Sunday, June 28, 2015

Jurassic World (live action movie) - at the movie theater

I saw Jurassic World today. This isn't a review so much as it's a bunch of notes, but it'll remind me how I felt about it when it comes out on DVD and the Velociraptors tempt me to buy it.

The basic story: A couple parents whose marriage is on the rocks send their two sons to visit Claire, their aunt, at her workplace, the Jurassic World amusement park. Claire, meanwhile, is trying to get a newer, bigger, and more dangerous genetically modified dinosaur ready for its park debut. Things go awry, the children are in peril, everyone is in peril. Thankfully, an ex-Navy Velociraptor tamer is there to save the day.

Ugh. I already knew from reviews and comments on Twitter that the movie was going to crap on its few female characters, but what I didn't expect was how upset the dino-on-dino violence would make me. The field of dead dinosaurs. The baby triceratops being lifted up in the air by its saddle. The Velociraptors getting smashed.

Up to a certain point, the vast majority of deaths were dino deaths. The one human death that bugged me was during the flying dinosaurs bit. That kind of prolonged and detailed death is normally reserved for characters the audience is supposed to want to see die, but this character barely had a name and certainly hadn't done anything to warrant a terror-filled, multi-minute, multi-dino death.

Other things:
  • So many Jurassic Park references. And, unfortunately, all they did was remind me that I liked that movie more. And also, that opening up another dinosaur park was a really stupid idea.
  • The only movie I remember much about is the first one. Did the other two end in ways that made opening up yet another park filled with dangerous dinosaurs seem like a good and plausible idea? Because I kept getting stuck on that.
  • I know this has been said before, but it was incredibly dumb for Claire to be wearing high heels through the whole movie. Some of the areas they trekked through would have been difficult enough in sneakers or boots. Whenever she ran, I squinted at the screen, trying to figure out if she had briefly switched shoes. If she could run that fast in heels, imagine what she could have done in more appropriate footwear.
  • Something about the way the Velociraptors and T. rex reacted and fought didn't seem quite right.
  • The justifications for using Velociraptors in warfare made no sense to me. That goes double for tiny Indominus rex.
  • A big "no" to the Owen and Claire romance. I was mentally debating how long it would take them, after the events in the movie, to remember that they can't stand each other. I give them no more than a week or two.

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