Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World, back at it.

Dinosaur-related shenanigans, check.

Some dick trying to cash in on the genetically reincarnated beasties: you got it.

Those who care about preserving both the independence and integrity of dinosaur kind, primed, and ready to go.

Consistent death-defying escapes mixed in with a ludicrous plot that unravels like a particularly intriguing series of Bazooka Joe comics?

Yuppers.

Although the dinosaurs, as in the actual dinosaurs, having been left alone to exist freely on Isla Nublar, still make for a stunning cinematic extravaganza, their wild unpredictable prehistoric codes of conduct generating thrilling exceptional naturalistic exhilarations, that make the unrelenting poaching of elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers, bears, and others, seem even more horrendous, as even more are illegally deprived of life each day.

A UN army to stop them?

I'd greenlight that idea.

Yet, for the next Jurassic World sequel, might I suggest 25 minutes more pure dinosaur, and 25 minutes less human interaction?

Still include plenty of Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda), Franklin Webb (Justice Smith), Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Claire Deaning (Bryce Dallas Howard), Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), but take it easy on the maniacal conspiring.

Plus, the ending, spoiler alert, suggests dinosaurs will be proliferating partout in Jurassic World 3.

Considering how many were saved from the island, that's a bit ridiculous, unless all the dinosaurs who jumped off the cliff to freedom swam to land and survived, the numbers simply don't add up.

Not including those who can fly.

Methinks more time should be spent on the script for future instalments as well.

I was super happy to see James Cromwell (Benjamin Lockwood) but then he had to deliver the worst dialogue imaginable, over and over again.

He deserves so much better.

Even the first half of Ian Malcolm's speech isn't that tight, although his statements at the end of the film make an impact, as if they reserved the best writing for the last 2 minutes, hoping the rest would be overlooked as a consequence.

Even with the impact, they still make you think the world will be overrun with dinosaurs in the next movie, when those who were shipped off the island weren't exactly handpicked by Noah (I assume dinosaurs lay a bunch of eggs at a time, but how often do they breed and how closely do they watch their young? [elephant moms carry their young for 22 months{mama turtles lay then take off}]).

What happened to Lowery (Jake Johnson)?

He didn't die in the first/fourth film.

He was cool.

The Indoraptor may be a prototype, but it's also a highly refined predator bred to kill and kill.

And kill again.

I don't think turning the lights out would fool it.

Plus, the auction doesn't make much sense.

None of the dinosaurs they're selling apart from the Indoraptor prototype have been genetically conditioned to follow commands, and a bunch of them are herbivorous by nature.

How are you going to turn something that eats grass and plants all day and isn't violent into some strange breed of instinctual vegetarian mercenary?

And how could you trick elite arms dealers into thinking that's a great idea?

Even if it'd make a funny Will Ferrell movie.

And wouldn't one sniper bullet put a dinosaur mercenary out of commission?

If you could weaponize herbivores wouldn't a deer be more suitable option?

I can't believe I'm thinking about these things.

Plus, if Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) is managing the fortune that built Jurassic Park etc., why would he take so many idiotic risks to pick up what probably amounts to spare chump change?

The payouts he had to make after Jurassic World fell apart weren't astronomically high in speculative comparison.

A fun movie to watch lacking in structural cohesion, perhaps Fallen Kingdom's writers made internal and personal sacrifices to narratively lampoon the miserable ethical foundations of global weapons manufacturing, deliberately not thinking things through to sharply critique plutocratic ambitions, while betting on making a shit ton of money meanwhile?

The do-gooders are still awesome.

And the dinosaurs too.

My favourite dinosaur: the stegosaurus.

Always has been.

😌

Trance

Establishing an historical distinction regarding old and new security precautions taken to protect precious paintings during auctions, right-off-the-bat, thereby foreshadowing both the ways in which Danny Boyle's career has progressed from Shallow Grave to Trance and its contemporary utilitarian utilization of amnesia and hypnosis, narrative tools which frequently showed up in the television shows I watched during my youth, and have possibly been used regularly since then, although I may be blowing the memory out of proportion, Trance has traditional motifs, enticements and motivations (find the painting and cash in) which are thrust into a coherent mesmerizing fugacious distillery, whose economic and romantic film noiresque reversals, complete with critical comments concerning legal structures that prevent female victims of violence from obtaining justice, fitting in relation to the recent horrific suicide of Nova Scotia's beautiful young Rehtaeh Parsons, its diversified ambient tonal modifications, young professional addiction seeks underground remedies for financial miscalculations (gambling debt) which in turn threaten the livelihoods of everyone involved, upend expected outcomes, as if Boyle is precisely aware of what you require him to elucidate, apart from the absent review of Simon's (James McAvoy) extracurricular activities, which I thought would have fit considering that he's responsible for safekeeping 25 million dollar works of art (is that how much it cost to make this film?), most likely because I just saw New World, a review which wouldn't have fit well anyways due to the dense nature of Trance's convolutions (another layer within would have made the brew too lucidly phantasmagorical), destined diagnostic discombobulating detoxification, a less analytical form of Inception, but, if they had found a way, amidst the sex and the greed and the artifice, to stick to the opening sequence more devoutly, while paying the same meticulous attention to unnecessary yet compelling details, I would have perhaps given it a rating of 9.7 instead of 9.4, which really doesn't make much difference.