Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - review

"That's how it starts with 'ooohs' and 'aaahhs' but later there's running and screaming"

Jurassic World breathed new life into an all-but-extinct franchise back in 2015, to the tune of over $1 billion dollars, prompting the "ooohs" and "aaahs".
Now Fallen Kingdom could cause the running and screaming from the franchise as it splits audiences like a T-Rex tearing through a lawyer on Isla Nublar.
While Jurassic World was a success, there were some that felt it was just rehashing the original story for a new audience. Similar to what Star Wars did with the Force Awakens.
Well if World is Force Awakens, then Fallen Kingdom is definitely The Last Jedi because it will divide the fans by destroying what has gone before (metaphorically and literally by blowing up the original island) and forging its own path, albeit for better or worse.
At first glance, this did not appear to be the case as the first trailer and the first hour of the film play out like a beat-for-beat retread of The Lost World.
Character with previous bad experiences in the park is summoned to an old man's mansion and asked to return to help save the dinosaurs. In this case it is Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire, who is re-introduced via a shot of her much maligned high heels, before pointedly switching to boots upon the island. There, like Malcolm did in the original, they team up with an ex and a couple of thinly sketched supporting characters to save the day but are hindered in their efforts by a bald hunter in khakis who may or may not have a hidden agenda.
In fact, Ted Levine's character seems to be dressed as the lead truck Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark and the whole first act has a Indy trying to recover the Ark from the Nazis-vibe with the team hiding on board a boat and dressing like the villains. Even Giachianno's score has a familiar theme to that other Spielberg classic.
Once they are off the island, following one of the most emotionally moving shots in the saga and indeed of the last few years of cinemagoing, J.A. Bayona is finally able to take the franchise in a new direction. Like a geneticist, creating a new hybrid of dinosaur perhaps.
Having made his name with The Orphanage, Bayona goes back to the well by setting the remainder of the film within a creepy mansion. This one also features a dark secret in the basement but unfortunately this is a surprise that was spoiled by the final trailer for the film.
To be honest, if you have seen that trailer, you have seen Fallen Kingdom as there are no real surprises left to be had.
At one point, Claire asks Owen (Chris Pratt), "Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?"
For many of us, our idea of what a dinosaur is and looks like was from Jurassic Park and the incredible animatronics.
Sadly, the majority of the dinosaurs in this film are now CGI and they do lose some of that sense of wonder knowing they were created in a computer rather than a lab. Which is a huge shame given how well the effects from the original film still hold up.
The over-reliance on CGI dinosaurs and the 12A rating mean that Bayona's attempts to create a stalk n slash style horror mood in the third act lose some of their power and the end result is as toothless and neutered as a hand-reared velociraptor.

Mild spoilers coming after the scary dinosaur...

Please can we call time on the T-Rex suddenly appearing in shot to eat something/someone? Yes it is a shock for the audience but are we really expected to still believe that the dinosaur or character does not see or hear it coming?!

End of spoilers. Here is a happy dinosaur!

Anyway, the kid at the beginning of the first Jurassic Park said it best, "that's not scary, looks more like a six foot turkey". That's what Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is, a giant turkey that is about to go extinct.

2 stars (would have been 1 star but for the Brachiosaurus shot)

Ready Player One - review

When Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One was released, it was described as "the holy grail of pop culture references".
It was therefore a bit of a surprise when Steven Spielberg stepped forward to direct the adaptation. After all, not many have done more than Spielberg when it comes to 80s pop culture. As evidenced by the numerous references to his work in the novel.
But really there was no one better to tackle the material of a virtual online world where people go to escape and get in touch with their inner child. Because much of his work is about the innocence and wonder of seeing the world as a child (E.T., Jurassic Park, Hook).
The book and film's detractors, most of whom were ironically "online", have slated the material as nothing more than page after page of mentions of films, TV programmes, music and games allowing multiple opportunities to use this meme:

