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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Bryce Dallas Howard

Monthly Roundup – June 2018

01 Sunday Jul 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Adam West, Animation, Austin Stowell, Ayla Kell, Batman vs. Two-Face, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Biography, Borg McEnroe, Bruce Greenwood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Burt Ward, Charles Barton, Chris Pratt, Crime, Dave Davis, Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A., Dominic Cooper, Don E. FauntLeRoy, Drama, Elliott Maguire, Francine Everett, Francis Lawrence, Gail Patrick, Guy Pearce, Horror, J.A. Bayona, Jack the Ripper, Janus Metz, Jennifer Carpenter, Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Literary adaptation, Murder, Mystery, Nicola Holt, Pierce Brosnan, Randolph Scott, Red Sparrow, Rick Morales, Sam Liu, Shia LaBeouf, Simon Kaijser, Simon West, Snakehead Swamp, Spencer Williams, Spinning Man, Stratton, Sverrir Gudnason, SyFy, The Ferryman, Thriller, True story, Wagon Wheels, Western, William Shatner

Borg McEnroe (2017) / D: Janus Metz / 107m

Cast: Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stellan Skarsgård, Tuva Novotny, Leo Borg, Marcus Mossberg, Jackson Gann, Scott Arthur

Rating: 7/10 – the rivalry between tennis players Björn Borg (Gudnason) and John McEnroe (LaBeouf) is explored during the run up to the 1980 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, and the tournament itself; with a script that delves into both players’ formative years (and if you think Borg is a terrific choice for the young Swede then it’s no surprise: Bjōrn is his dad), Borg McEnroe is an absorbing yet diffident look at what drove both men to be as good as they were, and features fine work from Gudnason and LaBeouf, though at times it’s all a little too dry and respectful.

The Ferryman (2018) / D: Elliott Maguire / 76m

Cast: Nicola Holt, Garth Maunders, Shobi Rae Mclean, Pamela Ashton, Philip Scott-Shurety

Rating: 4/10 – following a suicide attempt, a young woman, Mara (Holt), finds herself experiencing strange phenomena and being pursued by a mysterious hooded figure; an ultra-low budget British horror, The Ferryman is let down by terrible performances, cringeworthy dialogue, and a patently obvious storyline, and yet it’s saved from complete disaster by a strong visual style that’s supported by a disconcerting soundtrack, an approach that first-timer Maguire exploits as often as possible.

Red Sparrow (2018) / D: Francis Lawrence / 140m

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Ciarán Hinds, Joely Richardson, Bill Camp, Jeremy Irons, Thekla Reuten, Douglas Hodge

Rating: 6/10 – Ex-ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) is recruited to a secret Russian organisation that trains her to use her body as a weapon, and which then uses her to expose a double agent working in the heart of the Soviet system; a movie made up of so many twists and turns it becomes tiring to keep track of them all, Red Sparrow is an unlikely project to be released in the current gender/political climate, seeking as it does to objectify and fetishise its star as often as possible, but it tells a decent enough story while not exactly providing viewers with anything new or memorable.

Spinning Man (2018) / D: Simon Kaijser / 100m

Cast: Guy Pearce, Pierce Brosnan, Minnie Driver, Alexandra Shipp, Odeya Rush, Jamie Kennedy, Clark Gregg

Rating: 4/10 – when a teenage student (Rush) goes missing, suspicion falls on the professor (Pearce) who may or may not have been having a relationship with her; with arguably the most annoying character of 2018 propping up the narrative (Pearce’s commitment to the role doesn’t help), Spinning Man is a dreary mystery thriller that has its chief suspect behave as guiltily as possible and as often as he can, while putting him in as many unlikely situations as the script can come up with, all of which makes for a dismally executed movie that can’t even rustle up a decent denouement.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) / D: J.A. Bayona / 128m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabella Sermon

Rating: 7/10 – with the volcano on Isla Nublar about to erupt, a rescue mission is launched to save as many of the dinosaurs as possible, but it’s a rescue mission with an ulterior motive; clearly the movie designed to move the series forward – just how many times can Jurassic Park be reworked before everyone gets fed up with it all? – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom concentrates on the horror elements that have always been a part of the franchise’s raison d’être, and does so in a way that broadens the scope of the series, and allows Bayona to provide an inventive twist on the old dark house scenario.

Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) / D: Spencer Williams / 61m

Cast: Francine Everett, Don Wilson, Katherine Moore, Alfred Hawkins, David Boykin, L.E. Lewis, Inez Newell, Piano Frank, John King

Rating: 7/10 – making an appearance at a club on a Caribbean island resort, dancer Gertie La Rue’s free-spirited behaviour causes all sorts of problems, for her and for the men she meets; an all-black production that takes W. Somerset Maugham’s tale Miss Thompson and puts its own passionate spin on it, Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. overcomes its limited production values thanks to its faux-theatrical mise-en-scene, Williams’ confidence as a director, a vivid performance from Everett that emphasises Gertie’s irresponsible nature, and by virtue of the relaxed attitude it takes to the themes of race and sexuality.

Wagon Wheels (1934) / D: Charles Barton / 59m

Cast: Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, Billy Lee, Monte Blue, Raymond Hatton, Jan Duggan, Leila Bennett, Olin Howland

Rating: 5/10 – a wagon train heading for Oregon encounters trials and hardships along the way, including Indian attacks that are being organised by someone who’s a part of the group; a middling Western that finds too much room for songs round the campfire, Wagon Wheels takes a while to get going, but once it does, it has pace and a certain amount of B-movie charm thanks to Scott’s square-jawed performance, and Barton’s experienced direction, benefits that help offset the clunky storyline and one-note characters.

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight (2018) / D: Sam Liu / 77m

Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Carpenter, Scott Patterson, Kari Wuhrer, Anthony Head, Yuri Lowenthal, William Salyers, Grey Griffin

Rating: 6/10 – in an alternate, Victorian-era Gotham City, the Batman (Greenwood) has only recently begun his efforts at stopping crime, efforts that see him cross paths with the notorious Jack the Ripper; though kudos is due to Warner Bros. for trying something different, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight doesn’t always feel as if it’s been thoroughly thought out, with too much time given over to the mystery of Jack’s real identity, and a sub-plot involving Selena Kyle (Carpenter) that seems designed to pad out a storyline that doesn’t have enough substance for a full-length feature.

Batman vs. Two-Face (2017) / D: Rick Morales / 72m

Cast: Adam West, Burt Ward, William Shatner, Julie Newmar, Steven Weber, Jim Ward, Lee Meriwether

Rating: 6/10 – when a laboratory accident turns Gotham City District Attorney Harvey Dent (Shatner) into arch-villain Two-Face, Batman (West) and Robin (Ward) soon end his criminal activities, only to find themselves battling all their old adversaries – but who is manipulating them?; what probably seemed like a good idea at the time – have West and Ward (and Newmar) reprise their television roles – Batman vs. Two-Face is let down by a tired script that does its best to revisit past TV glories but without replicating the sheer ebullience the 60’s series enjoyed, making this very much a missed opportunity.

Stratton (2017) / D: Simon West / 94m

Cast: Dominic Cooper, Austin Stowell, Gemma Chan, Connie Nielsen, Thomas Kretschmann, Tom Felton, Derek Jacobi, Igal Naor

Rating: 4/10 – a Special Boat Service commando, John Stratton (Cooper), teams up with an American military operative (Stowell) to track down an international terrorist cell that is targeting a major Western target – but which one?; the kind of action movie that wants to be packed with impressive action sequences, and thrilling moments, Stratton is let down by a tepid script, restrictive production values, poor performances, and despite West’s best efforts, action scenes that only inspire yawns, not appreciation.

SnakeHead Swamp (2014) / D: Don E. FauntLeRoy / 86m

Cast: Ayla Kell, Dave Davis, Terri Garber, Antonio Fargas

Rating: 3/10 – a truck full of genetically mutated snakehead fish crashes, releasing its cargo into the Louisiana swamp land, where they soon start making their way to the top of the food chain; another lousy SyFy movie that mixes mutant creatures, endangered teens, a muddled voodoo subplot, and sub-par special effects to less than astounding results, SnakeHead Swamp might best be described as a “no-brainer”, in that it doesn’t try very hard, FauntLeRoy’s direction is rarely noticeable, and the cast – even Fargas – don’t come anywhere near making their characters credible or realistic, all of which is down to a script that should have been rejected at the title stage.

