​Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
 
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
 
As soon as I heard that Jurassic World was getting a sequel, I was immediately not interested. Where could the franchise go after Jurassic World?  It could only go one of two directions. Get worse and fall into a cesspool trapped in time or it could somehow improve. I’m here to tell you, that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom does neither of those, but at the same time it has its moments that exceed it’s predecessor. Does that make it a good movie? By no means is this movie, good, but it does a lot of things that Jurassic World wishes it could have done.
 
Ian Malcolm: Genetic power has now been unleashed. And of course, that's gonna be catastrophic.
 
The film opens up with a group of mercenaries who are scavenging the remnants of Isla Nublar to collect the remains of the Indominus Rex, which is at the bottom of the lagoon. Unfortunately, things are not as dead as they appear. A Tyrannosaurus Rex and of course a Mosasaurus appear to eat various teams. And, unfortunately because this movie needs a plot, despite this the mercenaries recover the Indominus Rex DNA. I wonder what they are going to do with it? 

We switch to Washington DC where a debate takes place on if the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar should be saved as the volcano is about to erupt. Ian Malcom returns, and offers that the dinosaurs should be allowed to perish.

Don’t worry, not everyone agrees with Ian Malcom, as Claire Dearing has established the Dinosaur Protection Group to save the animals. Because, she has gone completely one eighty degrees from corporate starling to animal rescuer. The film tries to parallel her path with Hammond from The Lost World, it doesn’t work. We have no character development onto why Claire is doing this, instead here is Claire a character who for some reason has a change of heart.

Claire meets up with Benjamin Lockwood, who is one of Hammond’s former partners. He invites Claire to his estate where she meets is aid Ali Mills. At the estate a plan is revealed to relocate the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary. Claire needs to go to the island and reactivate the park’s tracking system to locate the animals, mostly Blue, the last surviving Velociraptor.

To do this she meets up with Owen Grady and his alpha male complex. Although, Claire has changed, Owen has not, unfortunately. However, after guilting Owen he agrees to follow them to the island. Their team consist of  Zi Rodrigruez a paleo-veterinarian and Franklin Webb who is IT for the DPG. (Ha, so original) The team meets up with the Lockwood/Mills paid mercenary team led by Ken Wheatley to find Blue.
​
On the island, we see the disparity that has transitioned since the park closed down. There are scenes that are both reminiscent from Jurassic Park and The Lost World and even Jurassic World. The volcano is slowly fuming in the background. Building to something that will happen latter. Also, we found out the mercenaries have already been capturing dinosaurs without the tracking system, which is a red flag. Claire and Franklin get through security and turn on the tracking system. 

​Grady goes with Rodriguez to capture Blue. However, the mercenaries double cross them, who didn’t see this coming after the first red flag? Wheatley even tranquilizes Owen. They take Rodriguez and Blue, and thanks to mismanagement, Blue is injured. It is at this point that the volcano erupts. There is a funny scene with Grady being woke up by a Sinoceratops licking him. But, the lava is coming close and Grady has to deal with the effects of tranquilizer and escape the lava. Meanwhile dinosaurs are trying to flee the eruption, a Baryonyx even enters the area where Claire and Franklin.
Everyone escapes the island. But, a lone scene of the last Brachiosaurus really makes you tear up. If this movie does anything, it has some really good heart-quenching scenes. Franklin, Grady and Claire sneak aboard the ship and find Zia with Blue. However, Blue needs a transfusion and the only creature who can do it is a T-Rex. Another funny scene features the T-Rex getting his blood into a blood bag. It also actually features bonding between Owen and Claire. *shocker*

At the estate the dinosaurs are going to be sold to an action. Masie, the granddaughter of Lockwood finds this out. She wants to protect the dinosaurs and tells her grandfather of Eli Mill’s betrayal. Also, she follows Eli down below to a secret laboratory. There she sees a video where Owen Grady trains Blue. Her video viewing is interrupted by Wu and Eli who talk about a new creature called the Indoraptor. Which, Masie bumps into only for her to get captured.

She isn’t alone, as our apparent protagonists, Claire and Owen are also apprehended. This is while the auction goes off. Owen does his most proactive thing in the whole movie, and one that is still weird. He uses a Stygimoloch to escape. Trust, me this is just the beginning of the lunacy. So bear with me.

Wu wants Blue’s DNA, unaware that she has been contaminated with T-Rex DNA thanks to the blood fusion. Blue is let out by Zia and Franklin, the latter of which tried to save her. Masie informs her grandfather, but Eli ends up killing him off screen.

Masie finds Owen and Claire and the three of them watch the auction taking place. The Indoraptor is brought out and showed in a limited field test. Despite not initially being up for sale, as he is a prototype. Yes, the Indoraptor is a he, the Indoraptor is sold for twenty-four million dollars. Wu protests, but don’t worry the real hero of the movie, Stygimoloch interrupts the Bilionarie’s Black Market Party.
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The area is clear, until Wheatley, who now takes the role as the Jurassic Park franchises most idiotic villain opens up the cage and tranquilizes the Indoraptor, only letting it out in the process. The Indoraptor kills him and many of the guests. The beast then hunts Masie, Claire and Owen. In the escape, it is revealed that Masie is not Lockwood’s granddaughter, but a clone of his daughter and that is what pushed him and Hammond apart. 

​Blue goes and saves Masie from Indoraptor, like a guard dog or superhero. I don’t know, Blue is basically the hero as he only kills the bad guys. In the ensuing epic battle on the roof, Blue and the Indoraptor fight in a free fall until the latter falls through the glass ceiling and gets impaled on a Triceratops fossil. A pretty metal way to end. Poisonous gas however has been leaked into the dinosaur cages. Claire hesitates to save them. But, Masie the real hero of the movie presses the buttons letting the dinosaurs roam free. In the ensuing stampede Eli is killed by a Tyrannosaurus and Carnotaurus in a scene eerily similar to Eddie’s death in Lost World.
 
The film ends with Dr. Malcom once again giving us a movie quote.
 
Ian Malcolm: How many times do you have to see the evidence? How many times must the point be made? We're causing our own extinction. Too many red lines have been crossed. And our home has, in fundamental ways, been polluted by avarice and political megalomania. Genetic power has now been unleashed and of course, that's going to be catastrophic. This change was inevitable from the moment we brought the first dinosaur back from extinction. We convince ourselves that sudden change is something that happens outside the normal order of things, like a car crash, or that it's beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We don't conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as woven into the very fabric of existence. Yet, I can assure you, it most assuredly is. And it's happening now. Humans and dinosaurs are now gonna be force to coexist. These creatures were here before us. And if we're not careful, they're gonna be here after. We're gonna have to adjust to new threat that we can't imagine. We've entered a new era. Welcome to Jurassic World.
 
 
This movie is a train wreck. It doesn’t know if it wants to stay on the island or be a super hero movie. Claire’s sudden change of character makes no sense and her and Owen accomplish little except for be our eyes and ears of the film. Which, I kind of like them better that way, but still the two characters are boring and not well written. Its said when Masie and Blue, and even the damned Stygimolich are more proactive than our two supposed protagonists. Should have just had Masie and Blue as the main characters and let out those two and given more time to those characters.
 
There are a few scenes that are done really well. The scene of the Brachiosaurus at the docks, is very sad and probably the best scene in the movie. And, despite it being shot like a Spiderman movie the end fight featuring Blue and Indoraptor is at least enjoyable, although I did face palm during the whole scene. Also I chuckled at whenever the Stygiomolich was on screen, it was both cute and ridiculous. This movie really decided to go into absurdity like a Showa Godzilla flick and when it did I actually enjoyed it more. Just take out all the serious saving dinosaurs and go all shlock and maybe you might find something enjoyable about this film. Its not a good Jurassic Park film, but it is still in its own way sometimes very entertaining. The sum of it’s parts are greater than the whole movie. It is more enjoyable than Jurassic World at it’s best, but at its worse it is pretty forgettable and plagued with an unfocused script.
Don’t worry I already have a theme for October, it’s going to be spooky. 

​Pacific Rim was deemed a commercial failure at launch. Despite this, the film introduced a whole generation to kaiju films, and giant robots. Despite its commercial failure in the US, it did okay in Japan and did well in China. It was only a matter of time before it got a sequel. Originally, Del Toro was still attached to the project and there were rumors it would in fact be a prequel staring Idris Elba. But, for whatever reason this didn’t happen. Del Toro became producer and was no longer the director of the project and with him gone went the magic of the first film. Pacific Rim Uprising was a direct sequel to the first film with a few recurring characters and similar plot, the only ties to the Del Toro original, and as we are about to see, there are good and bad things about the change. 

​Pacific Rim Uprising takes place about a decade after the kaiju were defeated in the first film. The world has changed, and we are introduced to Jake Pentecost the son of Stacker Pentecost, who makes his living as a thief. There is no better way to make money than to steal jaeger parts. In this new post-kaiju world, people build their own jaegers through junk and we get a sort of slightly future urban dystopia feel. Although, one that has somewhat healed from the kaiju invasions, less than a decade ago.
 
The film begins like the first one. Jake is our protagonist and like Raleigh Becket in the first film, he has done some deeds in his past and he runs from it. He is then recruited to become a pilot again, although in this film Stacker’s role is replaced by Mako, who is Jake’s adopted sister. His female ally is Amara Amari who is a scrappy engineer who managed to build her own mini jaeger called ‘Scrapper’. The two of them get arrested after trying to steal a jaeger core. Mako gets them out of prison but are then recruited to become jaeger pilots. Pentacost becomes a marshal while Amari is to go through training.
 
We are introduced to a group of diverse recruits, but in all honesty, they are not important so I’m not even going to describe them. The film only focuses on our two protagonists and their foe, computerization and drones. Yes, apparently, we don’t need the gimmicky two pilots in a jaeger anymore when we can just send drones out to the field. Why, this wasn’t a thing in the first film is beyond me. A short summary is one of the drones goes AWOL and we are slowly given a mystery.
The mystery makes you think that Shao Industries the maker of the drones are the evil masterminds. Shao herself seems overconfident and cocky. But, in fact the plot twist is that Dr. Newton Geiszler who has been manipulated by the Precursers is the main antagonist. It’s such an anime trope, and one that brings an interesting twist to the plot. 