In fact the only people who worked harder than the visual effects designers on the film were the team tasked with securing the licences to feature all the different characters and images.
Spielberg makes sure their efforts were not in vain by doubling down on the references and begins the story with a drag race around a virtual Manhattan where cars and bikes such as a DeLorean, Tetsuo's bike from Akira, the Batmobile, Ecto-1, etc must dodge dangers including a T-Rex and end-of-level boss King Kong.
It is an exhilarating sequence that shows that Spielberg is still down with the kids looking to take his place on the Summer blockbuster throne.
After that however, he dials it back from 11 and thankfully the references take a back seat to the plot which sees a group of gamers including Wade Watts' Parzival attempt to solve the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory style competition set down by the Oasis creator James Halliday to find three Easter Eggs within the online world in order to win $500 trillion dollars and control of the system.
The film does stay relatively faithful to the book but does streamline the process. Here taking a matter of weeks rather than years as Parzival (Tye Sheridan) and his friends battle against the IOI corporation led by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) for control of the Oasis and stop it becoming a monetised, corporate entity instead of the escape, haven (and yes) oasis that it is.
The more obscure nods and references to certain computer games and films that feature in some of the major plot moments are replaced with more audience-friendly choices which leads to one of the most jaw-dropping, audacious sequences that will feature in any mainstream movie this year.
The gamers must enter a movie watched by Halliday on his first date in order to gain one of the keys but to say which film would spoil the surprise. Suffice to say, seeing the characters walk into the film and interact with the characters and environment is something truly special and is undoubtedly the highlight of the film... provided you have the belly for it that is.
The main issue the film has is balancing the real world sequences vs the Oasis.
It does spend more time with the characters when they are away from their online avatars than the book but due to the nature of the beast, the Avatars have more personality within the Oasis than they do outside. Perhaps this is a deliberate choice as they feel more at home there than in the real world.
It is a frustration that more time wasn't spent building up day-to-day life outside of the Oasis to provide more context as to why people are escaping. Instead we just get a couple of throwaway lines of dialogue and glimpses of "the stacks", the towers of mobile homes where Watts stays.
Admittedly when the Oasis is as beautifully rendered as it is, the filmmakers themselves are so enthralled with it they don't want to leave either. They have nailed the look of the virtual reality space with the characters and environments looking more realistic than a computer game but not uncanny valley enough to pass for real.
This movie is going to have a huge shelf life on demand and Blu Ray as film nerds, similar to the ones who trawl through Halliday's Almanac, spend hours going through the film frame by frame to spot all the references in the background. Of which there are probably thousands. On first viewing, people like Freddy Krueger, Chucky, Harley Quinn, Chun-Li, Gandalf were spotted wandering around. Even Sorrento's avatar looks like Jon Hamm playing Superman Red Son (and now I want to see that movie).
Powered by Alan Silvestri's score that amplifies that 80s vibe, and quite often echoes his music from Back To The Future, this is the ultimate trip for fans of nostalgia who ever wanted the chance to live in their favourite media. Although perhaps not quite, as one Twitter user called it, "our Black Panther" as it is fair to say that nerds have been pretty well represented on screen for years now. In fact, every John Hughes film was really their Black Panther!
However there is always a danger to this obsession with nostalgia and living in the past or an online world separate from reality. As Michael Sheen's character in Midnight In Paris said;
“Nostalgia is denial. Denial of the painful present. The name for this denial is Golden Age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present.”

As much as Spielberg delivers in creating a world in which it would be incredibly appealing to disappear into to escape the problems and stresses of everyday life, and let's face it we could all use something like that at the moment. He also is careful to walk the line and show that not everything is perfect within this world of pure imagination when viewed through those rose-tinted VR headsets. Personified by the life of the creator James Halliday who is played the perfect amount of eccentricity and sadness by Mark Rylance.

Spielberg knows that the mediums of video games and movies are great as an escape for a few hours. Most audiences growing up in the Eighties would still stick on Raiders Of The Lost Ark or E.T. and immediately be drawn back to their childhood. But he knows that they are still no substitute for the real world and real human interaction.

Unlike the characters in a video game, where the stakes are sometimes life and death, with the fate of the world at stake, Ready Player One knows that it is a video game, a popcorn movie. A slice of entertainment that can be enjoyed and then when it is game over, turned off and you are back in the real world. But it will always be there, on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered one day, turned on and ready to welcome you fondly back with those iconic words... Ready player one.

4 stars

The Post - review

Picture the scene. An angry, irate President of the United States is on his phone, badmouthing and threatening the nation's newspapers for publishing stories that show their decision making, character and government in bad light.

Ah, it's almost too easy isn't it.

