Hello and welcome to an ultra brief edition of The Comic Shop!
Just wanted to take a minute to give my two cents on the hottest movie on the planet. Not sure what I could add to the discussion at this point, but I will do my best.
Once I heard the chords of the theme from the original "Jurassic Park" play and saw the gates open I was instantly transported back to a time when I was 10 years old. Movies have always had a kind of magic to me, and for pure nostalgia reasons I sat with goosebumps through a good majority of this one.
I thought it was extremely high brow that the park on the screen in a lot of ways was a commentary on the movie. It mocked the pervasive corporate nature of most things nowadays "the Indominus Rex brought to you by Verizon Wireless" while being an abject lesson on brand identity/inclusion (the park came complete with a jewelry galleria, Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, and many other identifiable corporate set pieces).
I make no bones about the fact that I am a Pratt fan, and he absolutely shines in this vehicle. While some complaints about his "Guardians" persona were that it was not all together different from his Andy Dwyer character his "JW" characterization was a world different than what we have seen before. His character is powerful, fun, and his motivations are easy to understand.
The other actors/characterizations in the movie are good enough if not a little two dimensional. We have the busy-business-woman-who-is-too-busy-with-business-to-do-non-business-things-woman played acceptably by Bryce Dallas Howard. There is the evil warmonger that wants innocent scientific discoveries put to use for his evil warmongering played by the kingpin of crime Vincent D'onofrio. We also have brave console nerds, generic army dudes, other generic army dudes, and kids we are supposed to like. So it goes without saying that all the recognizable tropes are present and accounted for, but the movie was so fun that I forgave that quickly.
While nothing can or will replicate the magic of Stan Winston's original dino creations the first "Jurassic" film broke new ground on computer generated images, and this one continues that tradition with dinos that look and feel authentic.
The plot is somewhat predictable, but the execution is outstanding. Seeing Pratt ride off into battle on a motorcycle flanked by his velociraptor pack made me as giddy as a schoolboy. "Jurassic World" hits on all the wonderfully absurd and creative notes with a gusto like no other.
In all I have to say although I was not expecting a lot from this movie going in the more I heard about it the more my interest grew. Then when I actually saw the finished product on the screen I was absolutely thrilled with what I was watching.
I give it a very solid TCSB rating of two thumbs up!