​Geiszler hacks the drones which have kaiju parts in them, the drones then open rifts in the Pacific and let three kaiju into our world. Shao and Gottlieb manage to shut down the drones, but those three pesky kaiju are heading towards Mt. Fuji. Another anime plot is that the kaiju want to go to Mt. Fuji to cause a chain reaction to open a seismic event to terraform the planet for the Precursers. They do this as it is found out that kaiju blood is highly reactive. Gottlieb wanted to use this knowledge to crate jetback thrusters on the jaegers for deployment. Geiszler uses this same plan to make the world ready for the Precursers and kaiju and destroying life on earth in the process.
 
The kaiju are pushed back, but not defeated. In another interesting moment, Geiszler uses some of the smaller drones to merge with the three kaiju creating a super kaiju. Yes, this is a thing, and it is awesome. The super kaiju ends up defeating the other jaegers one by one. Even, injuring Jake’s copilot forcing a deus ex machina moment where Amara and Jake become co-pilots to take down the kaiju. Eventually, they pilot Gyspy Avenger to explode and destroy the kaiju, and are saved by Shao who is automatically controlling Scrapper via drone tech. The kaiju is defeated, and the day is saved. But, not before a warning that the Precursers will continue. But, Jake assures us that there is room for a third film by stating, “Next time, the Precursers won’t have to come here, because we will be bringing the fight to them.”

​This film has great action and is like a live action anime. It has a lot of charm despite it cutting a lot of the more enjoyable parts of the first film. The banter between Jake and Amara is golden, and they are the obvious focus of the film. I feel their friendship is better constructed to whatever type of partnership Mako and Raleigh had. Instead of kaiju fights, we have robot on robot action which is a nice change of pace. Mako is still as charming in this film, but let’s talk about the elephant in the room.
 
The worse thing this film does is not only does it kill Mako the spirit of the film. It does it in the most meaningless way. Yes, her death was important for the plot. But, it was a plot death and all it did was cut off the remaining ties to the first film. Mako was a great character in this film and killing her off as a basal casualty was a wrong choice. If she died as a sacrifice it would had been more meaningful. Other reviews have talked about this fact, and it is a major complaint.
Neither Jake nor Amara have that heart and soul that Mako brought to the first film. They are not bad characters by any means, but they lack the heart and admiration and relatability that Mako had in the first film. This is probably the film’s worst flaw.
 
So, despite this, I loved this film. It is cheesy monster fun. Nothing less but lacks the heart of the original. The touches of Del Toro are gone, but it has a cheesier charm like a mecha anime or Power Rangers. If the first Pacific Rim was more like Evangelion, than Uprising is more like Gurren Lagann.
 
 

​In today’s blog post I’m revisiting a movie that I love. Pacific Rim. It’s a kaiju film directed by one of my favorite directors, Guillermo del Toro. It’s a crazy mix of giant robots and monsters which happen to be some of my favorite genres. Released before Legendary’s Godzilla and Shin Gojira a few years later, Pacific Rim healed that open would of no kaiju films since Godzilla Final Wars and Cloverfield.
 
Pacific Rim is a fun filled monster fest of anime, mecha, and kaiju films. A fantastic ride that I fell in love with first watch and have re-watched it many times since. Let’s examine this film and understand why it is so beloved by its fans and not understood by its critics.
“To fight monsters, we built monsters!”
We begin our movie with info dump via our narrator, the main character in this action flick, Raleigh Becket. Raleigh is a jaeger pilot, and a bit of a rebel. He and his brother pilot a giant robot called Gipsy Danger fighting invading aliens known as kaiju. These kaiju come from a breach in the Pacific Rim, heh get it? The pilots drift minds to control the giant robots. It’s already Saturday morning and we have one of the coolest concepts in the film. It’s not original, but quite interesting as a plot device as we shall see later.
During a routine kaiju assault, Raleigh and his brother Yancy save a boat off the coast of Alaska. Unfortunately, the kaiju coined as Knifehead rips out his brother leaving Raleigh by himself. It is a difficult task to pilot a jaeger on your own, but our hero saves the day and does the impossible, killing the kaiju at the last minute. The last time we see Raleigh is when Gipsy Danger falls on an Alaska beach.
Flash forward a few years, it seems that kaiju keep coming through the breech and are destroying the jaegers faster than the planet can pull its resources to stop them. To compensate, the world governments plan to build a giant wall. The movie thought of the idea before Trump did. And, guess what the wall doesn’t work, a kaiju makes quick work of the wall and is stopped by an Australian jaeger called Striker Eureka.
 
Speaking of that wall, it seems Raleigh has been building the wall along the US coast. His commanding officer, Stacker Pentacost arrives to recruit him. Apparently, Raleigh still had a part of his brother’s brain in his mind when he died. Not to mention, he doesn’t want anyone else to go through what he did. But, for whatever reason he returns with Pentacost.
 
It is here that we meet Mako Mori, a Japanese orphan whom Pentacost has adopted. She shows Raleigh around and introduces him to his old jaeger, Gipsy Danger. There are only four jaegers left and they have one more mission. Reach the breach that the kaiju come from and plug it with an atomic bomb.
We are also introduced to Dr. Netton Geiszler and Gottlieb two researchers who are completely different from each other. Gottlieb is a nerdy academic while Geiszler is a kaiju groupie meaning he loves kaiju. He is quite eccentric as we will see later on.
Mako and Raleigh seem to not like each other at first with Mako chastising him for being reckless. But, soon, we see that none of the recruits that Mako brought are up to standards. The two get into a fight, and eventually Mako and Raleigh show they are drift compatible. It is kind of pushed that way, and rushed, but it gets the show running.
 
Pentacost allows for Mako to test a drift with Raleigh. At first everything goes fine, but because we need drama problems occur. It begins with Raleigh’s PTSD triggers from losing his brother, remember he has a part of him in his brain. This gets the two of them out of sync. Mako who has never done this before, because Pentacost views she is a liability, gets lost in the drift. We see Mako’s past, and there is a lot of character development. Mako, however loses control and almost kills everyone. She gets blamed, well to be fair both get blamed, but really Raleigh and Pentacost are to blame for different reasons. Mako just gets caught in the cross fire. A fight breaks out and Pentacost puts the two of them off duty.
Meanwhile, Geiszler decides to drift with a kaiju brain, what a genius. We find they have a hive mind, more on that later. This triggers two waves of kaiju, which Gottlieb had predicted earlier. The two kaiju fight three out of four of the jaegers. Two of these jaegers are destroyed quite quickly, and disappointingly I might add.
"Today, we are canceling the apocalypse"
To add insult to injury, Striker Eureka the big shot and latest cutting edge of the jaegers gets disabled due to a kaiju with magical E.M.P abilities. While another kaiju goes after Geiszler who knows their secrets. Geiszler had went into Hong Kong to go find a guy named Hannibal Choi as the former needs a full kaiju brain so he can get more information from the kaiju’s hive mind. Once, Hannibal finds out he shoos him away, as it is revealed that Hannibal also mind-melded with a kaiju, once.
 
With Gipsy Danger the only one left, our two leads pilot her successfully this time. The gorilla like kaiju falls easily by plasma shotgun blasts the size of airplanes. The other beast who was looking for Geiszler shows it can fly. The kaiju tries to take Gipsy Danger into the sky but is destroyed thanks to Mako giving Gipsy Danger a sword. She has killed a kaiju and has completed her character arc. The only one in the film.
 
After the fight, Geiszler gets a hold of a kaiju brain. Him and Gottlieb mind meld with the kaiju. Meanwhile, Pentacost pilots Striker Eureka and along with Gipsy Danger the two go to close the breach. Geiszler and Gottlief have found out that they need a living kaiju to pass through. The two jaegers are ambushed by three kaiju, one of which is an upgraded version of Knifehead fought at the beginning. The fights are at the bottom of the sea floor and unfortunately, Striker Eureka sacrifices itself. Gipsy Danger takes a corpse and goes towards the portal but is stopped by the upgraded kaiju. So, instead Mako and Raleigh light up the ocean floor and use that kaiju instead. They send the nuke, but in the last-ditch effort, Raleigh sends Mako with all of his oxygen, saving her life. Don’t worry, because this is a movie, he survives through space and time and somehow makes it out alive. The world is safe now, and our heroes can do whatever they did before the kaiju attacked humanity.
 
This movie is awesome, as it is action packed and filled the itch of kaiju films. The designs of the kaiju and jaegers are awesome, both unique and interesting. The size of everything is immense, bigger is better in this film. Many of the scenes are beautiful, both the fight choreography and the foreshadowing. A good scene is before the flying kaiju revealed it had wings, there was a scene when it made land fall from the sea where parts of its legs/arms folded like wings.
 
The plot is not amazing, but it works for a monster movie. The characters are all interesting and many of them of them border on eccentric, but except for Mako they don’t have arcs. Raleigh seems to have been the token narrator and we see the world and events through his eyes, but I don’t find him compelling. If he was the war-torn soldier, he should had been the secondary/supporting character. If Mako was the main character I would had been more invested. After her character arc reaches its climax, she doesn’t really do anything, and its sad. I feel that hurts her character in the long run. Mako is the heart and soul of the movie. The focus should had been on her.
 
Besides that, I would had liked to see more jaegers in combat with kaiju for a bit longer. The other robots like Crimson Typhon and Cherno Alpha didn’t get enough screen time and were just fodder for the kaiju, whom Gipsy Danger made quick work of. But, as we will see next week, maybe dial it down a bit. 

​We finish our Jurassic Park review series with not the latest in the franchise of films. I will watch that and review it later, but with the most recent video game based on the property, Jurassic World: Evolution. Where you can live up to John Hammond’s dreams and literally spare no expense in the creation of a dinosaur park of your dreams.
 
Now fair warning, a lot of people tried to hype this game up as a spiritual sequel to Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, one of the best park building games of all times. Although, there are similarities, we are going into this review that this game is its own game, not building up to the hype of nor trying to reach the heights of Operation Genesis.
 