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Trailers – Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

11 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Marvel, Sequels, Thanos, Trailers

Two of the biggest movies of 2018 have recently seen their first full trailers arrive online, and while fans of both franchise entries will probably have felt ecstatic by what they’ve seen, there are worrying aspects to both trailers that should provide some cause for alarm. There are different reasons for this, but these worrying aspects reflect the problems that the makers of both movies will have faced while putting their respective sequels together.

Officially the most viewed online trailer in its first twenty-four hours (with over 230 million hits), Avengers: Infinity War is the movie that Marvel fans have been waiting nearly ten years for. Continuing a storyline that come May 2019 will have encompassed twenty-two features, the trailer is at once melancholy in tone, reverential in style, and does what all the best trailers do: teases you with what’s going to happen. But it does so in such a way that it stops you from realising that aside from the unsurprising revelation that Thanos has come to retrieve the Infinity Stones that he doesn’t have, there’s no sense of what the story is going to be. Most of the Avengers are seen looking worried or glum or both, there are the standard action beats required of a trailer for a superhero movie, and the overwhelming sense that, whatever happens, by the end of the movie Thanos will be in the ascendancy, and the Avengers themselves might be feeling what it is to lose (as promised). But if you’re looking for confirmation of what it’s actually all about, well, it looks like you’re going to have to wait until next May.

Whatever else you can say about this trailer – or indeed the actual movie – what remains is a glimpse at a project that’s still in post-production, and which may or may not contain scenes that will make it into the final cut. There are plenty of first trailers that do this: use footage that’s available to them but which later find winds up on the cutting room floor. To focus too much on what’s shown is to invite disappointment, as the nature of the trailer is to whet the appetite, not to confirm or deny what the potential viewer or excitable fan thinks is going to take place. That said, if the line, “and get this man a shield”, isn’t in the finished product then Marvel will have dropped a huge clanger. So, as first trailers go, this isn’t as incredible or pants-wettingly awesome as some may believe, and if anyone wants an example of why this is the case, then you only have to look at the massive fight that takes place outside the city of Wakanda, and then ask yourself this: why does it look like an unused battle scene from The Lord of the Rings?

 

Two years ago, if you’d said before it was released that Jurassic World would rake in over a billion dollars at the international box office, then people might have looked at you funny, or even crossed the street to avoid you. But the most successful third sequel of all time did exactly that, and a fourth sequel was pretty much inevitable. But where the story of Jurassic World didn’t work entirely, and the set-pieces were too reminiscent of Jurassic Park (1993), it’s clear from the trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that the producers have decided that destruction porn equals thrills, and that they have no qualms about showing us a fairly detailed section of what is likely to be the movie’s effects-fuelled highlight. And there’s no point at this stage in putting the two main characters in jeopardy… because they’re the two main characters! Is anyone, after watching the trailer, worried about Chris Pratt’s character (consumed by volcanic ash), or Bryce Dallas Howard’s (trapped in a travel pod beneath the sea)? And is anyone really unable to wait until June next year to find out their fates?

The trailer – or at least the way it’s been compiled – also seems to imply that Pratt’s character will go back just to save a raptor (called Blue) he’s raised from birth. This element from the movie implies an examination of nature vs nurture, but it’s about as convincing as the trailer’s final image: the series’ T-Rex giving his signature pose and roar while Pratt looks on in awe. It’s a triumphalist moment that occurs at some point during the race to get away from the spreading volcanic eruption, and tells us that one of the series’ most iconic moments is being recreated as part of a sequence that is likely to see the T-Rex swept away with all the other dinosaurs. How much irony can one movie pretend to be including in its finished product? This is a trailer that should be setting off alarm bells, not having people react excitedly. And if you needed any further proof, there’s that awkward “conversation” between Pratt and Howard, where the level of sophisticated dialogue shows us that – possibly like the movie itself – some things haven’t changed for the better.

