__Hello again.🙂 We're halfway through the year; I hope it's going well for you so far.
__If you're new to this blog, I mostly post compilations of short reviews of movies I'm seeing for the first time. They're copied and pasted from my Twitter feed because the more movies I see, the harder I find it to write full 250-word reviews like I used to. For a while now, I've been focusing on video games instead of movies, going through all the ones I own but haven't played yet, in a list arranged by year. However, I said at the end of my last post on May 7th that I was taking a break from playing video games to focus on making video versions of the top ten lists I've written. Work is proceeding on those videos slowly but surely, but that hasn't stopped me from going to the cinema a few times.🙂
__Among the movies I've gone to see over the last two months, there were two recent releases that inspired me to write full reviews (partly because they both concern franchises that mean a great deal to me): Jurassic World Dominion and Lightyear. I did a word count on the Jurassic World Dominion review I wrote, and it totals 1,168 words! The last time I got passionate enough to write such a long review was for Artemis Fowl on my other blog, and that was about 1,500 words. My Lightyear review is far shorter, at 455 words, but still much longer than the aforementioned 250 that used to be my standard. I actually didn't think it would turn out that long, but once I started writing, I found I did have a lot to say. I guess Dominion got me on a roll!😀
__You know, it's just occurred to me that, in a way, today's review compilation will follow the same format as an old cinema programme: a few shorts, then the main feature, and a B-movie.🙂
__So, without further ado, let's start with the seven reviews I kept Twitter-length. As per something else I mentioned last time, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is among them.🙂
It fully embodies the word "savage": not just the brutality, but the performances are intensely crazed and the music is often as raucous as possible. Had it not been for some bizarre dreamlike moments, it would have been even more awesome.
My rating: 75%.
What it changes from the games' lore (like Knuckles' relationship with the Master Emerald) wouldn't be an issue if it were a better movie on its own. Like the first film, it stops short of fully developing the drama it's going for.
My rating: 55%.
It didn't blow my mind, but I liked the core idea: the hypocrisy of Doctor Strange breaking his own rules supposedly for the greater good, versus Wanda, who's causing devastation for entirely selfish reasons.
My rating: 70%.
The story does nothing groundbreaking, but I was very much drawn into the characters' journey regardless (or, more specifically, Mr Wolf's): trying to break away from the villainous role he'd formerly embraced because doing good feels good.
My rating: 80%.
Its sanity drops like a stone halfway through. It's clearly going for symbolism, but I utterly fail to see how the imagery relates to Harper's issues. If it was trying to make some kind of comment on sexism or victim blaming, it failed miserably.
My rating: 55%.
I found the ceaseless pandemonium more offputting than exhilarating, but there are many flat-out stunning edits (both audio and visual), and the story gets steadily more engaging as Evelyn's emotional journey escalates.
My rating: 80%.
Much better than the original! The mission is clearly defined from the start, the story and characters are more engaging, and I simply cared more what was going on, which made the action all the more thrilling as well as deftly shot.
My rating: 80%.
__Before we get to the feature presentation, I have a couple more comments.
__The Bad Guys uses the same animation style as Into the Spider-Verse and The Mitchells vs. the Machines, except not annoying this time.😀
__I think another part of the reason I didn't take to Everything Everywhere All at Once as much as everyone else is because I saw it on a cinema screen where the sound system wasn't the best, so the dialogue was often hard to make out. And yet, I still think it's a better multiverse movie than Doctor Strange.🙂
__Now, get comfortable, and let's move on to the big one.🙂
Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
__First, let me set up my own expectations. I was merely disappointed in Jurassic World at first, but each time I see it, I find myself disliking it more and more. And Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was so relentlessly, insultingly stupid that it makes me angry just thinking about it! So I was hoping for at least minimal improvement with this one. And… that's pretty much what I got. I'd say it's the best of the Jurassic World trilogy, but only because it mainly evoked indifference rather than anger. Which is fitting because that's the attitude the movie itself seems to have. It reeks of tiredness and apathy, like it's not trying very hard to be interesting.
__I had two questions going in. One: how many feathered dinosaurs would there be? And two: how the hell did Blue have a baby?! I was under the impression that she was the last of her kind. I didn't remember any other raptors escaping at the end of Fallen Kingdom, let alone male ones. Well, the movie does address that. It's explained that her genome contains monitor lizard DNA, which can reproduce asexually. How very convenient!
__As for my other question… Yes, there are a few feathered dinosaurs – and, as I expected, they're the result of experiments with pure DNA instead of splicing – but they get so little screen time that I'm not sure they'll help sell the public on the modern image of feathered dinosaurs, not helped by the fact that the movie itself isn't very good. I've said before that one good approach would be to use their unthreatening appearance to their advantage – play up how beautiful but deadly they are – and this movie kind of plays around with that idea. For example, the Therizinosaurus kills a deer at one point, not for food but just because it's in the way.
__Aside from the near total neglect of feathered dinosaurs, the plot itself is also a bit of a letdown. It does finally bring back Lewis Dodgson, who was pretty underdeveloped in the first movie, but on the other hand, it squanders all the potential of dinosaurs running loose in the world by once again confining them to a designated area. It's like neither the corporations nor the filmmakers have learnt anything! It's also pretty laughable that the whole thing happens because of locusts! Dodgson's company, Biosyn, has created giant prehistoric locusts, which have escaped and become a plague, eating everything except Biosyn crops, which would allow them to corner the market on the world's food supply. Pretty much the entire plot revolves around those damn locusts. This is supposed to be Jurassic Park, not The Swarm!
