something that could be fruitful to further explore.

There once was an idea for a movie that involved human dino hybrids.

The idea to use dinosaurs as weapons has been around ever since The lost world came to be. And from there it evolved. Sketches were made. Synopsises were written. But finally it all got shut down by the simple phrase: ‘could it work?’

Back then, in this form, it couldn’t. One needs to ease people in slowly. One doesn’t simply spring the entirety of the wizard world on Harry Potter. You start at Diagon Alley and go from there.

In this sense Maisie Lockwood has an interesting tale ahead of her. Basically what I’m saying is that she could be: part dino. But the fun part about Fallen Kingdom is that it doesn’t matter right now. Her storyline ended the minute she pushed that button. It could continue, but it doesn’t have to

I won’t spent too much time on Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm-character. He’s there talking for a total of two-minutes. But something tells me he will return for the third outing (he still got the character though).

The villains, then, are marvellous. Rafe Spall is a favourite of mine because he often plays the grey area. Here, however, he quickly turns to black. Then there’s Dobby/Toby Jones as the ultimate upper-class ‘A-hole’. I would love to interview the man because – If I know him right- I honestly believe he enjoyed every second of it.

Back on the island again

In the end Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a build-up to something grander. It is a job nobody wants; but it has to be done. Fallen Kingdom delivers this but, alas, has to hand in some chips along the way.

Nonetheless, it is a wonderful movie that ticks all the boxes one wants for a great night out. Next time, however, I wish to see a moviemaker forgo the meek dedication to Spielberg’s original and cut its own path in the limestone of Jurassic Universe.

Happy Death Day – A review

A sorority girl Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) wakes up on her birthday. Little does she know that it will be her last as that night she will be killed by a assailant wearing a baby mask. At least, it would be her last if not for the strange occurrence of her reliving the same day again and again, thus giving her time to solve her own murder and become a better person in the process.

As I wrote my last mixed-tape movies list (Link) three movies popped up about people reliving the same day over and over. Groundhog day is the famous example, then there’s 12:01 which takes the same concept and puts a crime-twist in it. And, more recently there was Live, Die, Repeat which is the action version. But I hadn’t seen Happy Death Day yet. This would be the slasher variant -But strangely enough, for a horror movie, one with very little blood (more suggestion).

Now, I’m not always in the mood for slasher. And, truth be told, I should stop looking at rottentomatoes and make up my own mind. In short: I kept prosponing this movie. Which, in retrospect, wasn’t the wisest thing to do because Happy Death Day is a wonderful genre-film.

Time Travel a day at a time
I am biased. I’m a big fan of time travel movies So Happy Death Day is right up my alley. Even though criticasters might start huffing and puffing that the concept of ‘reliving a day’ isn’t fresh or new anymore. I actually find it rather refreshing to take a new look at construct.

True some of the basic plot points stay intact. For instance, the main character pointing out things that he/she has seen before. Or the story arch of self-improvement. But there are lots of things to change if you change the main character from a worldweary weatherman to an obnoxious sorority girl.

Slight apoiler: I for one would definitely nude-walk in front of the college if I knew nobody would remember.

If you have the power, why not use it?

Happy Death Day never once proclaims itself as original and unique. It even mentions Groundhog Day and Bill Murray by name. All this movie tries to do is take a different approach at the ‘reliving a day’ concept. Changing ‘love by self-improvement’ to ‘self-improvement by slasher hoodlum’.
It works! It is a new take on the concept and it works as such (with a lovely little romance to boot). That is, there are one or two nitpicks.

Mysterious nitpicks
The main mystery of who is trying to kill Tree isn’t much of a mystery. You can solve it pretty easily about halfway through. This is something you have to accept going into the movie.
True, as a counter Happy Death Day does ask the viewer to keep paying attention to details that other movies would disregard as ‘suspension of disbelief’.

I can’t count the times I saw somebody escape from handcuffs. This isn’t a spoiler for the movie by the way.