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Mini-Review: Gold (2016)

27 Thursday Apr 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bryce Dallas Howard, Drama, Edgar Ramirez, Fraud, Indonesia, Matthew McConaughey, Review, Stephen Gaghan, True story, Washoe Mining

D: Stephen Gaghan / 121m

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Edgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bill Camp, Joshua Harto, Timothy Simons, Craig T. Nelson, Macon Blair, Adam LeFevre, Frank Wood, Michael Landes, Bhavesh Patel, Rachael Taylor, Stacy Keach, Bruce Greenwood

Kenny Wells (McConaughey) is a struggling businessman trying to keep his father’s company, Washoe Mining, afloat. Working out of the bar where his girlfriend, Kay (Howard) works, Kenny’s efforts are proving fruitless. One night he has a dream of finding gold in the jungles of Indonesia. Inspired by this, and the recollection of having met a geologist, Michael Acosta (Ramírez), who works in the region, Kenny reaches out to Acosta and convinces him to go into partnership with him. Michael will find a drilling site, and Kenny will put up the funding (using every last penny he can muster). The gamble pays off handsomely: gold is discovered, and when the news reaches the outside world, there’s no shortage of people and companies willing to invest in the newly revitalised Washoe Mining.

The company makes billions overnight, trading high on the Stock Exchange. But soon, word reaches Kenny and his team that the gold find in Indonesia is a fraud. The gold hasn’t been mined, but is river gold, not of the same calibre and nowhere near as valuable. Also, Michael has disappeared, along with $164 million that he’s accrued by dumping stock over the past few months. The FBI become involved, and their investigation, led by Agent Jennings (Kebbell), has one all-important question to ask: was Kenny a part of the fraud or not?

Using the 1993 Bre-X mining scandal as the basis for its story, Gold is a cautionary tale of desperation leading to blind greed as everyone buys into the gold find and sees multiple dollar signs everywhere – and without looking too closely to see if it was all above aboard. In this version, the movie makes it clear: the signs were there but no one wanted to look at them. The message then is “be careful what you wish for”, or more appropriately perhaps, “all that glitters is not gold”. However, this message is all but buried by the movie’s focus on Kenny and his struggle to avoid failure. Kenny is not one of Life’s winners, and even when he does achieve success it’s short-lived. He’s a loser, grabbing at a last chance to honour his father’s legacy. This is all well and good, but in terms of the movie and the story it’s trying to tell, it’s not that compelling. Thanks to the combination of Patrick Massett and John Zinman’s drawn-out screenplay and Stephen Gaghan’s static direction, Gold doesn’t trade in any expected highs and lows, but instead, maintains an even keel throughout its two hour running time.

This leaves the cast, and the audience, with little to connect with. McConaughey gives a committed performance, putting on weight, shaving back his hairline, and adopting crooked teeth, but does his appearance add depth or nuance to the character? Sadly, the answer is no. The rest of the cast, even Ramirez, are left stranded by the script’s focus on Kenny, and they operate as satellites around his ever decreasing orbit. And no one is memorable enough to stand out. The bulk of the movie is set in 1988, but this doesn’t add anything either, and Gaghan’s efforts to add tension to the movie’s latter half also fall short of succeeding. Gold could have been about a combination of avarice and hubris bringing about one man’s particular downfall. Instead it comes across as a weak-minded morality tale where no one and everyone is to blame, and the only consequence to it all is a last-minute “twist” that undermines everything that’s gone before.

Rating: 5/10 – lacklustre in both design and execution, Gold benefits from some stunning location photography (with Thailand standing in for Indonesia), and a well chosen soundtrack, but otherwise fails to impress; a missed opportunity then, and a movie that doesn’t make much of an impact thanks to its undeveloped potential.

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Monthly Roundup – February 2017

01 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Alexis Wajsbrot, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Barbara Hale, Bill Douglas, Black mirror, Boys' school, Bryce Dallas Howard, Comedy, Damien Macé, David Lowery, Disney, Don't Hang Up, Drama, Edwin L. Marin, Fantasy, Friend Request, Gambling, Garrett Clayton, Gregg Sulkin, Horror, Insomnia, Internet, Joanna David, Lady Luck, Lawrence Huntington, Life on the Road, Literary adaptation, Marius Goring, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, Oakes Fegley, Pete's Dragon, Prank calls, Remake, Reviews, Ricky Gervais, Robert Young, Romance, Saxon Logan, Simon Verhoeven, Sleepwalker

