Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Is The Cinematic Equivalent To Kid Rock's All Summer Long

I sure do hope anyone who goes to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is familiar with every little detail of the original Jurassic Park film because this movie is obsessed to a creepy degree with homaging that particular entry in the franchise. All kinds of nostalgic fan-service moments crop up throughout the story, ranging from an appearance by the cane topped by an ambered mosquito that John Hammond once carried around to an appearance by the flipped over Jurassic Park van that fell into the T-Rex paddock to a comically extraneous cameo appearance by Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly pack their dismal script with all kinds of references to the original, a task they become so preoccupied with that they forget to make all that much that is unique or interesting for this brand new Jurassic Park adventure.

Lady In The Water Is Listless Fairy Tale Storytelling

Lady In The Water was a game-changer for M. Night Shyamalan but not in the ways he intended, good Lord no. His previous movie, The Village, may have generated a divisive response that resulted in strong but frontloaded box office but at least that one has its ardent fanbase. Lady In The Water, on the other hand, has spent its eleven years of existence under intense derision and has been widely seen as a turning point for Shyamalan from titan filmmaker to the nearly decade long stretch he'd spend in the land of awful cinema before The Visit revived him. I wish I could say I was going against the tide and found Lady In The Water enjoyable, but alas, I found it be a kind of interesting but mostly boring misfire.

Don't Expect Salvation For The Terminator Franchise In Terminator: Salvation

On three different occasions in the 21st century, someone has tried to get the Terminator franchise back up and rolling again, despite the entire saga coming to a pretty clear conclusion with Terminator 2: Judgement Day. And on each of these occasions, the resulting films have produced zero sequels and had steadily declining domestic box office results. In the middle of the two most wretched entries in this saga (Rise Of The Machines and Genisys) is Terminator: Salvation, a McG directed effort that brought Christian Bale aboard the franchise as John Connor and surprisingly comes out as the best post-T2 movie in the franchise, though don't take that as a glowing endorsement.

Pete's Dragon Is Far More Heartwarming And Well-Crafted Than I Could Have Ever Expected

Pete's Dragon is a pretty blatant attempt to cash in on the success of two March 2010 family movies; Alice In Wonderland, which proved remaking classic Disney movies could be a fruitful road to profit, and How To Train Your Dragon, another tale of a boy and his dragon developing a friendship. I'm sure some Disney producer was looking around for other titles Disney could remake after Alice In Wonderland became such a massive box office bonanza and thought Pete's Dragon could coast on the coattails of How To Train Your Dragon nicely. Yep, this is a pretty cynical cash-grab, a marketer's most serene fantasy....and it's also an emotionally thrilling with an excellent script and plenty of strong performances. Who'da thunk?

The Village Review (Classic Write-Up)

SPOILERS FOR THE VILLAGE AHEAD

If the life of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan were ever adapted into a cheesy documentary, the point in his career when The Village was released would be when the music would get tense and the narrator would intone "And that's when things (dramatic pause) went wrong.". Prior to the release of this movie, Shyamalan had three back-to-back-to-back critical hits and two of those films became box office phenomenon's. It seemed as if the guy could no wrong...until this 2004 feature came along and tossed the director into a decade-long artistic downturn that finally got reversed with last fall's sleeper hit The Visit.

This Deleted Scene From Jurassic World Is One Big Pile Of....Well, Y'Know

Last night, a deleted scene from Jurassic World began to take the internet by storm, and it's not hard to see why. This wasn't just a bunch of sites dedicated to cinema using the title of the biggest movie of 2015 to generate more pageviews, this was a scene omitted from the final cut from Jurassic World so utterly bizarre I can't imagine what compelled the four screenwriters attached to the movie (among them the features director Collin Trevorrow) to ever think it belonged in this thing.

The scene in question has been taken off of YouTube, but basically, it depicts Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) after they've set off to find Claire's nephews who are lost in the park. In order to avoid detection by the various dinos (some of which like to munch on humans), Owen suggests that he and Claire smear dinosaur feces on their bodies. While Owen simply gets some of the stuff on his arms, Claire covers her legs and chest in droppings. Her applying the stuff to her body is depicted in the same fashion lotion commercials depict women rubbing lotion on their various body parts i.e. in a manner that's meant to be alluring.

Continuing the tradition of the Jurassic Park films having at least one scene dedicated to dinosaur droppings (only The Lost World: Jurassic Park bucked this trend, though the rest of the movie was crappy enough to make up for that omission), this scene seems like one that would have sent the movies intense tone careening off into oblivion as well as continuing the entire features troubling gender politics. Claire can't just rub the crap (literally!) onto her arms like Owen, she has to do it in a weirdly seductive manner. It also appears like this scene attempts to establish the first time where Owen begins to rekindle his romantic feelings for Claire, and I'm not quite sure if this is worse than the way the final cut of Jurassic World handled the duos relationship, which culminated in a Man Of Steel-esque kiss while innocent civilians are being plucked by pterodactyls.

Some Thoughts On The Jurassic World Trailer

I love nothing more than a fun surprise, and getting the trailer for Jurassic World two whole days early certainly fits into that category. The first time footage from the feature had been shown, this was the world's first glimpse into what's to come for the beloved franchise. If the first trailer is any indication, we're all in for a treat come next summer.