Another nitpick is the ‘by magic’ element. The reason why I prefer 12:01 over Groundhog day is because the ‘timebounce’ is explained. There is a reason why the main character relives the same day over and over. Not so much in Groundhog day (a magic rodent perhaps) and neither in Happy Death Day. The girl relives her days by magic – deal with it.

But, again, to counter it Happy Death Day does bring in an end date to this whole ‘living forever’ to the table. This is the first movie I know of in which the main character does relive the day but it’s finite.

One -often mentioned- nitpick, however, that I don’t agree with are the cardboard-characters. The sorority girls our heroine is living with are all (pretty much) terrible people. As is Tree herself at the start.
But that’s kind of what this kind of movie requires. Like many crime- and slasher-movies before it it needs additional characters to fill the slots of potential perps or victims. And something the slasher genre learned long ago is that all these characters can’t have enough screen time to flesh out the persona. So the short-cut is to make archetypes with a parody element. The additional benefit is that the viewer won’t be too attached to see this character die.

This parody element is then -of course- further explored/emphasized by highlighting horror-trope after trope (empty hospitals, running victim, masked killer and so on).

Dying for the light
And dying our girl Tree does, constantly and hilariously. There isn’t a slasher weapons trope left out of this movie (well, maybe that curling iron from Sleep away Camp). Knifes, axes, guns, gasoline, baseball bats and many more; they are all in there.

This increases the parody feel of the movie (as Scream was years before). This movie is entertainment in the best sense of the word. It’s a movie for a night out with friends to chat, watch and hide behind a pillow (a ‘sleepover movies’ if you’d want to call it that).

Rothe has tremendous fun undergoing each and every death scene (especially when she has died several times before at that point) with a look of ‘oh not again’ bringing the morbid joke home.

Moreover she (and her fellow actresses) are having a hoot playing these over the top brats with a world view as narrow as pencil line. Something about the success of Scream Queens stuck.

A fun fact about me: this movie takes place on a Monday the 18th.

My birthday, this year, was Monday the 18th.

I watched this movie with friends on this monday the 18th. Cue the creepy music.

Visually the movie makes good use of the budgeted story (it being a Bloomhouse production after all). There are around three main sets that with simple lighting and dressing bring a new tone to the screen as the movie progresses.

The fun part about these ‘reliving a day’ movies is that the cameraman gets to redo the same shots over and over again. This, just to establish the fact that the day is indeed repeating. Happy Death Day does play with it occasionally (having the character Carter bump his head in the cupboard).

To end with the look of the killer. An easy game to play whenever you are watching a slasher with a masked killer on the loose is to check whether the killer is male or female. That would even out your chances of pinpointing the right one.

If a movie is playing fair (meaning: the actor/actress who turns out to be the killer was also wearing the killer suit in the attack-scenes) you can often tell by the body and/or the stance whether you are dealing with a male or a female (Crimson Rivers is a prime example).

So the better the suit depends on the inability for the viewer to make any guess about gender. The fact that this movie also managed to tie that whole creepy baby mask into the fictional world is a big bonus. Ever since Valentine’s day I wonder why nobody calls the cops when they see somebody walking around dressed in black with a creepy mask (that’s the reason why Michael Myers only got away with it on Halloween).

Dead again/alive again
Taking Happy Death Day for what it is: a fun entertaining movie that takes the concept of ‘reliving a day’ and puts a horror/slasher spin on it- I would recommend it to anybody. With the lack of blood in this movie I would even recommend it to my parents.
Everybody involved brought their best to make Tree Gelbman’s birthday one to remember again and again.

Rampage - a review

Primatologist Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson – No I’m not making this up) goes after his albino gorilla George as the primate got an unhealthy dose of some toxic gooey. George is now growing and mutating and, what’s more, becoming uncontrollably aggressive. Together with scientist Kate Caldwell (Naomi Harris) and ‘the man from another agency’ Harvey Russell (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) they try to find a cure. They’d better hurry up because George isn’t the only one who got in contact with the toxic.

