Sidereal Movement

Being left to my own devices for the next few days (the husband is out of town for a friend’s wedding), I was faced with how to spend my first evening alone in over a year. Did I choose to sit in a hot bathtub with a glass of wine and a new book? No. Did I decide to be a responsible adult and fold all the laundry that is currently heaped on the guest room bed waiting to be put away? Also no. I got home from work, changed my clothes, fed the cat, and took myself to the nearest movie theater to watch Jurassic World in 3D. I give it a “solid thumb up”.

Quick description of my rating system*:

“Two thumbs up” = a great movie. Something like The Princess Bride, the original Star Wars trilogy, or The Grand Budapest Hotel. I could watch it over and over.

“Solid thumb up” = a pretty good movie, and well worth the watch. All around enjoyable, but just not quite there for me. Think along the lines of Pitch Perfect 2.

“Meh.” = a decent movie. Not terrible, but not something I would likely enjoy a second time.

“Thumb down” = please don’t ever make me watch this movie again. Citizen Kane, I’m looking at you.

“So bad it’s good” = admittedly not a great movie, but so much fun or has that special something. This is where The Rocky Horror Picture Show belongs.

* This is highly subjective. Take it with a grain of salt. And a shot of tequila and a lime wedge if you must.

First, the dinosaurs. True to Spielberg, we didn’t get a good look at this new, awesome dinosaur, Imdominus Rex, until about forty minutes into the movie. Even the T-Rex got minimal screen time. When we did finally get to see the new Big Bad Dino, it was wicked impressive! But in the mean time, we did get to see plenty of raptors. And there were cute little baby triceratops and great big lumbering Long Necks (yes, that’s the term I’m going with), and even a few Stegosauruses. And of course there was the aquatic shark muncher that is in just about every trailer you saw for the movie. Just in case you forgot, here’s the trailer.

Ok, now the humans. The kids, Zach and Grey (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins, respectively), weren’t too bad. They behaved like brothers, annoyed with one another, but really having fun every once in a while, and they definitely worked well together when they needed to. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) was the Frigid Ice Aunt to a tee, and developed a reasonably likable personality by the end of the movie. I’m even willing to (mostly) forgive the fact that she completely forgot about her nephews for a few scenes. The fact that she ran around that whole island with dinosaurs while wearing nude patent leather heels the whole time, I just had to push the “I Believe” button on a few times. They fit her uptight, controlling personality, but c’mon. Zero points for practicality. Don’t even get me started on her sterile, white skirt ensemble. I know, I know. It’s what she was wearing when everything fell apart. I promise she’s run better barefoot. Owen (our dearly beloved Chris Pratt) was not the over the top personality you may have been expecting. He was quiet, charming, and totally in control of himself and as much of the situation as he could be, given they were dealing with giant death lizards. And yeah, he trains the raptors. What’s that? Owen was hired to work for the park out of the Navy? Even if that doesn’t make the most sense ever, the way he dealt with situations and the decisions he made meshed with that back story. Take the points Claire lost on her ridiculous shoes and give them to Owen. There were several generally confusing are-they-or-aren’t-they Baddies, but they’re not really worth mentioning. The quiet, behind the scenes hero who spoke reason when Owen wasn’t there was a control room guy by the name of Lowery (Jake Johnson). He stole every scene he was in, and gets bonus kudos for wearing a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt that was probably actually a prop in the original movie 20 years ago. You go, Lowery!

Speaking of the vintage t-shirt, there were several nice touches that alluded to the original movie, if they didn’t actually come right out and reference it. The laboratory was named for John Hammond, and he was mentioned at least twice by name. The lead geneticist is still Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), a hold over from the first go round. I loved the line he had about how in recreating dinosaurs in the first place, they had to use other filler DNA to complete the genome, and that’s why the dinosaurs don’t completely look or behave the way they’re “supposed” to. It was a throw away line, but it was so well placed and accounted for varying skin colors in the same species. We get to see a goat tethered to a spike, awaiting Death by T-Rex. And remember Mr. DNA? Even he gets a cameo! Sadly, there is no Dr. Ian Malcolm there to explain how none of this makes sense and why. His chaos theory demonstration makes a subtle, albeit bloodier, appearance in his stead. This whole movie was much bloodier in general than I remember the first movie being.

My biggest reason for not giving it a full “Two thumbs up” is really because it didn’t hold the same kind of suspense that Jurassic Park had. There were a few too many C plots that could have gotten less screen time or been ignored completely in favor of tighter story telling. All the same, I would recommend seeing it on the big screen. Those dinosaurs are worth seeing larger than life!

Ok, is everyone who hasn’t seen it happy? Because consider yourself warned. From here on out, there be spoilers!

Holy Cannolli! I loved how they spooled out the various creatures that Dr. Wu combined to create Indominus Rex as they became relevant. Even if the various components were spoken aloud eventually, we were shown what she was made of first. T-Rex  and tree frog and cuttlefish and raptor! The way her jaw unhinged to bite and kill everything in her path! Long arms and claws that she could actually use to fight and kill! Everything about her was just so alien; she was obviously something nature never would have made, and it made her terrifying. (Also, anyone else notice how Claire asked if the dino being all white would make her too scary, when she herself was in an all white outfit?) The show down with the dinosaurs all fighting for their own places in the food chain against this seemingly unbeatable adversary was a great sequence. The raptor fricassee  in the Margaritaville restaurant grill was just plain funny. Also the raptor that got blown to bits by some sort of shoulder launched something or other. (Charlie? Delta? Echo? I have no idea which one died when) Hehehe. C’mon, there was no way all the raptors were going to survive this.

Not gonna lie, I teared up a bit when Owen and Claire with comforting the dying Long Neck. It was a little too reminiscent of Littlefoot’s mother dying in The Land Before Time for me to not get choked up. I don’t know if that was an intentional parallel or not. Also, her eyes were so human compared to the very reptilian eyes of the carnivorous raptors and rexes.

I also loved the quick visit to the old park central building, all grown over with vegetation. I loved how the map of the island had the whole top third of the island “restricted”, which is where the old building was. I guess there are still dinos roaming free there, too wild to become attractions. Lowery’s menagerie of toy dinosaurs on his console made me happy every time I saw them, and how he kept arranging them when people bumped them out of order. And the guy who saves his margaritas when the flying dinos of doom came swooping in? That man has got his priorities straight. {edit: Apparently Margarita Man is none other that the most famous Margarita Man himself, the ever fantastic Jimmy Buffett!}

My favorite part though? I loved how once Indominus Rex got munched by Aqua-saurus and Blue Beta Raptor ran off into the sunrise, the T-Rex climbed up onto the helo pad, watched the ferry steam away with all the people that didn’t get pecked to death by the flock of pterodactyl-things, and roared it’s supremacy to the island. The T-Rex got to save the day again. Nice touch.