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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

6/22/2018

Release Date: June 22, 2018

Dinosaurs Smallest Ever

Jurassic Park and the movies that followed owe their success to the idea of a theme park about dinosaurs. A great idea brought to life with care, now morphed into something more generic. When Jurassic Park came back in 2015, it did what so many movies now do. It acted as a vampire feeding off of nostalgia and became one of the most successful movies of all time. With the park destroyed and forgotten, how does the franchise try to go on? The answer is to put dinosaurs in different genre movies and forget about the childlike wonder and soring music. All is lost in exchange for a darker tone with loose story ends that physically made me uncomfortable.

The beginning of the movie is the weakest. It tries to introduce new characters quickly, the problem being that they don't fit in the movie. Not yet anyway. Just like the first movie, the main cast consists of paper-thin characters where nothing resembling an arc happens to them. If anything, one of the new characters randomly becomes a different person during the third act. At the start of the movie, they are painted as this unsociable nerd who is supposed to deliver the comedy relief. This never works out and I never laughed with or at the character.

But maybe you don't watch these new movies for characters that act like humans. You're here for the dinosaurs and cool set pieces for you to enjoy. This movie really doesn't have anything like that. The movie attempts to have a more intellectual angle than pure spectacle. This means everything is shrunken down to have a more intimate feeling. So if the movie doesn't have those big moments, does the more personal atmosphere work? No. From the bad music accompaniment at the beginning of the movie to the poor man's Robert De Niro, this movie is just bad.

What about the third act of the movie? If the majority of the movie is bad, does the ending at least rally? A little bit. You finally get that dino on dino action. It is considerably smaller in scale than the previous movie and less fun to watch. The movie tries to justify some of its more puzzling aspects in this part of the movie, but there is way more happening. With more things going on, this part of the movie is much more fun to watch.

I can't suggest watching this movie. There is so much about it that irks me. From not diving into actual consequences of character's actions to the minor horror elements to the movie. If you wanted to make a horror version of Jurassic Park, then maybe make it more thrilling and don't carry over the stupid character actions that happen in those kinds of movies. The first Jurassic World did well but had a small backlash. This movie will not enjoy that movie's financial success and is being thrown under the bus already for not being good.

3/10
Baby Blue was the best part

-Addition-
I always read reviews AFTER I finish writing my own and wow. I want to address a few comments I have seen. How can people enjoy the plot for this movie. The last one was about making a new dinosaur, this one is literally about the same thing. How can you be happy about that? Someone said that the "twist"/reveal in the movie was really cool. NO IT WASN'T. The movie literally did nothing with what it did, it was a useless plot point. Some people were actually scared by the movie which baffles me.

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Incredibles 2 - review

6/15/2018

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Release Date: June 15, 2018

I Can't Believe It

If you told me that a movie from 14 years ago was going to get a sequel, and it was going to be good, I would laugh very hard. With the movie landscape littered with reboots and sequels all varying in quality, how could you have faith? Incredibles 2 is a miracle. A sequel that not only delivers on the anticipation but blew my low expectations out of the water, it was a sight to behold. I can't thank this movie enough for being a shining light in a bad movie year it has been so far. Yes, Incredibles 2 is a great sequel, but more than that, it's a great movie.

Let's get talking about The Incredibles out of the way (Its weird that the first movie is titled "The Incredibles" and the second is "Incredibles 2"). Syndrome is a better villain than the Screen Slaver from a motivation perspective. His anger with Mr. Incredible is easily understandable and makes sense. The Screen Slaver is a little bit harder to wrap your head around. Personally, I think that the Screen Slaver's ideology is good but not backed up enough. For some people, this will be a big sticking point, not for me.

But this movie is a treasure trove of goodies. From amazing action sequences to an interesting story, this movie has it all. Most people remember The Incredibles incorrectly. Some call it a Superhero movie depicting a family or a family of superheroes, this is wrong. The Incredibles had more in common with spy movies than superhero ones. Incredibles 2 isn't really a superhero movie either. It actually becomes that family movie with tons of action. It drops a lot of the espionage in place of telling a more character-driven story.

Another thing about the movie I enjoyed was the styling. The music is loud with high intensity to try and make everything more epic. There are one or two scenes where it is not needed but its less egregious than when other movies do it because the music is part of the movie's style. On the visual front, this is probably the most stylized movie Pixar has put out. It doesn't dazzle you with photorealistic animation but improves on the smoothness and the 60's modern clash of design.

