![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yeah yeah, I know, I know: I heard it sucked, too. But my kid wanted to see it, and I wasn't doing anything better on a Saturday morning...
But you know what? I liked it!
Oh, it's not a great movie by any means. The main plot is absolutely bog standard Jurassic Park and the dino fights are stuff we've seen a million times before. Anyone expecting the pop artistry of Spielberg is going to be very disappointed.
But the one feature the movie promised that truly delivers: the cast of the original Jurassic Park and the cast of the Jurassic World movies--together. No glorified cameo appearances, or saying hi over Zoom; all the big stars of both ends of the franchise operating as integral parts of the movie--and holy cow, it works!
So, instead of seeing this movie as a bunch of people running and screaming from dinosaurs, think of it as a high school reunion movie. Popular girl and class valedictorian Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) reconnects with her old class crush, Alan Grant (Sam Neill, now with extra grizzle) and the two of them get into hijinks with former class clown Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Dern is as bright and beautiful as ever. Neill doesn't have too much reason to be there, but he (and his character) seems to be perfectly content to just hang around Dern for the length of the movie. (Honestly, would you really need additional motivation?)
Meanwhile, Ian Malcolm zings Goldblum-y commentary all over the plot of the movie, and whether or not he's embarrassed to participate in yet another IP/legacy cash grab. He's especially funny when interacting with the new kids and some of the more riseable concepts of the new movies:
OWEN: I promised Blue I would get her back.
IAN: You made a promise... to a dinosaur.
...and such.
The new kids--Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Isabella Sermon (as clone girl Maisie Lockwood)--are perfectly fine. Pratt is in action hero mode, which means he's a bit boring, but not intolerably so. (He has some nice scenes with Dawanda Wise as a sort of black lesbian Han Solo, as they bond over their mutual attraction to redheads.) Howard, thankfully, is nowhere near a set of high heels, and probably gives her best performance from the three JW movies. Sermon plays Maisie like an obnoxious sheltered teen, but works well with B.D. Wong's Henry Wu (who apparently is sick of being the oblivious evil scientist in these movies, and works hard for his redemption arc).
No, the evil scientist here is Campbell Scott's Lewis Dodgson, and he is hilarious. Dodgson is a parody of modern, "in touch with the zeitgeist" CEOs (see: Steve Jobs), and his first meeting with Satler and Grant is a master class in unctuousness. In between humblebrags and showing how much he loves his employees, he does everything to make Satler and Grant feel special short of brewing them a pot of Chai tea. (You SO want a dinosaur to eat him.)
I wish Colin Trevorrow more fully explored the question posed at the beginning of the movie: what would happen if dinosaurs were reborn in the modern world? How would they affect global ecology? It's a fascinating question, but the movie veers off almost immediately into Dodgson's dastardly evol plot. But then again, you can't expect too much innovation from the sixth movie of a multi-billion dollar franchise. If you do go, enjoy it for what it is....
But you know what? I liked it!
Oh, it's not a great movie by any means. The main plot is absolutely bog standard Jurassic Park and the dino fights are stuff we've seen a million times before. Anyone expecting the pop artistry of Spielberg is going to be very disappointed.
But the one feature the movie promised that truly delivers: the cast of the original Jurassic Park and the cast of the Jurassic World movies--together. No glorified cameo appearances, or saying hi over Zoom; all the big stars of both ends of the franchise operating as integral parts of the movie--and holy cow, it works!
So, instead of seeing this movie as a bunch of people running and screaming from dinosaurs, think of it as a high school reunion movie. Popular girl and class valedictorian Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) reconnects with her old class crush, Alan Grant (Sam Neill, now with extra grizzle) and the two of them get into hijinks with former class clown Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Dern is as bright and beautiful as ever. Neill doesn't have too much reason to be there, but he (and his character) seems to be perfectly content to just hang around Dern for the length of the movie. (Honestly, would you really need additional motivation?)
Meanwhile, Ian Malcolm zings Goldblum-y commentary all over the plot of the movie, and whether or not he's embarrassed to participate in yet another IP/legacy cash grab. He's especially funny when interacting with the new kids and some of the more riseable concepts of the new movies:
OWEN: I promised Blue I would get her back.
IAN: You made a promise... to a dinosaur.
...and such.
The new kids--Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Isabella Sermon (as clone girl Maisie Lockwood)--are perfectly fine. Pratt is in action hero mode, which means he's a bit boring, but not intolerably so. (He has some nice scenes with Dawanda Wise as a sort of black lesbian Han Solo, as they bond over their mutual attraction to redheads.) Howard, thankfully, is nowhere near a set of high heels, and probably gives her best performance from the three JW movies. Sermon plays Maisie like an obnoxious sheltered teen, but works well with B.D. Wong's Henry Wu (who apparently is sick of being the oblivious evil scientist in these movies, and works hard for his redemption arc).
No, the evil scientist here is Campbell Scott's Lewis Dodgson, and he is hilarious. Dodgson is a parody of modern, "in touch with the zeitgeist" CEOs (see: Steve Jobs), and his first meeting with Satler and Grant is a master class in unctuousness. In between humblebrags and showing how much he loves his employees, he does everything to make Satler and Grant feel special short of brewing them a pot of Chai tea. (You SO want a dinosaur to eat him.)
I wish Colin Trevorrow more fully explored the question posed at the beginning of the movie: what would happen if dinosaurs were reborn in the modern world? How would they affect global ecology? It's a fascinating question, but the movie veers off almost immediately into Dodgson's dastardly evol plot. But then again, you can't expect too much innovation from the sixth movie of a multi-billion dollar franchise. If you do go, enjoy it for what it is....