Evolution is a 2018 park building simulation developed by Frontier Developments, who have worked on Planet Coaster and many others. The game is loosely based on the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World. In the game you are constructing dinosaur amusement parks on the Cinca de Meurtes or the Five Deaths as they are known in the Jurassic Park universe. Your sites will be the successor of both the original Jurassic Park as well as it’s unfortunate successor, Jurassic World.
 
Your goals are to create the parks and researching both new dinosaurs and fitting your parks with attractions to achieve a five-star rating. For example, the first Island, Isla Matanceros will reward you with the sand box mode of Isla Nublar if you score five stars on it. More on that later. The five islands are Isla Matanceros, Isla Muerta, Isla Tacano, Isla Pena and of course Isla Sorna. The game features Jeff Goldblum voicing Ian Malcom as your guide through the parks. He is the voice of reason and skeptical of the three branches within the park.
 
The game features three interesting branches of play, Security, Entertainment and Science all led by colorful casts of characters. Beyond just giving you access to different dinosaurs, buildings, and genes. These three characters introduce the plot of the game. Yes, there is a plot. Although, it is loosely tied to the films, and unfortunately is does not a have a true ending. This is either showing that Frontier will be working on more DLC or perhaps something else will be released later. It is sad, because there is a lot of build up with not a true ending where anything you did really matters. The plot is pretty much just padding, and although interesting the branches of play only really become annoying rather than helpful.
 
The problem with the three division branches comes in the form of sabotage. If you are too nice with one of the branches and not enough with the others, then the ones with no loyalty to you will begin to sabotage your park. This can be anything simple like opening your gates to getting you dinosaurs sick. Even worse they can shut down the power in your mark, which forces you to manually boot up the power in a jeep. In early game it can be frustrating, but I feel it does give a game a challenge occasionally. It’s a good system in theory, but as you will see a lot of this game is better in theory than in practice.
 

Gameplay
The AI is terrible, the terrain manipulator tools are limited and dammit we don’t have enough space. They keep adding dinosaurs to the game, so it is near impossible to make a park with all the dinosaurs. It is possible to put all the dinosaurs on Nublar, but they are fit in boxes. It’s a limited system. I think the game should have been in development a bit longer, hopefully Frontier can give this game the things it needs for the gameplay to truly shine.
But, when the game works, it really works. I tend to be so good at planning out my park that I don’t have dinosaurs break out much anymore. There are occasionally problems, but once you unlock all the genes, and know how to keep your dinosaurs and god forbid your guests happy then the game becomes a rather humbling experience. It is also a game I can just go and chill for a while, venting my frustration on dinosaurs who escape from captivity.
The bare bones of the gameplay and many of the decisions don’t make sense, and it seemed rushed. When the gameplay mechanics come together it is a rewarding experience. The AI just needs fixed, the terrain tools need to be increased and the size of Nublar and Sorna needs to be increased. Those three fixes would make the gameplay much more rememberable.
 
Graphics
            The game is beautiful. I don’t think I have said it enough. There is a limited amount of textures for grasses, trees, water and dinosaurs. But, all of it still looks pretty despite these limitations. It seems Frontier put all their money into making the game look shiny and shafted the gameplay. The graphics are the only thing that doesn’t seemed rushed.

Music
Some of the music from the films are used, most of it is interesting that has a JPark feel. But, nothing really of note so I tend to listen to my own music.
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Summary
In summary, Jurassic World: Evolution is a game that has a lot of potential.  It is beautiful game, but it has some flaws in its execution. The AI, both the guests and the dinosaurs need retooled. The islands need better editing tools for terrain and at least Nublar needs to become an actual sandbox with more room. Especially if they are going to add more dinosaurs.
The graphics are pretty, but the animations are lacking, and in general we need more dinosaurs and the game should feel more like a zoo tycoon than a disaster movie. If you chose to make dinosaurs more aggressive and break out, that is all on you. The good thing with great park building games is it lets us choose, and we don’t get a lot of freedom in this game. Instead, we are given a limited and rushed game that could had been much more. 

If you enjoy Jurassic Park/World then this might be something to pick up and play. if you like park building simulators or want a successor to Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis prepare to be disappointed. I still really enjoy the game and will on and off have an idea for a new park, now and then. It has it's flaws ,but despite that I still love the game. 

Jurassic World... because lets make more money. 

​                It had been over a decade since 2001 when Jurassic World III, the useless continuation of the Jurassic Park series was released. In 2015, a reboot of the series was commissioned by Universal and Legendary Pictures. As well as work from Amblin Entertainment to show Stephen Spielberg somehow is still related to this mess of a franchise, despite him not directing it nor producing it. Jurassic World is the fourth in the Jurassic Park franchise, and unfortunately is the start of the Jurassic World trilogy. Oh, boy now we have two more films to sit through. But, let’s dig into Jurassic World. Teeth and claw and all.

​We begin with this philosophical question. What if Jurassic park didn’t fail? The movie tries to answer this, by retconning the events of Jurassic Park III. After, John Hammond’s death InGen is purchased by Simon Masrani a wealthy man who had dreamed to take John Hammond’s legacy and make a park that he had envisioned. So, by some miracle of no laws forbidding such a terrible idea, some how succeeds. Jurassic World formed on Isla Nublar becomes the site of the park that John Hammond had only dreamed about. Children and guests from all around the world, and apparently all walks of life come to Jurassic World. It’s a vacation paradise, especially for kids. Who are the target audience for the film and park.
 
                The film opens with a dinosaur hatching and eying another dinosaur egg. This becomes a minor subplot later in the film. After that, we go across the world to the US where Zach and Gray, two brothers are going on a trip of a life time to Jurassic World. It is sort of a going away present as their parents are getting a divorce. Zach is the target audience of the film and the park and loves dinosaurs. I can say I really bonded with him. Zach is older brother is kind of a jerk, which me as an older sibling also relate to. We see a scene where Zach is kissing his girlfriend and his dad makes a joking comment. This is a minor subplot later. Their characters are pretty useless and pointless beyond showing what the park could have been if John Hammond had better security protocols.
 
“Zach, we aren’t going off to war here.”- foreshadowing by Zach’s dad.
 
The two kids are going to Jurassic World to hang out with their aunt Claire, who is Operations Director at Jurassic World. But, instead Claire is busy with work and tries to be a career woman. Which is pretty much the sum of her character. She is a control freak who despite being a powerful woman, is sexualized by our main protagonist, which we will meet in a minute. Claire is a far cry from Sarah Harding and Ellie Saddler. Despite being a successful career woman, she still needs a man to understand why family is important. Ugh…
 
The kids get a British Nanny, because those exist still, who takes them on a VIP trip across the park. It’s this part of the film that really strikes at the eternal eight-year-old. I really like this part of the movie. If it was just a documentary with going throughout all the exhibits like a zoo, it probably would have been a better movie. Boring, probably, but would still have been a better film. As I enjoyed watching the various exhibits in the park.
 
Of course, that is idealism. We move to Claire the career woman who is talking to some investors, who we later find out represent Verison Wireless. Again, ugh. Clair introduces them to Dr. Wu the only character from the Jurassic Park films and book to return and link it up with the original trilogy. Wu talks about the Indominus Rex, and that it is ready.
 
“We learned more from a decade of genetics than a century of digging up bones” – Claire Dearing.
 
Meanwhile the boys are having fun, and again I enjoy going to the exhibits. The plot that is building up behind them is just a disaster waiting to happen. In fact, this movie is a disaster movie. It’s less so a monster movie as much as it has more in common with something like 2012, The Day After Tomorrow or Armageddon than it does the original Jurassic Park films. That disaster comes in the form of Indominus Rex.
 
We get a scene in the control room where Claire chastises one of the workers. This is where we learn about her control freak nature. I mean she is Operations Director, its nice that her character trait is OCD, but it is only a vanilla version of it. Although, it is a part of her character it just comes off as tacky and pale and later discarded. She argues with the techie who has a Jurassic Park shirt on where she comments that it was in bad taste. The techie talks about some Jeff Goldblum-esque words of wisdom that will come to fruition later. Well, sort of. We will find out that while InGen was stupid, Masrani Corp is full of loonies that make Peter Ludlow look tame in comparison.
 
Claire goes to the helipad where we are introduced to Simon Masrani who is going to get his piloting license in two days. Simon Masrani isn’t really a bad guy and seems more level headed than John Hammond. He trusts Claire, but there is a fun little scene where he asks how the park is doing and Claire only talks about the business side of things. Masrani corrects her asking about his animals who are in cages and his attendees who are his money makers. It shows a good contrast between the two. They are going to see Indominus Rex.
 
“The key to a happy life is to understand you are never in control”- Simon Masrani to Claire.
 
Claire and Masrani arrive to the paddock and Masrani sees the Indominus and notes that it will scare the children. We learn that the Indominus killed its sibling early on and that it has been in solitary confinement. The dinosaur has tried to escape multiple times, but containment told them to build the walls higher. Despite the danger, Masrani loves the dinosaur and thinks it will make them a lot of money. Masrani tells Claire that he wants an ex-Navy Seal by the name of Owen Grady to inspect the paddock. She apparently knows Owen Grady, and we will soon see why she is so hesitant to get his help. 

​Owen is training raptors like dogs in a massive pen doing various intelligence tests with the animals. He trusts the raptors and they trust him. But, Owen understands that he doesn’t control the raptors and that they are wild animals. If Owen knows one thing, it’s that he can’t control the animals and respects them. He just doesn’t respect people very much. While talking with InGen’s security division Vic Hoskins, a new guy is trying to wrangle a pig, but the raptors attack the pig and he falls in. Grady saves him and shows that the raptors will take any chance they can to take control away from Grady. They are not to be trusted.
 
The kids ditch the nanny who obviously cares more about her phone than her duties. Good one nanny, and good one Claire for showing you care about your family. After leaving her at the petting zoo, the kids go on an adventure across the park. They are called by their mom who is checking in on them. It is then that their mom calls Claire and complains that this was supposed to be a family moment. It gets emotional since there is a divorce going on. Claire continues to meet with Grady, where we get to see some pretty cringy interactions between the two.
 