__One of the big selling points of this movie was the return of the old guard: Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm from the original movies. In some ways, it is good to see them again, but they feel nothing like their old selves; the writers or director (or both) have warped them into something unrecognisable. And I still don't care about the World characters like Owen and Claire, so whenever dinosaurs were chasing them, all I could think was, "You can have them!"
__This movie marks a few dinosaurs' first appearances in the film series, like Nasutoceratops, which first appeared in the Netflix show Camp Cretaceous, and Dreadnoughtus, which was introduced in the game Jurassic World Evolution. There's also a brand new addition in Atrociraptor – which, funnily enough, I first heard about in the documentary series Prehistoric Planet, which came out just before this film's release. When they showed up, I was most disappointed that they were featherless. I wondered if the feathered raptor that menaces Owen and Kayla was supposed to be a pure-bred one, since it's never identified in the film, but no, apparently it's a Pyroraptor.
__And then you have the Giganotosaurus. I'm not going to sugarcoat this: it looks terrible! It looked far better in Jurassic World Evolution! I think we were all expecting it to fight the T-rex, like the Spinosaurus did in Jurassic Park III, and (spoiler alert) it does, but it's so brief that it's yet another big disappointment, like it was just an afterthought. In fact, the T-rex barely appears in this movie at all.
__Like I said, for the most part, this movie got no rise out of me whatsoever. Even when something theoretically exciting was happening, I was completely indifferent. But one thing that stands out is a recurring problem where time apparently has no relevance. For example, during the chase scene in Malta, when a raptor breaks through the door a character just shut behind them, the person is much further down the stairs than the editing suggests they should be. By that same token, there's a moment when the Giganotosaurus is deterred and then turns back, and everyone has apparently had time to get up the ladder.
__There's one phenomenally stupid scene where pterosaurs are attacking Kayla's plane, and Owen tells Claire to eject; the pterosaurs immediately go after her and destroy her parachute. It's like, what did you think was going to happen? Idiots!
__Also, the scene where everyone sees the Giganotosaurus just feels wrong. Grant identifies it matter-of-factly, then everyone immediately starts backing away from it. It feels jarring, a very unnatural reaction, like they suddenly remembered they're supposed to be scared.
__Now, my last couple of comments might be considered major spoilers, so you have been warned.
__One of my big issues with Fallen Kingdom was the idea that Benjamin Lockwood, in creating Maisie, poured a ton of money and company resources into a selfish personal project just because he couldn't get over the loss of his daughter. Well, this movie nullifies that idea by further exploring Maisie's origin. Except the truth it reveals is arguably even stupider! Let's just say they seem to think it's a clever parallel with Blue's asexual reproduction.
__The other spoiler I'll give concerns Dodgson. I wondered if he'd end up suffering the same fate he does in the Lost World novel: essentially what happens to Peter Ludlow in the movie. But instead, his fate is reminiscent of Dennis Nedry's, which is rather appropriate, since it was their deal that ruined everything in the first place.
__To sum it up, if this really is to be the last Jurassic Park movie, then it's a thoroughly underwhelming finale with only the faintest hint of effort; the series ends not with a bang but with a shrug. (Hell, the ending doesn't even feel like a conclusion, but more like a deferment.) But I can't agree with those claiming it's the worst of the series. Not when Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom exists. Seriously, every second of that movie felt like an insult, to the original Jurassic Park and to the audience's intelligence! Like I said, I'll take uninteresting over anger-inducing any day.
__My rating: 50%.
Lightyear (2022)
__Long story short, I liked this movie. It's no masterpiece by any means, but it's entertaining from start to finish.
__It quickly sets up an intriguing world with cool technology and the Space Ranger Corps at its centre. It's especially fascinating to see the applications of the buttons on the Space Ranger suits and how they evolved into the toy's actions. The red button that released Buzz's wings, for example, has a different but still practical function here.
__On a related note, the callbacks to famous lines from Toy Story are appreciated. You could say, in a sense, they got their start here.🙂
__I also like Buzz's character arc. He's determined to fix a predicament that his own ego created for a whole population. He's initially reluctant to accept help because he's been trained not to put unqualified amateurs in harm's way, but comes to learn a lesson that I myself found very relatable: you can't do everything yourself.
__Buzz this time is voiced by Chris Evans, but it's not the least bit distracting. It's remarkable how much he sounds like Tim Allen here.🙂
__My favourite part is how, when the team needs to find a certain gadget for their plan, they just call it "the part".🙂 Not only does it make sense for their characters, but it's like the movie is mocking that cliché.
__The only thing I don't like is the reveal of Zurg's identity. It works within this movie's story, but it casts a shadow on Buzz and Zurg's relationship in all subsequent in-universe media, like the video game in Toy Story 2, and especially a line in the same movie that, while obviously a joke, is still a contradiction.
__I think it would have been funny if this movie had thrown in a bunch of Star Wars references, like the Toy Story 2 joke I just mentioned. But surprisingly, it's not very tongue-in-cheek at all in that regard; it mostly plays it straight. Although the first scene, which sets up the entire story, is an obvious homage to, of all things, Alien!
__I did wonder if the film would have been live action or hand-drawn animation in the Toy Story universe (or perhaps the first 3D animated feature, like Toy Story was in the real world), but according to director Angus MacLane, it's the former.
__Overall, I thought it was a very enjoyable movie. I can see why it would be Andy's favourite (as the opening says) and spawn a toy of at least the main character.
__My rating: 75%.
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