Life on the Road (2016) / D: Ricky Gervais / 96m

aka David Brent: Life on the Road

Cast: Ricky Gervais, Ben Bailey Smith, Tom Basden, Jo Hartley, Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Andrew Brooke, Andy Burrows, Steve Clarke, Michael Clarke, Stuart Wilkinson

gallery-1460024286-david-brent-life-on-the-road

Rating: 5/10 – post-Wernham Hogg, David Brent (Gervais) is now a salesman with dreams of becoming famous by putting together a band, Foregone Conclusion, and going on tour; the gulf between Life on the Road and The Office (2001-03) can be gauged within the first ten minutes as Gervais treats his most enduring (and sympathetic) character with a complete disregard for Brent’s development, and by being unnecessarily cruel to everyone else, making this a chore to sit through, and only slightly more enjoyable than Special Correspondents (2016).

Pete’s Dragon (2016) / D: David Lowery / 103m

Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford, Isiah Whitlock Jr

nekjooahknoxop_1_a

Rating: 7/10 – following a car crash that kills his parents and leaves him lost in the woods, a young boy called Pete is “adopted” and cared for by Elliot, who just happens to be a dragon, a situation that continues until civilisation comes calling in the form of a logging operation; a good-natured remake of the 1977, Pete’s Dragon original offers good performances all round, beautiful New Zealand backdrops, a lovable dragon, and keeps it all light and airy, all of which compensates for a script that wavers too often in its attempts to put Elliot in any real danger from Urban and his men.

Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (1948) / D: Lawrence Huntington / 92m

Cast: Marius Goring, David Farrar, Greta Gynt, Raymond Huntley, Edward Chapman, Mary Jerrold, Ralph Truman

de23013771395642cc6946f7ec5881e3-1000x563

Rating: 8/10 – when a new teacher at an all-boys’ school, Mr Traill (Farrar), proves more popular with the pupils, and the school nurse (Gynt), than the older Mr Perrin (Goring), personal and professional jealousies lead to an unexpected tragedy; an adaptation of the novel by Hugh Walpole, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill expertly creates a hothouse environment for its title characters, but never comes down fully on the side of either, making this a surprisingly jaundiced view of male rivalry, and a movie that features an exemplary performance from Goring.

Don’t Hang Up (2016) / D: Alexis Wajsbrot, Damien Macé / 83m

Cast: Gregg Sulkin, Garrett Clayton, Bella Dayne, Jack Brett Anderson, Parker Sawyers, Sienna Guillory

dont-hang-up-3

Rating: 5/10 – two phone pranksters, Sam (Sulkin) and Brady (Clayton), find themselves on the receiving end of a psycho(?) who’s willing to play their own game against them, with increasingly disturbing and violent results; basically the first ten minutes of Scream (1996) stretched to breaking point, Don’t Hang Up will soon have you rooting for the psycho as Sam and Brady behave as stupidly as you might expect, even to the point of continually picking up the phone, or answering their mobiles, just so the story can advance a bit further.

Lady Luck (1946) / D: Edwin L. Marin / 97m

Cast: Robert Young, Barbara Hale, Frank Morgan, James Gleason, Don Rice, Harry Davenport, Lloyd Corrigan

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Rating: 7/10 – Mary (Hale), who’s staunchly anti-gambling marries Scott (Young), who does his best to reform, but a trip to Las Vegas – on their honeymoon, no less – soon puts their marriage in jeopardy; a lightweight romantic comedy featuring smooth performances and a pleasing sense of its own absurdity, Lady Luck is carefree, populist piece of entertainment that hits a few dramatic potholes along the way to its final scene, but is nevertheless an enjoyable way to spend ninety-seven minutes.

Friend Request (2016) / D: Simon Verhoeven / 92m

Cast: Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, Shashawnee Hall, Nicholas Pauling

friend-request

Rating: 4/10 – the suicide of one of her classmates leads Laura to regret unfriending her on social media, a decision that has dire consequences for her and her friends, as her classmate’s ghost seeks revenge from beyond the grave; in amongst the horror motifs and distressed editing techniques that are now a depressing norm of the genre, Friend Request does have some pertinent things to say about popularity and the perils of social media, but it’s done in such a ham-fisted, unconvincing way that all that effort goes to waste very quickly.