We meet Owen after the paddock incident where he lives on the island in a tropical single man bungalow. It is here where anything redeeming about Claire and Owen go to the shitter. Claire is his boss and tries to be professional, but apparently Owen keeps hitting on Claire, his boss I must remind you. This doesn’t go anywhere due to Owen’s sexism and where the fragile, strong woman of Claire just kowtows to his demands. Good one movie…  

​The brother’s bond on the island and are having a good time. We see them at a Mosasaurus feeding time, where it eats a shark, much like an orca at Sea World. They also some what glimpse a T-Rex eating, although we don’t see it. Don’t worry, we get to see Rexie a lot closer soon enough.
Owen goes to the paddock and sees the dinosaur has been attempting to escape. We find the Indominus Rex has a base genome of Tyrannosaurus Rex and other classified. This secrecy comes to bite them in the ass later in the film. They don’t see the dinosaur in the paddock so Claire actually does something rationally and starts to put the park on alert to look for the Indominus. Meanwhile Grady and a few of the wranglers go into the paddock. They enter through a small door. A human size door. Don’t worry that becomes important later.
 
Claire finds out that the Indominus is still in the paddock and was using active camo and attacks the three in the paddock. And, this is where the disaster movie logic comes in. Instead of using the smaller, human sized door they use the larger dinosaur door for some reason. I understand they panicked. But, the dude who opened it used a pass code or something to open it, meaning he could have just did a run for the much smaller door. So instead, Grady and the others escape, but so does the Indominus. The Indominus indescribably kills everyone except Grady who covers himself in oil to mask his scent. Because, again he is the alpha.
 
Back to the kids, we talk about how Zack knows his parents are splitting up. His brother tries to cheer him up. Meanwhile we see that Zack sees ACU which is going to track down and tranquilize the Indominus. But, surprise the Indominus has camo and kills the ranger  team. Grady goes to talk with Simon Masrani about the incident and the latter heads down towards Wu to investigate further.  The kids go on a Gyrosphere tour, which is also a very bad idea. While on the tour we see the very reoccurring scene of Gray the older brother hitting on all the cute girls he sees. Doesn’t this guy have a girlfriend or something? Well, like father like son. No, wonder their parents are getting a divorce.
 
Marani goes to talk to Wu what is in the dinosaur. We get the base Tyrannosaurus, but when Masrani says that “What use do I have a dinosaur that has camouflage”. We get a little bit of ethics debate between Masrani and Wu. All the rides in the north of the park are shut down. But, don’t worry the disaster has just begun.
 
“Nothing in Jurassic World is natural, we have always filled the gaps in the genome with the DNA of other animals. And if the genetic code ws pure, many of them would look quite different. But you didn’t ask for reality, you asked for more teeth.” Wu to Masrani, and the film trying to excuse why my velociraptors don’t have feathers.
 
The kids are the last on the Gyrosphere, but instead of turning back, Gray tells his brother to go on a little adventure. To make matters worse they go beyond the ride. So instead of being able to track the gyrospheres, the kids somehow can go off road with the Gyrosphere. We are never explained how the Gyrosphere moves, just that it becomes a very bad idea. The kids see some ankylosaurs, which should tell you why they are not a part of the Gyrosphere ride as the gyrospheres are made out of glass and ankylosaurs kind of have tail clubs. The Indominus comes and spooks them and the ankylosaurs hit the gyrosphere. After killing all the dinosaurs indiscriminately, it attacks the gyrosphere, but the kids escape. The only way they survive is jumping off a waterfall into a lagoon.
It is where the film becomes a disaster movie. No longer is it a Jurassic Park film. Yes, people die, but die in mass quantities due to the mass disasters caused by one Indominus Rex. It’s like playing Jenga, and one misplaced piece causes the whole thing to fail. Just like the story and plot. Because, oh boy are things about to become weird.  
 
The Indominus arrives at the park and starts killing all the dinosaurs indiscriminately. Claire calls the kids and begins to worry as they are in the gyrosphere and have ditched the nanny. See none of these things would have happened if Claire was a better person and family member. I mean, it could have still happened, but this point is driven pretty hard. She doesn’t really take any responsibility. If the movie wanted me to care about Claire, then the kids would have been killed. Because, at this point I don’t have any sympathy for her character. Especially after she does something so irrational and against her character and goes and finds them herself. Except, she doesn’t go by herself she goes to Owen… ugh woman… WHY!
 
“It’s killing for sport”- Owen about the death of the Apatasaurus in the fields.
 
So instead of seeing that it has already killed dinosaurs, is more of a threat to the park than being kept alive and has killed people. Grady and Masrani decide to send in people to kill it. Our buddy Vic, however has a super villain idea that I also thought up when I was like sixteen. He wants to use the raptors to hunt and kill the Indominus. So not only is this edgy plan full of plot holes, it of course is going over Owen’s head and behind his back while he is helping Claire look for her responsibilities.
 
The kids somehow make an old Jurassic Park jeep work by just switching out batteries. Because movie magic. Claire and Owen arrive, but are attacked by the Indominus and somehow escape thanks to the helicopter overhead. Masrani gets in a helicopter with some ex-marines with a machine gun. But, because this is a disaster movie, this doesn’t work. I mean if this was the anime GATE the Indominus would be dead and the film would have thankfully ended.
 

​Instead, this is a disaster movie. The Indominus evades the bullets because it apparently has Flash DNA and breaks into the aviary. Unleashing an army of pterosaurs which attacks the helicopter and kills Masrani. He died more honorable than Hammond in both the book and in the films anyway. Because, he at least tried to be proactive and stop the monster his mad science had brought upon his park.
 


















​The pterosaurs then appear at the park and start attacking people who flee into buildings. An interesting scene we see a pterosaur pick up the nanny who then begin to play with her in the Mosasaurus paddock, only for the pterosaur and nanny to be eaten by the marine reptile. It also is the biggest thing in the park. It also has more teeth than anything else. Don’t worry, this is foreshadowing for something that happens later.
 There is this cool scene where a dude takes his martini and runs off. Because, who knows that one guy who needs to get wasted when flying reptiles come raining down from the skies. Its this scene where Claire’s one redeeming quality where she saves Owen from a pterosaur attack. Owen, then ruins the scene by kissing her during the attack. The kids reunite with their aunt and now the movie goes to full blown wacky.
 

​The new mercs under Security Division Hoskins goes to wrangle up the raptors. Owen knows this is a bad idea but decides that he is the only person who can lead the mission. The raptors are led on using a piece of meat that the Indominus scratched out earlier that has the tracker. It’s a game called hide and seek, so the raptors and the security division go and find the Indominus. The Indominus is hiding in camo, but the raptors find it anyway. This is when we find out the Indominus is part raptor and communicates with the raptors. But, instead of killing everything there, they miss. Owen’s control of his raptors goes awry and now the Indominus is the new alpha. The Indominus escapes and the raptors kill the mercs. It’s almost like they didn’t foreshadow his or something… oh wait.

​The Indominus and the raptors hunt Claire, the kids and Owen back to the Visitor’s center. It is here where the raptors turn traitor and join their alpha, Owen. Because Owen is the ‘alpha male’ in this film as shown time and time again. Again, ugh. The Indominus kills the other raptors. Zack tells Claire they need more teeth. So Claire does something rational. She frees the T-Rex… yes, she frees the Tyrannosaurus Rex. 

​                                                                                                               I'm sure the audience feels this way. 

We only got glimpse of the Rex early on the tour. There is no reason to bring it into this fight except to make this a Godzilla like confrontation. Again, this shows the creative direction away from Spielberg who made the original Jurassic Park to not be a Godzilla film. Anyway, Blue, the beta raptor and Rexie fight the Indominus. The Rex and Blue sustain injuries but push the Indominus to the edge of the Mosasurus exhibit. A challenger than appears in the form of the Mosasaurus who eats the Indominus. It’s presence was at least shown twice and the Indominus went towards its enclosure so this actually makes sense.
 
The film ends with Claire and Owen dating… for some reason. The kids go back with their parents who are divorcing and probably will live in trauma for the rest of their lives. Masrani Global will go bankrupt and somehow we will have two more films.
 
This film is sexist. It’s a far cry from the strong female characters of older films. Claire is just not a likable character and her character changes from strong career woman to “I’m a woman and I need an alpha man” in like a few scenes. She isn’t the only bad character, its hard to like Owen Grady. Yes, he is knowledgably, but overall quite useless. Not to mention he is a pig. Sorry, Starlord no love for me in this film.
The movie hammers this idea of control and that nothing is in our control But, Jurassic World continued where Jurassic Park could not, because they had security protocols, so I call bull shit on that. It’s just a disaster movie in the place of a dinosaur movie. Just like all other films of its ilk, it’s boring and not worth your time. Like I said, if it was a Walking with Dinosaurs documentary through the park with ​someone narrating like an actual paleontologist it might have been a better film.
 
Next week we will switch things up and talk about Jurassic World: Evolution a video game based on Jurassic World and its sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The latter of which I won’t be reviewing since I have yet to watch it yet.
 

​Jurassic Park III: Bigger, Scarier, Meaner and with more Teeth
 
Symposium Leader: Does anyone have a question?
[The entire audience raises their hands]
Dr. Grant: Fine. Does anyone have a question that does not relate to Jurassic Park?
[several audience members lower their hands]
Dr. Grant: ...Or the incident in San Diego, which I did not witness.
[The entire audience except one person lowers their hands]
Dr. Grant: Yes, sir?
Male Student: Your theory on raptors is good and all, but isn't all this conjecture kind of moot? I mean, once the U.N. and Costa Rica and everyone decides how to handle that second island, scientists will just go in and look for themselves.
Dr. Grant: Dinosaurs lived sixty-five million years ago. What is left of them is fossilized in the rocks, and it is in the rock that real scientists make real discoveries. Now what John Hammond and InGen did at Jurassic Park is create genetically engineered theme park monsters, nothing more and nothing less.
Female Student: Are you saying you wouldn't want to get onto Isla Sorna and study them, if you had the chance?
Dr. Grant: No force on earth or heaven could get me on that island.
Epic Foreshadowing for Jurassic Park III: Dr. Grant’s Revenge
 
 
            I’m starting this review with that quote, because the one thing this movie does great is foreshadowing. The last few blog reviews have been on decent films, but now unfortunately we are going to start reviewing some films that fall short of not just being entertaining but are pretty much just cash grabs. So much cash grabs that although InGen may be bankrupt, they might as well have come up with the continuation of the Jurassic Park and later Jurassic World series.
 