I have so many things to say about the movie, but I can't fit them all here. If I were to sum up, Incredibles 2, it would be this. This movie has the action, the heart, and fun that all movies wished they had. I enjoyed seeing it on a big screen and actively want to see it again. It does have minor problems but I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching this movie. I can't recommend it enough, even without seeing the first movie.

7/10
Brad Bird got kicked out of live action so he was like, "What's a guaranteed hit?"

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Ocean's 8 - review

6/10/2018

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Release Date: June 8, 2018

Another Franchise Reboot

After seeing the first trailer for Ocean's 8, I was rooting for this movie. I liked the presumed leads and the original trilogy enough. I was ready for a heist movie that would string me along and be fun to watch. I don't think there is anything wrong with the idea for this movie. Get a group of women to pull off a heist in a fun way to watch. This movie, for the most part, does not achieve this goal.

As it got closer to opening weekend, I could feel the dread growing inside me. The hesitation to see the movie in the first place. The movie starts with a fun sequence where Sandra Bullock, playing Debbie Ocean, gets out of jail and immediately starts stealing again. It's light and playful without too much emphasis on it. That moment quickly ends five minutes into the movie.

The rest of the movie can be described as hard to watch. Other than one gag, the movie was not funny. Unlike other people, I did not expect Ocean's 8 to be a comedy. The reason people might think that the movie was supposed to be a comedy might come down to the fact that it fails to be interesting. The slight comedic moments give the audience something to latch onto creating the illusion of a comedy movie. What does that all mean? The movie is not only pretty boring it is actively bad in some places.

Towards the beginning and end of the movie, the abrupt cutting was really annoying. There was a lot of weird transitions to scenes that didn't fit well together. The entire movie didn't suffer from the crazy editing but did suffer from bad directing. There were so many shots in this movie that were unnecessary. Things like camera movements that were extraneous coupled with an over-reliance on music. The movie would have this upbeat music in really mundane situations to try to make the scene more interesting. There was a scene where a character was walking down some stairs, the music playing made me feel like she was supposed to be cracking open a safe or something.

Ocean's 8 definitely has problems in multiple places. It definitely tries to rally at the end though with an appearance from James Cordon. He brings some much-needed energy to the movie. With his five minutes of screen time, he stood out more than some of the main cast.

You don't have to go to a theater to watch this movie. It doesn't need to be seen on a big screen, but if you're itching to see something, why not. I went with two women who enjoyed the movie more than I did but not by much. I feel like with a new director, this could become a really good trilogy or however big of a cash cow Warner Brothers wants it to be.

5.5 /10
There aren't many Ocean's left, maybe

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Upgrade - Review

6/3/2018

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Release Date: June 1, 2018

Do You Need One?

A low budget action movie, like really low budget. Every penny spent is to make the movie as good as possible. I don't think you can find a better-looking movie in the same budget range. There was attention put into the lighting and set design to make it feel like a higher production movie. That isn't to say there weren't some tells that it was low budget, but the movie really makes those dollars stretch.

So the look of the movie is impressive for its five million dollar budget, but what about everything else? The acting in this movie was subpar. Other than the main actor, everyone else didn't seem real enough. It almost came off as they were trying too hard. The main actor is definitely a discount Tom Hardy, the look and style of acting were on the nose. Another thing on the nose was part of the plot.

A movie where a guy's wife is killed so he gets revenge, kind of. The story detail of a company that makes superior products but has a rival that has government contracts. The movie uses these building blocks to reach higher conceptually. It really does try its hardest but, the foundation is too unstable. The movie falls apart when you ask questions about the things happening on screen. It has more in common with a horror movie based on plot holes than a sci-fi action movie.

The gimmick the movie used to get people in the theater was a stabilized camera trick. I have no problem with the direction in that aspect, but whoever edited the car chase needs to be fired. I didn't think a car chase could be that bad. I actually forgot about the movie at one point. The chase wasn't shot that well either but it was the editing that really made it unwatchable.

As a final thought about this movie before I forget about it, I wanted to praise its ending. I'm glad the movie decided to end how it did. It is morbid and makes some sense. It was nicely telegraphed but still had you second guessing. This praise comes from the fact that the movie didn't end on a happy note. So even though the plot holes make the ending less believable, I liked it for its roughness. Its a totally watchable movie but it's not very good.

5/10
This movie needed an upgrade in its story telling

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Movies In RevIew

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Incredibles 2 - review

Ocean's 8 - review

Upgrade - Review

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