Sleepwalker (1984) / D: Saxon Logan / 50m

Cast: Joanna David, Bill Douglas, Nickolas Grace, Heather Page, Fulton Mackay, Michael Medwin, Raymond Huntley

sleepwalker-sleepwalking

Rating: 7/10 – two couples at an isolated farmhouse share an evening deriding each other’s class and social values, unaware that the sleepwalking tendencies of one of them will lead to blood being spilt; part curdled Abigail’s Party and part baroque thriller, Sleepwalker has much to say about middle class angst, the antagonism inherent in middle class relationships of the time, and sets it all against the backdrop of a social evening from hell.

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Uh-Oh! Here Comes Summer! Jurassic World (2015) and Terminator Genisys (2015)

03 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alan Taylor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Colin Trevorrow, Dinosaurs, Emilia Clarke, Indominus Rex, InGen, Irrfan Khan, Isla Nubar, J.K. Simmons, Jai Courtney, Jake Johnson, Jason Clarke, Judgment Day, Raptors, Sarah Connor, Sequels, Skynet, T-1000, T-800, Terminators, Vincent D'Onofrio

The third and fourth sequels in their respective franchises, Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys are that rare combination: reboots that feed off the original movies. And you could argue that they’re also remakes, in that they take the basic plots of those original movies and put their own – hopefully – nifty spins on them. But while there’s a definite fan base for both series, which means both movies should do well at the box office (enough to generate further sequels), is there enough “new stuff” in these movies to actually warrant seeing them in the first place, or getting excited about any future releases that are in the pipeline? (And let me say just now, that both movies have ensured that the possibility of further entries in both franchises will be an absolute certainty.)

Jurassic World

Jurassic World (2015) / D: Colin Trevorrow / 124m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, BD Wong, Judy Greer, Lauren Lapkus

Twenty-two years on from the disastrous attempt by John Hammond to open the world’s first dinosaur theme park, his dream has become a paying reality, but one that needs ever more impressive dinosaurs to keep visitors coming. Thanks to the backing of the park’s owner, Masrani (Khan), and the scientists responsible for cloning the park’s main attractions – led by Dr Henry Wu (Wong) – each new attraction strays further and further from the original concept of replicating the dinosaurs everyone is aware of. Now, Wu and his team have designed a new dinosaur, the so-called Indominus Rex, an intelligent, über-predator that is taller than a T. Rex and even more deadly.

When animal behavioural specialist Owen Grady (Pratt) is called in to assess the new dinosaur’s readiness for being shown to the public, he and park manager Claire (Howard) are unprepared for just how intelligent the Indominus Rex is; soon it escapes and begins to wreak havoc across the island. With an evacuation of over twenty thousand tourists going ahead, including Claire’s nephews Gray (Simpkins) and Zach (Robinson) who have strayed off the normal tourist track, Grady and Claire must try to keep everyone safe, as well as dealing with parent company InGen’s local representative, Hoskins (D’Onofrio), who sees Indominus Rex’s escape as a chance to prove that raptors – who have been trained by Grady – can be used as militarised weapons. But his strategy backfires, leaving everyone at risk from Indominus Rex and the raptors.

Jurassic World - scene

Given that Jurassic Park III (2001) was pretty much dismissed as so much dino guano on its release, the idea of making a fourth movie always seemed like a triumph of optimism over experience. And yet, Jurassic World is a triumph – albeit a small scale one – and while it doesn’t offer us anything really new (aside from Grady’s instinctive, respect-driven relationship with the raptors), it does make a lot of things feel fresher than they have any right to be. This is essentially a retread of the first movie, with Gray and Zach as our guides to the park’s wonders (and perils), the fiercest dinosaur in the park getting loose, and the humans relying on other dinosaurs to take down the big bad and save the day. It’s not a bad concept – after all, it worked the first time around – but despite how well the movie has been put together, it’s still a fun ride that just misses out on providing that much needed wow factor.

Part of the problem is that the movie makers have taken the bits of Jurassic Park (1993) that worked and added some stuff that doesn’t. Do we really need to see yet another misogynistic portrayal of a relationship, where the woman changes for the man and not the other way round? Do we really need to hear a scientist blame the moneyman for not paying attention when the scientist created something unethical? And do we really need to hear deathless lines such as “We have an asset out of containment” or “It can camouflage!” (a trick the Indominus Rex pulls off just the once, by the way, when it’s convenient to the narrative). Of course we don’t, but because this isn’t a straight remake, but a reboot/update/witting homage, that’s what we get. For all that the movie is technically well made, and looks fantastic in IMAX 3D, it’s still a retread, and lacks the thrills we need to invest in it properly (and that’s without the paper-thin characters, from the stereotypically neanderthal Hoskins, to the annoying dweeb in the park’s Control Centre (Johnson). In short, the movie lacks the depth necessary to make us care about it, and without that depth, it just becomes another superficial ride the viewer will forget without realising it.