            We begin our film with the introduction of Ben Hildebrand and Erik Kirby as they go on an illegal parasailing adventure around Isla Sorna. You know that island in the previous film that had all the dinosaurs allowed to roam free? Well, Ben Hildebrand is one of those step-dads that thinks he is cool and goes to an illegal island where dinosaurs can do whatever they want and don’t care if you are illegally coming to their island. Might as well come on over with a giant sign saying, ‘Eat Me!”. So not only is Ben doing something illegal, he is endangering his step-son Erik Kirby just, so they can go see dinosaurs. I wonder if anything bad will happen? Gasps.
 
Charlie: [Forcing a Brontosaurus and Triceratops to fight] Rawr! Rawr! Rawr!
Dr. Grant: No, Carlie these are carnivores and they really like fighting with each other. They’ll use their teeth and claws to rip each other’s throats out.
Ellie Degler: Alan, he’s three. Let’s wait for the dinosaur lecture until he’s five.
 
            Segueing to our film’s protagonist and the only good thing about this movie is Sam Neill returning as Dr. Alan Grant. Where he teaches three-year-old Charlie about the difference between herbivores and dinosaurs before his mother Ellie Sattler decides to wait until he is a bit older. We catch up with Grant, and Sattler and find out that the latter has started a family with someone in the state department and has two kids. Grant discusses his new findings that raptors were smarter than even primates. I mean they can open doors after all…
 
            The next time we see Grant he is talking at a lecture about dinosaurs and trying to get funding for his paleontological digs. Grant as always, and many in his field are strapped by cash. Money is a very important theme in this film, which we will discuss later. During the questions Grant is berated by people who want to know about his experience on Isla Nublar. Another student, as seen in the quote at top wants to know why Grant doesn’t want to go to Site B, aka Isla Sorna to look at the dinosaurs in action. His retort is that dinosaurs died 65 million years ago, and he would never go back. Well, I guess the film is over, time to go on a rest room break.
 
            The film continues despite our foreshadowing where we are introduced to Billy Brennan who is probably the most engaging, conflicted, and most interesting character in this movie besides Grant. Billy is a graduate student paleontologist who apparently Grant trusts a lot. Billy shows him some new technology which the future of paleontology is going to look like. Another reason why paleontologists need money, all the new tech. Grant luckily doesn’t touch it, don’t want to happen what transpired in the first film now do we.
            Soon they are joined by a con-man, I mean a wealthy adventurist named Paul Kirby of wait for it… Kirby Enterprises. He invites Grant and Billy, whom he already knows apparently to dinner with his parents. It is here at some dingy little bar in the middle of nowhere that Grant should see some red flags starting to appear. They are introduced to his wife, Amanda Kirby where more red flags come up about them asking him to be their guide to Isla Sorna. Grant is dead set against it until Mr. Kirby offers to pay whatever he needs on a check. Greed is an important theme about this film. (What is this The Hobbit?)

​Dream Velociraptor: Alan! Alan!
 
            Grant wakes up on a plane with a dream of a velociraptor talking to him. He wakes up as they approach the island. Once on the island, we see the dinosaurs, and the second red flag comes up that nobody is actual interested in the dinosaurs besides Grant and Billy. Then, the final red flag where everything starts to come into focus is when they ask to land. Grant gets upset saying that they can’t land on this island. One it is illegal, and two it is dangerous. We will see why Grant was correct later taking on Ian Malcom’s prophetic nature from the previous film.
 
            Grant once again wakes up, this is a reoccurring theme. Maybe this is all a bad dream sequence by Steven Spielberg? No, it’s not as Grant wakes up and asks if they landed.  He wakes up to screaming and shouting and Mr. Kirby tries to rationalize with Grant only for him to lecture Mr. Kirby about his wife’s stupidity. Amanda decides to use a megaphone to call for her son Erik, which starts to bring the plot of the movie into fruition.
 
Amanda: What?
Paul Kirby: Dr. Grant said that is a very bad idea.
 
            Before we are given further explanation, we hear a dinosaur roar in the distance. Grant’s prophecies come true. He fears that it is bigger than a T-Rex and everyone runs back into the plane. Except for one, a mercenary named Cooper who gets left behind. The plane starts to take off and Cooper walks out bloody before he is eaten by a Spinosaurus. The plane hits the Spinosaurus and is damaged, so it lands in the forest.
            They are not out of the park yet as the Spinosaurus followed them and eats the pilot Nash. Important note, Mr. Kirby had a satellite phone and was calling someone, for some reason Nash had it before he was eaten. This is very important, and very moronic plot device later. The Spinosaurus does a barrel roll with what is left of the plane before the five survivors including Dr. Grant, Billy, Udesky and unfortunately the Kirby’s. 

​The remaining group of survivors flee the Spinosaurus only to encounter a T-Rex scavenging on a carcass Grant tells them not to move and everyone including Billy run. The Rex follows suit, but don’t worry the Spinosaurus saves them. There is a stupid scene where Grant is trapped in a log and escapes the fight only to rejoin the others. Oh, yeah to make fanboys cry, the T-Rex is killed by the Spino. Grant escapes the log and meets up with the others, where we finally get an explanation on why the plot hasn’t been revealed yet.
            Apparently, we hear a sob story about their son going on an illegal excursion with Miss Kirby’s current boyfriend/husband. It’s a complicated relationship. We find out The Kirby’s are divorced, but throughout the film we see their awkward romance be rekindled, unfortunately. This takes prominence over most of the plot and takes time away from any actual progress of escaping the island.
            They find the glider in a tree and see that Ben was unlikely and apparently died. The sob story about how the US Embassy told them just to except the inevitable. Although, you can see Mr. Kirby’s anger, I mean he and his wife let this guy take their son to an illegal island. Not the government’s fault you are bad parents, now is it? They also pretty much kidnapped Dr. Grant so they are not good people. Just two, very stupid and very lucky people. 

​ 
Dr. Grant: Why me?
Paul Kirby: He said we needed someone who’d been on the island before.
Udesky: Yes, but I did not tell you to kidnap somebody!
Dr. Grant: I have never been on this island.
Paul Kirby: Sure, you have, you wrote that book.
Billy Brennan: That was Isla Nublar. This is Isla Sorna – Site B.
            The couple goes off on their own and finds some dinosaur eggs. While Billy takes the glider as they might use it. We get a bit of back story that Billy knows how to use one. This comes in handy later. See this scene sets up another scene. If this movie does anything right is that it foreshadows events correctly.
            Another foreshadowing comes later, after Grant is alerted by the dinosaur eggs. Grant, the Kirby’s and Udesky continue with Billy nowhere to be seen. Grant yells for Billy is zipping his pack. After saying that he was looking at the dinosaur eggs. This not only foreshadows the upcoming scene, but also a revelation that occurs later.
            The group of five make their way to a compound. A blurred shadow of a raptor foreshadows the upcoming encounter. There is a funny scene where they find some vending machines. Mr. Kirby looks for some change, but Billy being reasonable breaks the glass of the vending machines that are obviously out of service and takes some food. Paul Kirby tries the same thing, but it turns into a comedic moment where he can’t accomplish the same feats.
           
Amanda: This is how you make dinosaurs?
Dr. Grant: No, this is how you play God.
 
            They now enter a lab, where the morality of the previous films comes into question. It is here that Amanda Kirby goes off on her own and sees a raptor in a test tube. Ha-ha, no it wasn’t in the test tube, it was just an optical illusion and it lunges out at Amanda. The raptor then attacks them and all five of them flee. I mean I get that they don’t know if the raptor is by itself, but there is five against one in a laboratory. I’m sure they could have found something to use against the raptor. Instead we get a wacky, wily coyote chase scene. Which ends with the raptor calling for help.
            Grant and his fellow adventurers leave the compound and manage to trap the raptor momentarily. Only for them to be separated by a charging herd of dinosaurs. Udesky is left behind and killed by a raptor. While Billy and the Kirby’s hide up in a tree. Here is when Amanda the genius looks and sees Udesky. She things he is still alive, because they the arm move. Billy points out that something looks weird, and when Amanda trips and almost falls, the raptors spring their trap. This movie switched from being a horror film to being Mouse Trap, except it’s the raptors who are trying to trap the humans.
            The remaining raptors follow Grant, who is saved by a smoke grenade and a small boy. He is taken back to a downed convoy where it is revealed the boy is none other than Erik Kirby. Apparently, the kid is far more intelligent and resourceful than his parents and has survival skills. He is surprised his parents are here together. Erik Kirby bonds with Dr. Grant, who apparently likes kids now, a complete character growth from the first film.
 
Erik: I read both of your books. I liked the first one more. Before you were on the island. You liked dinosaurs back then.
Dr. Grant: Back then they hadn’t tried to eat me yet.




​
            Erik and Grant continue down the coast as does the Kirby’s and Billy. On the way Erik hears the jingle of his father’s phone. Erik begins to yell for them. On the other side of a fence, Billy and the world’s most amazing parents hear their son. They met on the end of a fence. Where two questions are asked.
            The first red flag that things are not as they seem is when Billy insists that Grant give him the bag. But, they don’t get to resolve this quite yet. Erik tells his parents they found them due to the phone jingle. We are then reminded that Nash had the phone before he was eaten and then the Spino appears behind them.
            Grant and Erik run to a small crack in the fence and escape. Everyone looks back for a nice family picture scene. That image is destroyed when the Spinosaurus just rams into the fence and chases after them. Luckily there is a building behind them and luckily there is a castle type lock to keep the dinosaurs out. *Rolls Eyes for convivence*  
 
Billy Brennan: You must believe me, this was a stupid decision, but I did it with the best intentions.
Dr. Grant: With the best intentions? Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions. You know what, Billy? As far as I’m concerned, you’re no better than the people that built this place.
 
            It is here, that the big can of worms comes out. Billy had stolen the raptor eggs and explains why the raptors keep chasing them. Grant does some holier than though attitude trying to make what Billy did equivalent to what Ingen did or even Hitler. The implication was out of anger, but didn’t Grant come to this island endangering Billy’s life so he could get some money from Kirby? I mean it is a moral hypocrisy that really sours the rest of the movie.
 
