The movie of the summer has finally arrived, people: Jurassic World. Do yourself a favor and get out and see it, it really is THAT good. I honestly had to keep leaning over to Larry throughout the movie and whisper to him, “I freakin’ love this movie!” I think the entire audience agreed with me when we went to see it at the TCL Chinese Theater (formerly the Graumin’s Chinese, then the Mann’s Chinese) this afternoon: there’s one scene in particular that practically guarantees the audience will clap with glee at, and then once the movie ended, the audience erupted into huge applause. None of the movies I’ve seen this summer generated that kind of excitement. I’m just happy to have at least one of these big blockbusters generate the thrill of being a fun, exciting ride.
The main gist of the story is that 20 years after the disastrous events of the first movie’s aborted attempt at testing out a park, InGEN worked out the kinks and got the park open. In fact, it’s a spectacular theme park with all the trappings you’d expect from a Disneyland or Sea World, with petting zoos, a Shamu-type show with a mega-huge whale dinosaur (that’s the technical term, I’m sure), and the most high-end of technology at your disposal in order to view the myriad of dinosaurs on display. Just like any theme park though, things have to be kept fresh and interesting or else your park attendance stagnates: enter the Indominus Rex seen above, a genetic hybrid of all sorts of beasties. It turns out that wasn’t such a good idea to build, as of course all hell breaks loose.
Holy hell, this movie was amazing. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are good as the primary leads, but the others in play are also fun. There’s quite a bit of well-placed humor in the movie to take the edge off at certain points, as this movie can be quite scary and tense. Plenty of callbacks to the first movie are also thrown in and upon hearing the Jurassic Park theme from John Williams, I was immediately hit in the feels remembering the first movie’s magic (as well as having lunch at the Dino Cafe while working at NBCU – that music is on LOOP at the Jurassic Park water ride).
I’d have to say that it’s quite surprising that a 4th movie in the franchise, especially one that comes nearly 15 years after Jurassic Park III (full disclosure: I loved that entry too. The only one I am kind of disappointed by is Lost World, but even it has some good stuff), can stand with Jurassic Park as a companion piece. This movie really is that good, and the massive box office it’s getting this first weekend shows I’m definitely not alone in that assessment, even if critics aren’t falling all over themselves for it, like Fury Road (still don’t see what the fuss was!). I’m sure there are sequels in the work as there always are, but before this revival of the franchise is tarnished by inferior sequels, go and buy yourself a ticket and hang on to your butts! You’ll love it!
Movie Rankings, 2015 Summer Season Edition:
- Jurassic World
- Ex Machina
- Pitch Perfect 2
- San Andreas
- Tomorrowland
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Mad Max: Fury Road
You see those rankings right – Jurassic World is by a wide margin my favorite movie of the summer so far. Okay, I see that I need to catch up on some thoughts on 2 movies I’ve seen in the meantime since Tomorrowland! Both were also very very good!
San Andreas (2015): Saw this at the Pacific Theaters at Americana on June 7, 2015
You know I love my disaster movies! The last few I’ve seen have been entertaining (Into the Storm, 2012) but I have to give San Andreas real credit for making a very good and entertaining disaster movie about the San Andreas fault going absolutely fucking nuts. There is nothing subtle about the destruction in this movie and some of the scenes are fucking jaw-dropping. Of course The Rock manages to survive things that one just would not survive in real life, but that’s how things are in movieland. Poor LA and Hoover Dam get fucking annihilated, but there’s got to be a stronger word for what happens to San Francisco. I mean, DAMN. If you like disaster movies, I think you’ll certainly be entertained by San Andreas. And giving credit where it’s due, The Rock is pretty damn good in this movie.
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015): Saw this at Pacific Theaters at Americana on May 24, 2015
It’s been quite a few weeks since seeing Pitch Perfect 2, but this sequel was quite a lot of fun. They managed to figure out how to tell a somewhat plausible story that keeps everyone together in the movie while also being endlessly entertaining. Even more surprising was that the humor was very funny. I’m down for a third movie if they can figure out how to do it where it makes sense. Rebel Wilson shines bright in this though, and there are some scenes with her that just fucking kill as they’re funny as hell.