Rating: 6/10 – another summer blockbuster that doesn’t do enough to justify its budget or hype, Jurassic World is like an old friend regaling you with a story you’ve heard a thousand times before; maybe this will work better as the intro to a bigger story and plot, but if not, then this is just another disappointing entry in that ever growing cache of movies known as the Unnecessary Sequel.

Terminator Genisys

Terminator Genisys (2015) / D: Alan Taylor / 126m

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Courtney B. Vance, Byung-hun Lee, Michael Gladis, Sandrine Holt

In 2029, the human resistance, led by John Connor (Clarke), is on the verge of defeating Skynet and its machines. But it also needs to destroy Skynet’s last chance of avoiding defeat: a time displacement machine. When John reaches the site, though, he learns that Skynet has sent a terminator back to 1984 in order to kill his mother, Sarah Connor (Clarke); with her dead, John won’t be born and won’t be able to lead the resistance to victory. Knowing his past and what needs to be done, he agrees to let Kyle Reese (Courtney) travel back as well and keep Sarah safe. As the machine begins to work, though, Kyle sees John being attacked by a terminator.

When Kyle arrives in 1984 he finds himself being hunted by a T-1000 (Lee) before being rescued by Sarah – and a T-800 (Schwarzenegger). Sarah tells Kyle that the T-800 was sent to protect her when she was nine years old, but that she doesn’t know who sent it. With the T-1000 in constant pursuit, the trio do their best to work out why this timeline is now so different from the one that John has always known. Kyle is sure that it has something to with visions he’s been having of a future that hasn’t been destroyed by Skynet, a future that will still exist in 2017, the year that Skynet – in this timeline – launches the nuclear missiles that will seal Man’s fate. He persuades Sarah to travel with him to 2017 using a time displacement machine that she has built with the T-800’s aid.

However, their arrival in 2017 leads to their being arrested. But at the police station, an even greater surprise awaits them: the arrival of John…

Terminator Genisys - scene

As Arnold Schwarzenegger has said all along, “I’ll be back”, and here he is, older, greyer, slower, with a few motor skills issues, but as he also says, “not obsolete”. It’s a clever distinction that says as much about the actor as it does the character of the T-800, giving us an aging Terminator and providing a perfectly acceptable reason for the Austrian Oak to be involved. But while he’s the star of the show, it’s also noticeable that he’s sidelined a lot of the time, giving both Clarkes, and Courtney, the chance to carry the movie in their iconic star’s absence. That they don’t is down to a script that, as with Jurassic World, wants to be as much as a retread of its progenitor as it does an entirely new instalment. As a result, the need to include what might be generously termed “fan moments” – “Come with me if you want to live” – often means a narrative that struggles to find its own identity.

There’s the germ of a great idea here, predicated on the series’ idea that “the future isn’t set”, but its revisionist version of 1984, complete with Schwarzenegger taking on his younger self (one of the movie’s better ideas), devolves into an extended chase sequence that rehashes elements from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and acts as a kind of Terminator Greatest Hits. It’s all effectively staged by director Alan Taylor, but the sense of déjà vu persists throughout, making the screenwriters’ efforts to give us something new all the more disappointing. Even moving the action to 2017 is less than inspiring, not even allowing for a change of scenery or approach, but canny enough to include J.K. Simmons’ light relief, and change the thrilling truck chase from T2 to an unexciting helicopter pursuit. As with the trip to Isla Nubar, it’s all very professionally done, but with that one all-important ingredient still missing: something to make the viewer go “wow”.

Rating: 6/10 – as fourth sequels go, Terminator Genisys is a vast improvement on the last two instalments but remains very much a missed opportunity; with the way open for another sequel it’s to be hoped that it’ll be more original than this, and will take the kind of risks that the first movie made in order to be successful.

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