            Although, Mr. Kirby wants them to get rid of the eggs, Grant understands that if he gets rid of them the raptors will get mad at them. This logic is also lacking any sort of logic. I don’t think raptors despite being intelligent would spare them. These are wild animals who lack sympathy and who see humans as food. All this scene is to shoe horn another one that comes up later in the film. It’s just lazy writing to push a certain moral plot point that isn’t veritable.
Dr. Grant: Oh, my God.
Amanda: What is it?
Dr. Grant: It's a birdcage.
Amanda: For what?
 
            The group continues down some stair cases and enters some sort of bird cage. There are rickety bridges and rails. The whole pathway is sealed off by cages, so it means that they were there for a reason. Obviously, this foreshadows something bad. Grant and Amanda Kirby are the first to cross, and kiddo is next. Erik however sees a Pteradon and soon he is grabbed and taken to its nest.  
 
            The adults try to save Erik, but humans unfortunately can’t fly. Not even, ‘dinosaur man’ Dr. Grant. But, remember Billy knows how to use a glider and took one of the spares earlier. He uses it to save Erik but becomes a target of the Pteradons instead. His sacrifice is the most commendable part of the film.
 
            After escaping the bird cage the four remaining get to a boat. It is one this boat that we get some more information about the boring rekindling romance between the Kirbys. As well as Dr. Grant feeling bad about what he said to Billy.
 
Dr. Grant: I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts. The astronomer, or the paleontologist, gets to study these amazing things from a place of complete safety.
Erik: But, then you never get to go into space.
Dr. Grant: Exactly. That’s the difference between imagining and seeing: to be able to touch them. And that’s … that’s all Billy wanted.
 
            Later a scene segues to a group of beautiful sauropods.
 
Erik replies: You know what, Billy was right.
            Don’t worry, this shit storm has just begun to reach its climax. The four on their little river boat sail down the river. At night they hear the jingle and think it’s a Spinosaurus, instead its piles of steaming poop. A reference to the first film and an analogy to the film itself. They find the phone and use it to call Ellie.
It starts to rain, but all the fish are spooked. I wonder what that could be? The Spinosaurus attacks while it’s raining, and the four heroes hide in a cage that is on the boat for some reason. The boat begins to sink, as it does Grant gets a hold of Ellie. At first, she doesn’t understand him, but when Charlie growls like a dinosaur, she begins to sprawl into action.
There is a heroic scene where Mr. Kirby sacrifices himself and Grant shoots a flare gun at the Spinosaurus, the water around it became distilled with oil thanks to the tanker on the back of the ship leaking. This sends the Spinosaurus away, but seemingly killed Mr. Kirby. Unfortunately, dad of the year is still around, and this rekindles the Kirby’s love. So, there are two tragedies there. Poor, Erik.
With the Spinosaurus gone, the group head towards the coast by foot. Unfortunately for them the raptor squad appears and surrounds them. Grant thinks they have come for the eggs, so they offer the eggs. Apparently, Amanda is the head of the human pack for some reason and is the one who offers the eggs back to the dinosaurs. He thinks this will stop them from attacking for some reason.
The raptors low and behold take the eggs and still surround them. The raptors prepare to attack, but Grant takes out a fossil replicator of the raptor voice box. He tries to scare them off, but that doesn’t do it only incites them to be confused if anything. Like a US tourist speaking a foreign language in a foreign country very badly. Mr. Kirby probably says the smartest thing he ever said in the film that Grant should call for help. Grant calls for help, and then helicopters come. This scares off the raptors for good and the survivors make it the coast.
 
Eric: That lady you called.
Dr. Grant: Hmm?
Eric: Who is she? How do you know that she can help us?
Dr. Grant: She was the one person I could always count on. I owe her a lot. Although I don't think I ever told her that.
Eric: You should.
 
[Later, when they all are rescued]
Eric: Wow. You must thank her now. She sent the Navy and the Marines!
Dr. Grant: God bless you, Ellie
 
At the coast a man is waiting for Dr. Grant with a megaphone. They all bring back the megaphone incident from earlier. But, then a few Amphibious vehicles armed with marines comes to the island. I mean that is impressive. They are rescued but see some Pteradons have escaped. Oh, no… but at least the movie is finally over. Also, Billy survived.
            This film was, well it’s problematic at best. There are some good decisions, but some equally bad ones that impact the whole film. Dr. Grant and Billy are the only characters I really enjoy. Everyone else is either annoying or extremely lucky. I understand that Eric had some survival skills, but his parents are completely stupid. As is everyone else who they brought with them.
            There is a reason nobody is allowed on this island. It’s like if a group of people were to go to Sentinel Island. You would probably get killed by the natives. Isla Sorna is off limits because dinosaurs can live there, and they will eat you.
            Greed is a theme of this film and even though Grant is a hypocrite in this film, at least he understands his misgivings in the end. Billy is interesting, because unlike Grant he found a way to make buck with those raptor eggs. But, Grant’s holier than though attitude gets in the way. Billy probably was thinking of himself, probably has loans to pay off and wants to help Grant with funding digs. He is the most proactive person in this film and because of it, is the most engaging. Everyone else is flat, boring, and well either is unlucky that they were killed or had plot armor.
 
            The first two Jurassic Park films had a cast of strong women. This film had none of that, Amanda Kirby is the stupidest character in Jurassic Park history. The only reason she wasn’t eaten was because of plot device. Mr. Kirby isn’t much better, but Amanda is the only actual female lead in the field and after the likes of Ellie Sattler and Sarah Harding, she is not up to task. But, don’t worry the reboot has even more stupid woman.
            Next week we will review the most disappointing remake/reboot in Jurassic History. Jurassic World, and how despite Jurassic Park III’s problems it is still a lot better than Jurassic World.

​John Hammond: Don't worry. I'm not making the same mistakes again.
Ian Malcolm: No, you're making all new ones.
 
 
Jurassic Park: The Lost World   or How InGene screws up Boogalo Part 2.
 
We are back with part two of our Jurassic Park review series, and now we get to watch the sequel to the smash hit dinosaur film adaptation. The sequel bastardizes the Michael Crichton novel of the same name even more, but that is a story for another day.
 
Instead, we start our journey on a new island with it’s all new set of problems. A little girl whose parents let her wonder the beach by herself while eating food, roast beef encounters some Compsognathus who attack her. Because, bad parenting. Her mother and father come over, and the scene ends with her mother screaming.
 
Seguing to Dr. Ian Malcom yawning and returning to be the ‘He is Always Right’ guy. He is harassed on a subway, but makes his way to Hammond’s estate. It is at Hammond’s estate he meets the kids from the first film. After, hugging the kids we meet the film’s antagonist Peter Ludlow, a corrupt businessman and relative of John Hammond who has taken over of InGene. The ethics and morality of Hammond and InGene shutting people up like Grant and making Ian Malcom seem like a crazy person starts an argument, which Ludlow promptly leaves with a very cold and business like logic.
 
Ian Malcom meets up with Hammond, where the later tells Ian Malcom that he wants to preserve the dinosaurs on a new island.  Getting our first really good Ian Malcom quote of the film, “So you went from capitalist to naturalist in just four years. That's something.”  It is then revealed that Ian Malcom’s girlfriend and paleontologist Sarah Harding is on the island, which is the catalyst to get Ian on the island.
 
 “It’s a rescue operation and its leaving now.” – Dr. Ian Malcom
 
The rescue operation will include Ian Malcom on his white horse, photographer Nick VanOwen, and Eddie Carr a tech expert. They go over the tech and equipment that they will use on the expedition including a high hide, convoy vehicles, satellite phone, where we see Ian Malcom has caught some of Dr. Grant’s anti-technology bug. Hitting the satellite phone, something that will come up later as a gag. This is where for some reason we meet Ian Malcom’s child Kelly Malcom who comes to the expedition paddock for some reason. Ian and Kelly get into a fight, but it seems this scene is just here to get Kelly on the island. There is a small discussion about Kelly being cut from the gymnastics team, that becomes a minor plot point later on.
 
“Uh, where you're going is the only place in the world where the geese chase you!”- Ian Malcom
 
Ian Malcom and his convoy of researchers, if it can be called that arrive on the island. They hear a story about fishermen coming too close to the island and never come back, almost like this is Sentinel Island, and not a Jurassic Park film. The group arrives on the island and immediately encounters a herd of Stegosaurus. Shortly, after Ian finds Sarah’s backpack all torn up, and they start shouting for her name. Here, Eddie is taking pictures of the group when he meets Sarah also taking pictures. She asks for some food and is surprised that Ian is on the island. Sarah talks about the herd mentality of the Stegosaurs and also explaining the lysine rich diet, which I talked about in the Jurassic Park review.
 
They see smoke and go back to the convoy only to see Kelly cooking dinner. The three of them: Sarah, Ian, and Kelly all get into an argument. Sarah commends Ian for riding here on a white horse, but says that she is going to stay. But, their argument is interrupted by the sound of helicopters. InGene helicopters are seen in the distance.
 
InGene have come to strip the island ahead of Hammond’s departure from the company. Peter Ludlow joined by Roland, a hunter who only wants to hunt a buck T-Rex, Robert Burke who is a homage of Robert Bakker, the best paleontologist ever. (Yeah, I said it! Jack Horner fanboys) InGene rounds up all the dinosaurs and is ready to send them back to the mainland, to San Diego where a great amphitheater shaped zoo will house the beasts.
 
In horror and disgust in the way the animals are treated like a commodity, we find out that Hammond had expected this and this is why Nick was brought on board. The group frees the dinosaurs, and a massive stampede destroys InGene’s camp during a presentation. Just goes to show you, that Ludlow must be related to Hammond as he lacks security protocols. And, yes, Roland left Dieter in charge of the camp while he lures out the T-Rex using it’s baby, but this is not explained until after the fact. Showing even more incompetence on Roland, Dieter and Ludlow’s parts.
 
“"What back up plan"- Sarah Harding
"Me"- Nick Van Owen
 
Sarah and Nick free the baby T-Rex who has a broken leg and the two of them take the Rex back to the trailer convoy to fix it. Kelly, Eddie, and Ian all go to the high hide as for some reason Kelly doesn’t want to be around the T-Rex infant almost knowing what is about to happen. It’s like she gets that intuition from somebody in her family? Hmmm?
 
