Review: Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 128 mins / Dir. J. A. Bayona / Trailer

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should..."

~ Dr Ian Malcolm, in one of the few notable moments from the first Jurassic Park film which isn't the subject of a direct callback in the fifth, but really should be.

One of the things I found amazing about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was that a movie with this budget, creative crew and a limitless digital palette has so little imagination. Think how far through the ideas-book you'd have to be when the fifth movie in a series spends its first hour retooling Kong: Skull Island instead. That's not to say there aren't a plethora of hamfisted references to earlier Jurassic Park entries of course, but still.

The film does feature some nicely executed set-pieces as you'd expect, but they're all very on-the-nose. If anyone watching genuinely believes that the heroes are in danger of not waving behind the end-credits, they've clearly got some catching up to do. And while I freely admit that applies to the vast, vast majority of action-cinema, the protagonists' safety is underlined here with a fat red screenwriter's marker.

It's not that I particularly disliked JW:FK or even that it bored me, necessarily. I just found myself thoroughly uninterested in what was going to happen to the more-cardboard-than-ever characters (although the four raptor 'puppies' in the flashback scenes were adorable).

Nature = good, corporate = bad. It's a message which certainly wasn't invented with 1993's Jurassic Park, but now feels as old as the DNA lying in the veins of a fossilised mosquito, as Universal hammer it mercilessly home - apparently without irony - to the viewers sitting in dark, air-conditioned chain cinemas around the globe.

Speaking of morality: we all know, yeah, that Maisie Lockwood is singly and directly responsible for every death which occurs (on the land, admittedly) after she hits the Big Red Button™ in the compound? Good guys, bad guys, bystanders, pets, the lot. And that includes every evil businessman, cackling mercenary and nameless extra who carks it in the next movie, too.

"...but they're alive!" she tearfully emotes as the surviving dinosaurs thunder out into the night. Well sweetheart, tell that to the families and loved ones of every corpse that racks up because of your moment of humility.

So in order for Jurassic World 3 to create a Hollywood-friendly narrative balance, either Maisie's character has to be held accountable for her actions (ie, suffer the ending of Toby Jones, Rafe Spall etc), or the story will need to fall back on the idea that Maisie doesn't really have a conscience because she doesn't really have a soul because she's just a clone. In which case: so were the dinosaurs, so what does it matter if the they were saved or not? Good luck with that one, Amblin…

Biggest disappointment: that our heroes escape the island on a ship named Arcadia, then the film *doesn't* turn into a Resident Evil crossover.

Rather fittingly, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is the perfect theme-park ride. Methodical, mechanical, precision-engineered thrills designed to entertain a summer audience for the duration.

Right before they leave, then immediately start queueing for something else...

Oh, and I'm also taking a point off (no, seriously) for that "nasty woman!" line in the script, the most cloyingly cackhanded bit of zeitgeist camera-winking since Linda Cardellini was made to say 'snowflake' in Daddy's Home 2. Appalling…



Jurassic World.



Well…



Oh, if you like.



Hahahahahahahaha.



We very well might.



Not that I heard, but there is a section in the middle with about five minutes' worth of screaming, and there could well be one layered in there.



Level 1: That engineer out of Rogue One is in this. You know the one.



(did you think I was joking about knocking that point off?)




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Focus

Focus
Cert: 15 / 105 mins / Dir. John Requa & Glenn Ficarra / Trailer



Because apparently the film-rights to the titles Escort and Fiesta were taken already. Boom! A very Brit-centric joke to start off with there, and indeed, one for the dads. It's also, I should point out, far more risqué than anything in Focus, whose BBFC classification-card optimistically boasts "sex, sex references" in a way which seems more of a false promise than a warning. Not that that's why I was at the cinema, of course. If it's cheap smut I wanted (and I didn't), I could have popped into one of the seven separate showings of 50 Shades Of Grey that day (and I didn't). The only reason I mention this whole thing is that Focus seems to be a dab hand at promising (or at least inferring) one thing, then delivering something else. Ironically, that's about as close as it comes to being a con-movie...

The good news is that Focus is far more like an episode of the TV show Hustle than it is American Hustle. The bad news is that it's like an episode of Hustle that's been rebooted for ITV2. Unlike other entries in the heist-genre, the film doesn't actually give us anyone likeable to root for. Which you'd think would be sort of the point? There's no Robin Hood ethos at work here, or righteous-revenge-by-financial-ruin. It's just Will Smith as the head of a 30-strong team of professional thieves who have no compunction in stealing watches, wallets or dignity from members of the public at any opportunity. But it's alright, you see, because his dad and his grandad were grifters and pickpockets before him! Y'know, in the same way that the children of murderers naturally gravitate to stabbing people for a living. It wouldn't be so bad if Will Smith at his smoothest wasn't so utterly charmless, but hey ho. Even his co-star Margot Robbie cranks the insincerity up one notch higher than required to sell her character short.

But rather than let a good film be ruined by the man who had a bloody good crack at destroying sci-fi, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have handily also written the script and given him a hand! Now, I know it's de rigueur for this sort of movie, but never before has The Scriptwriter's Boomerang*¹ been thrown so gracelessly than in the first act of Focus. Because when Will Smith patiently and pointedly explains anything which isn't directly connected to objects in the same room, you think "yep, we'll be seeing that fucker again before the closing credits…". I'm not normally one to sit second-guessing the twists and turns in a film, but with Smith's presence slowly subtracting IQ points from the screenplay, it's sort of unavoidable. While the contents of the twists themselves may be arbitrary, their approach is telegraphed by the cinematic equivalent of a man walking in front of the film with a red flag, "lest the sheer velocity of this unexpected revelation be too much for the frail human condition…"

It's not that it's completely brainless, but a film like this should be way smarter. An average story (at best), which patronises its audience (at best) and is let down by pantomime performances (at best).

Focus is to American Hustle, what Now You See Me is to The Prestige*²…

Best bit: Reclining lazily in a courtyard cafe in Buenos Aires, Will Smith's Nicky swirls a glass of allegedly expensive red wine and drawls to Margot Robbie's Jess, "I can convince anyone of anything…", seemingly unaware that this has placed him on the event horizon of a black hole, created by the crushing density of the irony of the statement, given the actor delivering it.

Part of your brain actually believes that Smith himself believes what his own character is saying, and that only makes things worse as everything in existence is inexorably compacted into a thespic singularity…

It's not unfortunately, and its general release is on the 27th February, two days after the end of Orange Wednesdays. Don't worry, it'll soon be £3 in Asda.



Rental, tops. Unless you want to spend the £3 in Asda.



Nope.



For me? Not by a long shot.



*looks over glasses*.



Not that I heard.



Focus stars Margot Robbie, who played Charlotte in About Time, alongside Domhnall Gleeson from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.







*¹ ©Tokyosexwhale, used without permission or notification, but with gratitude and admiration nonetheless.
*² Yes you're right, I did really enjoy Now You See Me, but The Prestige is a much stronger film, and the point still stands anyway so you shut up.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.