Videogame movies are difficult to make. A lot of old games have too little story to make a movie out of it. A lot of later games have a lot of story but, alas, all of the dime novels calibre.
Hollywood still hasn’t figured out the exact formula. They come close at times but then after every Silent Hill comes a Silent Hill: revelation. Or, more recently after Rampage comes the Tomb Raider reboot.

Tomb Raider would have been a far better movie without the shoehorned father plotline.

Rampage is in fact a -dare I say it- 'good' videogame movie for two very simple reasons: the original game’s whole premise was: ‘monsters smashing buildings’. So the minute you’ve written that bit into the movie you’re basically done. Two, it casts Dwayne Johnson as a primatologist. If you can accept that then the rest of the movie won’t let you down.

No, of course, realism isn’t what this movie is striving at. It’s got a gigantic white ape who speaks highly advanced sign language (because; of course he does) and a wolf named Ralph.
So when you go on this rollercoaster you just have to grab your popcorn and enjoy it.

There is a small environmental lesson in this movie about poachers but that’s just the Jurassic Park-blueprint talking.

The eighties called
I had to check it, but yes Rampage is branded 12A -and I AM taking the kids to see it. Finally here we have a kid-friendly movie that allows itself some curse words, blood and gore, and some visual tomfoolery. I was, at times, shocked that Rampage got away with some of the things it showed. Suddenly I felt a call-back to Temple of Doom which, I think, was one of the last times that a movie pushed the ratings envelope.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that this movie is over the top in its depiction of violence (but with a movie called Rampage it is to be expected) but you do see a quick shot of a torn apart body or two.
So with the surgent of torture-porn horror movies well behind us now, in 2018, movies have finally decided to show what is needed to show without focussing on it. Just like it was in the 1980s.

Fun action
Like Tom Cruise’s The mummy Rampage also has an plane crash moment inside the plane. But unlike The mummy, here it actually works. It’s a fun action scene in which hero and heroine save the day together. And that is basically the whole of the last hour of Rampage – fun action scene after fun action scene.

The minute the monsters enter Chicago (because villain stupidity knows no bounds) the camera happily zooms over the streets as the monsters destroy building after building. Just as the videogame demanded. But this time with slightly more advanced computer graphics.

Fun actors
Like Johnson’s San Andreas in which he singlehandedly punched a tectonic plate to a standstill Rampage too is reliant on his natural charisma and physique as the man the audience wants to follow to save the day. Harris then fills in the obligatory story strands about science gone wrong. But luckily the script allows her character some moments to shine as an individual.

Morgan, then, is the difficult character to like. He plays the lone sheriff government agent with a thick accent and a macho swagger. You are bound to remember the character, that’s for sure. But, overall, he’s just there to (sometimes literally) clean up some discarded story strands.

The real showstealers, however, to me were the brother and sister villains (Jake Lacy and Malin Akkerman). Dumb villains are always fun to see. And by the time the duo is formally introduced we’ve already had to accept The Rock as a primatologist so we’re ready for anything.

Normally these kinds of movies offer only one villain (or somebody suddenly bombarded to be a villain as was the case in San Andreas) so it’s always fun to see two. More fun even if it is the woman in charge over her sniffling little brother. Giving her best megalomaniac performance with a side-order of two-faced-ness Akerman is having a blast. Even though, I must admit, her master-plan would make the worst Bond-villain scratch his head.

Ramp it up
Rampage is good old fashioned summer blockbuster material that, for once, isn’t a sequel or a prequel. True it is an adaptation of a videogame but then an original game so lacking in story that anything goes. The movie delivers just that: anything –including the kitchen sink and grandma’s slippers. It is a fun action ride that isn’t scared to throw some healthy profanity to the kiddies to blush about.
So what’s next for The Rock now that he fought a giant Gorilla? When is he going to space? Oh, right: Doom. Not all videogame movies work I guess (but I liked it).