Anyway, Sarah and Nick help the baby T-Rex and are joined by Malcom just as the parents arrive. Sarah takes the T-Rex out and smiles as the baby is rescued. Only for the Rexes to return and throw them off the cliff. Still in the convoy, they hang onto the edge of the trailer when Eddie arrives with rope. Eddie tries to save them, but is eaten by the Rexes in a very brutal fashion. But, his sacrifice is not in vain as the three hold on to the rope and are dragged up thanks to the remaining InGene mercenaries.
 
"Anything else?"- Eddie Carr
"Three double cheeseburgers"- Ian Malcom
"No Onions on mine"- Nick Van Owen
"And an apple turnover"- Sarah
 
Now joined with an army of mercenaries, a couple of paleontologists, a child, a chaotician who is always right, and Peter Ludlow all are now one group. Ludlow states that there is a communication tower that they can get to in the village station. However, he states that the problem is that to get to it the group must go through the velociraptor nest. But, they still have the Rexes to deal with as well.
 
The monstrous group of humans, the deadliest animal, heads into the interior of the island to explore the surprisingly thin dinosaur population. It is quite odd that from the T-Rex scene until the next scene they don’t encounter any dinosaurs at all what so ever. The next scene involves Dieter going to pee, but decides to go way too far from the group, in a woods that has dinosaurs in it. He is harassed by some Compys, but ends up getting lost. He is then harassed by more of the small jackal like creature and is eventually killed and eaten alive.
 
Not knowing that Dieter is gone, Ludlow decides to keep going, but nobody wants to get up. This triggers a funny scene from Nick Van Owen who apparently has more of a commanding respect of the mercenaries get up after he motivates them. Showing that nobody really likes Ludlow.
 
That night, the group is attacked by the buck T-Rex who assaults the camp. The Rex ends up killing most of the mercenaries either by eating them or scaring them off. Nick, Sarah and Kelly head to a waterfall from the Rex. Burke also hides in the waterfall, but after being irritated by a snake, ends up getting eaten by the buck Rex. Ian Malcom jumps into the waterfall soon after. 
 
"Taking dinosaurs off this island is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. And I'm going to be there when you learn that.”- Ian Malcom to Ludlow
 
Roland uses this time to hunt the buck, and using the tranquilizer gun to shoot the buck down. The remaining members of the merc group head into the tall grass. Ajay, one of Roland’s friends and fellow hunter shouts some iconic last lines, “Don’t go into the tall grass!”, it is obvious that he is an avid Pokemon trainer and none of these mercenaries have any Pokemon to battle the raptors who ambush and kill almost all of them. By the time Ian and his group get to the literal killing fields, the raptors have moved on.
 
Nick separates from the others and will call for help, for some reason. Because, splitting the part, always works, right! Regardless, we see them go through the village and Sarah is leaped on by a raptor, which attacks her lucky pack. Sarah manages to escape, but RIP, lucky pack, you were such a sweet prince.
 
The raptors go after Ian who is in a car, while the girls head into a building. They try to out dig the raptors, but before they can escape through there dig site, a raptor uses this opportunity to strike. The girls climb up the rafters, and Ian Malcom appears on his useless white horse only to be cornered by a raptor who is in the rafters. Kelly, who was apparently kicked off the gymnastics team takes out the raptor and now Kelly and Ian leave Sarah who climbs to the roof. She jumps across buildings and ends up stopping the raptor who is chasing her by playing Tetris with roof tiles and rolls to safety meeting up with Kelly and Ian who have met up with Nick and the helicopters have come to save them. That’s it, move is done. Oh, you sweet, summer child. It’s just begun!
 
As they leave they see a T-Rex male being retrofitted into a steel cage, and the movie will still go on for the next twenty minutes. This time, going back to San Diego for one of the most outrageous scenes in cinema history. We also get to see an actual character arc in the form of Roland. Which is nice.
 
“ Roland, there’s a job for you in San Diego if you want it.”- Peter Ludlow
“No, thank you. I believe I’ve spent enough time in the company of death.”- Roland Tembo
 
The T-Rex baby is sent ahead with Ludlow back to San Diego while the buck is put on a ship. Ian and Sarah head to the dock where Ludlow and InGene discuss the arrival of the T-Rex back to the mainland. And, to make Ian Malcom the prophet, something of course goes wrong. Apparently, the T-Rex got out of the holding cell, ate all the passengers and somehow found its way back into the cargo hold. The ships crashes into the dock and the buck T-Rex is now free in San Diego.
 
This is a massive continuity error, how did the Rex get back into the cargo area with the door closed and why is everybody dead? How did it eat the people in the tower and cabin? Again, this shows InGene’s complete lack of sensibility and security measures. They explain it away with bad writing stating that they put the Rex into narcoleptic shock by waking it up. Good job, InGene.

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​To remedy this situation, Ian and Sarah abduct the baby T-Rex so they can use it to lure the Rex back to the dock. Meanwhile the T-Rex runs amuck in San Diego like Godzilla. I find it quite funny that Stephen Spielberg wanted to make the first Jurassic Park, not like Godzilla, but this scene at the end of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is pretty much a spoof on Godzilla.
 
“What’s everybody looking at?” - Sarah Harding
“We should’ve stayed in the damn car.”- Ian Malcom
 
The baby lures the Rex back to the docks. Ludlow wants to be an idiot and thinks he can still salvage the operation by bringing the Rex back. Unknown that the buck is behind him. But, the Rex does not kill him, only injures him. Ludlow is killed by the infant Rex who eats him alive. The Rexes are sedated and sent back to Isla Sorna. And, ironically thanks to the San Diego incident, Isla Sorna can become a dinosaur refuge, just like Hammond wanted.
 
So yeah, this movie is well better than I remembered it. As a kid I always disliked it, thought it was preachy. Now, I see it manages to bring nature conservation as the main thrust of the film, and less from genetics and morality. In this film ethics of animals and corporations are discovered, and it does this very well I think.
 
InGene is still seen as an incompetent company, and thankfully goes bankrupt in canon after this film. Ludlow is much more conniving than Hammond ever was, but shares many of the same flaws. Over ambitiotious and thinks that there will be a next time. While in the films, Hammond is seen as a changed man, Ludlow never sees the errors in his ways and ends up dead in the process.
 
Roland actually has a character arc and although people can chalk it up to a hunter seeking redemption. It is the fact his friend, Ajay died and saw a lot of death on this island. These are the Cinca de Meurtes, the Five Deaths after all.
 
Sarah Harding and Kelly are both strong female characters, and are even more important in the plot than the girls from the first film. Strong, independent woman who really tie the franchise together, and are sadly the last of their breed. Because, after this the strong independent female leaves the franchise as does pretty much everything else enjoyable from this point forward.
 
Next week, we will see what some of the best expectations can lead to the worst decisions in Jurassic Park III, Dr. Grant’s Revenge.
 
 
           

 


Jurassic Park, the Movie That Spared No Expense

            In August, I’m bringing back my blog, should be updated every Sunday I will be writing an article. Today’s article and the theme for this month is Jurassic Park, and I will continue in September with reviews of Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom (which I have yet to watch), and Jurassic World: Evolution. I’m going to start with the movie that started it all, the Michael Crichton novel adaptation that spawned the frog hybrid movie monsters of Jurassic Park.
 

 
Our film opens to a scene involving the introduction of a new dinosaur into it’s exhibit, but despite an army of security and park workers, something goes wrong and the rogue velociraptor bumps into the door, which was locked and somehow still opened and allowed the poor worker to get eaten by the ‘Big One’, which we end the scene with game warden Muldoon shouting, “Shoot her! Shoot her!”

Yep, we are going on a fun filled human feast from here on out people. 

Despite problems that already see in the park, the next scene introduces Donald Gennar, a lawyer who wants to ‘shut Hammond down’. He discusses the dead worker whose family is going to suing INGEN. We see amber being mined in Costa Rica, by a geologist who apparently knows of Dr. Grant, who states, “Because, Grant is a digger just like me.”


We then segue to the American west where we meet Dr. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler. Where Grant who touches any tech and it breaks, a trope in the film. They are digging up a "velociraptor", which any paleo fan knows is false. Velociraptors were the size of turkeys and lived in Asia. But, I digress it is a movie based on a book from the eighties.
 
Alan terrorizes a child who scoffs at the idea that dinosaurs evolved to birds. He describes the pack formations and how raptors hunt. Stating that the raptors will eat him alive, by spilling out his guts. This scare tactic is then interrupted by a helicopter arriving which causes the dig site to go into alert. Good going Grant. 

Alan and Ellie go and find the intruder who raids their champagne that they were saving for some date in the future. The old man introduces himself as John Hammond and invites them to go on a tour of an island. Grant and Ellie don’t know why he has asked paleontologists and paleobotanists to go to an island.   They quickly change their mind when Hammond agrees to fund their digs for the next several years. 

"Point is, you are alive when they start to eat you.", Alan Grant

 We then skip to the film’s antagonist. Well, sort of at least the person that is responsible for things to come. At some café in Costa Rica ,Dennis a computer and IT worker for INGEN is eating his meal. He is joined by Dodson an inconspicuous man who works for a rival company. Dodson gives Nedry half of the money and will pay him for stealing dinosaur embryos from the facility. To do this, Nedry is given a shaving cream can with a faux bottom to place embryos with a thirty-six hour coolant period. Enough time to get the embryos off the island, presumably. 

We meet with our paleo experts on the flight to the island, where Hammond introduces Donald Gennar our lawyer from earlier with the others who will be going on this trip that spared no expense.  It is then we are introduced to another character, the chaotician Ian Malcom who is quite the eccentric. After some flirting and turbulence, we get to see how old fashion and practical Alan is as he can’t even fasten a seatbelt so he just hog ties it. Because, you know apparently Alan Grant and technology don’t match well, a common theme in the movie. 

Everyone is ready for the tour of the island and hop into their jeeps head towards a lake. At the lake Sattler looks at a plant that should be extinct, but is interrupted by Grant who shows her a brachiosaurus walking not but a few feet from them. After everyone in the group seeing dinosaurs, it is revealed that this is why he has brought the paleontologists to his island. After seeing the dinosaurs are obviously warm-blooded and move in herds we get some more information from Hammond who agrees to show them how he accomplished this.  Hammond says, 

“We clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles per hour.” Where Grant replied, “You have a T-Rex?”

We are then brought to the Visitor Center where we see a tour of the facility with videos and human animatronics. Oh, wait, never mind- “There are no animatronics in Jurassic Park. Those are the real miracle workers of the park.”, John Hammond. The scientists are working in the lab, and the ride keeps on going on. So, we get a scene where Grant, Sattler, and Malcom all get off the ride and go see the scientists doing their magic. With a funny comment by Grant, “You can’t interrupt the phases of mitosis.”- because you know you can see that through the windows.

Anyway, in the lab we are introduced to Wu, as well as some dinosaurs being hatched. Hammond wants it to imprint on him, because reasons? Malcom does his famous line that has become a meme, “Life… uh, finds a way.” We are then introduced to the species of the dinosaur which is velociraptor. This forces Alan to go to the raptor paddock as he is excited. It is here we are re-introduced to everyone’s favorite Game Warden who replies, “They should all be destroyed.” And explains that he is the expert on raptors in the park. The bromance between Grant and Muldoon has started as they bond about raptors. 

After a feeding scene where the raptors destroy an entire cow, we are seen a delicious plate of fish in the shape of a dinosaur foot print. The group discusses the morals of the park with everyone except the lawyer making critiques about Hammond’s plans. We also get another one of Malcom’s iconic meme worthy quotes. “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Which could also be what everyone is thinking about the kitchen staff and their food selection. 

The tour is about to begin and Hammond is informed that the target demographic have arrived, in the form of his grandchildren. The kids are attracted to Grant, mostly due to Sattler pushing them on them. Timothy especially is a fan of Grant and paleontology in general. Despite this the kids are trapped with the lawyer, so he has got to be an important character right?

So the tour begins, without the star attractions. No dilophosaurus, no T-Rex even though they bait it out with a goat. In the distance they see a sick dinosaur and everyone leaves the safety of the jeeps as there are no locks on the doors. Oh, this park and security, its almost like it doesn't have any. Anyway, they go out and see a sick Triceratops. After some poop jokes Sattler stays back with the vet to help the Triceratops.  While the others head back to the cars thanks to a storm the tour is now to return to the Visitor’s Center.

“God Creates dinosaurs, god destroys dinosaurs, god creates man, man creates dinosaurs.” Ian Malcom
“Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherit the earth.”- Sattler

But, this is where our lovely antagonist Dennis unleashes hell. He is trying to get off the island after the evacuation and steal the embryos. To do this he needs to shut off the power for some reason. Despite the fact he is an expert hacker, he shuts down the power and hacks the system to cover his tracks as he steals the embryos.

This effects the parks and the storm agitates the dinosaurs. The T-Rex breaks out not long after the cars stop in front of its paddock. Oh, yeah it eats the goat. Our brave lawyer leaves the kids behind and hides in the outhouse while Malcom and Grant try to help the kids. But, the kids are well quite stupid and attract the T-Rex which busts into their car forcing Malcom and Grant to play hero. Malcom leads the T-Rex away only to be crushed by foliage and the remnants of the outhouse and our brave lawyer is eaten by the T-Rex. What a shitty day for him. 

Grant utters some of the stupidest phrases in Jurassic Park history, “Don’t move! It can’t see us if we don’t move.” when he rescues Lex from the jaws of the T-Rex. The dinosaur can't see them apparently and attacks the car instead.  The T-Rex then pushes the car, while Timmy is still trapped in the car, off the cliff. Lex and Grant Tarzan vine climb down the cliff. This cliff was somehow next to the T-Rex paddock, convenient. Because plot reasons. Alexis and Grant can climb down the cliff, but Grant races to save Timmy trapped in the car. Grant and Timmy climb down the tree while the car anticlimactically follows them in a chase. Is this a dinosaur movie or Maximum Overdrive. 

“Well, we are back I the car!”- Timmy
“But, at least we are off the tree.”- Grant

Sattler returns with Muldoon to the site looking for the children and Grant. They find Malcom under debris and then go down to the location of the car, but don’t find them. Sattler does find tracks, believing that they are alive. But, that is when the T-Rex appears and the most iconic and epic chase scene in film history is depicted.

It is also around this time that the totally not- Samuel Jackson cameo IT guy, fixes Dennis’s disaster by shutting down the system. He finds out that he accomplishes the impossible, but needs to go boot up the power from the generators. He says it will take only fifteen minutes and he will have the power back on. This is important. Also Dennis is killed by Cobra Commander, I mean the Dilophosaur at some point. 

Grant and the kids find shelter in a tree with Brachiosaurs in the distance. Lex is scared about the dinosaurs, but Grant and Timmy explain that they are plant eaters or as Timmy calls them, “Veggiesaurus”. Grant calls them over and one of the Brachiosaurus sneeze on Lex. Probably traumatizing the poor girl even more than she already is. Good going Grant.

Back at the Visitor Center, Sattler and Hammond get into a moral argument. This argument starts when Hammond is still delusional his park can still function after this debacle. He keeps saying he spared no expense, but people are dying out there. Which leads to a moral crisis in which Hammond is finally shut up and Sattler makes some good points. Making, pretty much everything Macolm said become prophetic.

“You never had control. That’s the illusion.”- Sattler to Hammond.

Grant and the kids wake up and head towards the Visitor Center. Along the way they find eggs and confirm that the dinosaurs are breeding. It doesn’t matter if the animals were all female. Grant, discusses frog DNA was used to fill the gaps, and some amphibians can change sex in single sex environments therefore the dinosaurs are doing the same. Let’s ignore that isn’t how evolution, works but it proves Malcom’s point and that is why this scene is thrown in. Life did, uh, find a way. Movie magic more like it. 

Now at a massive field, Grant with his loving family encounters a herd of Gallimimus. He is amazed by the creatures as they are moving like a flock of birds evading a predator. Grant apparently missed context clues as a kid in elementary school as he doesn't put two and two togehter. They hide behind a logl as they see the flock of Gallimimus run away. Suddenly, the T-Rex comes out and eats a Gallimimus and roars in triumph.

It has been more than fifteen minutes, so Sattler and Muldoon go investigate. Muldoon’s fears are realized when they pass the raptor paddock only to see that the raptors have escaped. They get to the generator where Muldoon finds the "Big One" up ahead and are being hunted. He tells Sattler to make a run for it while he tries to kill the big female pack mother. Only to be caught in a trap by the clever girls.

“Clever Girl”, Muldoon’s last meme worthy words.

At the generator, Sattler fixes the power, but is attacked by velociraptors, because she was an idiot and didn’t lock the door or close it for that matter. Yes, we find out later raptors can open doors, but woman why didn’t lock the freaking door if you knew you were being hunted? Stupidity aside, she manages to turn the power on. She isn't a horror movie protagonist is she?

Before all of this Grant and the kids go on a rock-climbing excursion, and by rock climbing I mean an electric fence, which is out of power. Grant and the others climb, with Timmy who isn’t a very fast climber and afraid of heights. That is when the power goes on and Timmy is shocked by the voltage. He is revived by Grant, but again this is why he should never be near kids.

 Eventually, a tearful reunion between Grant and Sattler occurs while the kids who were left unsupervised, good going Grant, back at the Visitor Center. The kids have a Bugs Bunny moment with the raptors who can open doors, but don’t know what a reflection is. After the iconic cartoon scene ends, the kids met up with Sattler and Grant. Kidding aside the kitchen scene is one of the best scenes in thie film. 

The raptors appear again, trying to open the door. Everyone is back together in the computer room. the raptors try to open the door while the adults push the door back leaving the gun a bit away. But, Lex is a computer hacker genius who knows about LINUX and saves the day by locking the doors. Too bad the windows are glass are not computer operated and the raptors break through. Rolls Eyes.

The cast of heroes and kids escape through the air ducts and make it out to the lobby landing on the dinosaur fossil exhibit. Where the raptors once again terrorize them, only for Rexie to come in to the rescue, because apparently velociraptor tastes better than human. The humans use this chance to flee and Grant meets up with Hammond and Malcom. Where we get the answer, we have been waiting for. Hammond realized he did spare expenses and won’t be continuing his park. I mean, he must pay for the deaths his incompetence caused, not to mention to silence all the survivors.

“Mr. Hammond after careful consideration, I have decided that I won’t be endorsing your park.” – Grant
“So have I!”- Hammond
 
So, Jurassic Park is a fun film about the morality of cloning dinosaurs and about the problems with unchecked capitalism. No, seriously half the problems in this film occur, because there are no rules or regulations in what the INGEN is doing. This isn’t anti-capitalistic, its anti-stupid business decisions. Most of these problems could be solved with better protocols, but since Jurassic Park is a private island owned by INGEN leased by the  Costa Rican government, no actual precautions were used. Like the fact the dinosaurs can’t produce lysine and die. Which is pointless since all animals can get lysine by having a lysine rich diet. Movie magic aside, it is quite hilarious that the film's problems are chocked to bad decisions by Hammond. Dennis was the bad guy, because he had finanicial problems, and apparently wasn't paid good enough to stay loyal to Hammond. Although, Dennis is pretty sleazy. 

I love the film, it has some interesting characters, and is an action-packed fun-fest. The best scenes include human-dinosaur interactions and the morality play is an important aspect of the film. Dr. Ellie Sattler, Lex and the female dinosaurs form the cornerstone of strong female characters of the film. Sexism is addressed in a very 90’s type of way, and we see some tropes being broken from the 80’s action hero. Overall, the film isn't very revolutionary today, but it had some ground-breaking CGI that still looks good today. 


Beyond that it’s just a fun movie with dinosaurs that talks a bit about morality like all the great science fiction works of old be it Frankenstein or even the novel which it was adapted. There is an idea, I might have to do a book review of the OG Jurassic Park novel. Maybe another time, and it won’t be 65 million years in the making.
            
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My main gripe is not a lot of humans die, which is sad. Next, week we will review it’s sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and how Hammond’s mistakes continue to replay itself, this time on a larger and much more epic scale.