Back in 1971, The Pentagon Papers scandal, 7000 pages of classified government documents that proved that a number of administrations had deceived the American people about the Vietnam war, saw the owner and editor of The Washington Post put everything on the line to fight for their rights under the first amendment and freedom of press. Not only to keep their paper going but for the rights of all newspapers.
Astoundingly, this is a fight that is still going on today in the era of "Fake News" and "Alternative Facts". Now, more than ever, the papers still have a duty and an obligation to hold our governments accountable. Because as editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) says "If we don't, who will?"
The decision to publish ultimately lies with the owner of the paper, Katherine "Kay" Graham (Meryl Streep) who has taken over the running of the family business. Originally passed over in favour of her husband, she assumed the role following his tragic death.
The Post might not win the big awards this year but it would certainly win the title of Most Socially Relevant Film of 2018. Even though it is based on historical fact, you couldn't have scripted a more timely and important film for the times we live in. For not only is the integrity and freedom of the press under attack but with the current #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, the role of women in society and business is going through a period of tremendous change.
When the audience is first introduced to Kay, she is not seen as an equal by the entirely male members of the board. She has men talking over her or mansplained to on a constant basis.
Yet she finds the resolve to take ownership of her paper and decides to publish the story, no matter the cost.
Sarah Paulson, as Bradlee's wife, gives an affective and moving speech about Graham's bravery in standing up to the board and choosing to run the paper in her own way and how hard it must have been.
"When you've been told time and time again that you are not there, it's hard to believe that's not true"
It's a quote that is still resonant today and it can be applied to the woman who have courageously chosen to stand up and hold men accountable for their actions.
The most shocking thing about The Post is not the fact that some 46 years on, we are still having the same arguments about the freedom of the press or that men find the idea of a female boss astounding.
No, the most surprising fact about The Post is that it is the first time that Spielberg, Streep and Hanks have worked together. This dream team coasts along, all within their comfort zone, and while they might not be firing on all cylinders, even an average day for this trip is a great day for cinema and ultimately delivers a stirring ode to the power of the press, a wonderful nostalgic look at the old school methods that reporters had to use to find their sources and publish the news (there was no Google and no internet). It's little wonder that there are so many scenes of people anxiously waiting on or receiving phone calls.
One even wonders if Tom Hanks himself supplied all the vintage typewriters used in the Washington Post offices?
It reminds us that we have come on leaps and bounds since the Seventies but there is still a lot of vital work to do. As evidence by the final scenes where a woman is relaying the Supreme Court's verdict that "Freedom of press for the governed not the Governors", only to be shouted over by a man who has received the information by fax!
It is also admirable that Spielberg ends the film with a scene that could have served as a post credit sting setting up the Watergate scandal and a Washington Post Extended Universe linking to All The President's Men.

4 stars

The Adventures Of Tintin - review

This is the first of several planned Tintin films by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson and is an amalgamation of three of Herge's stories The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab with the Golden Claws, but more appropriately it could have been called Tintin And His Attempt To Escape The Uncanny Valley.
There was a lot of debate amongst fans of the books when it was first announced that the film would be produced using motion capture rather than animation.  You can understand its purpose when it encorporates otherworldly or non-human characters into live action films (Na'vi, Gollum, Caesar, etc) but when the style is that close to animation, is there any real benefit?
The answer, unfortunately, is not really.
The main benefit of using mo-cap over voice work is that you can use the actor's whole performance and therefore choose actors whole will bring something to the part, but the likes of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Jamie Bell are fairly anonymous in their portrayals, adding little more than a star name on the poster.
I don't know if it was Bell's fault, the script or if the character is the same in the comics, but Tintin was almost a non-entity in the film.  He's one dimensional as the sketch he is given at the beginning of the film based on Herge's drawing.  If you aren't familiar with the comics then the only character development we get as an audience is that he's a reporter (of undetermined age) who has a dog called Snowy.   That's it, otherwise he is just there to move the plot from A to B.  As adventurer's go, Indiana Jones he is not.

Rather unsurprisingly, the only one to be as three dimensional as the impressive visuals is Captain Archibald Haddock, thanks to being played by the King of Motion Capture, Mr Andy Serkis.  Although I can't be the only one who thought Haddock shared more than a passing resemblance to producer Peter Jackson.  It may not be as impressive a performance as that of Caesar from ROTPOTA, but Serkis is clearly having a ball as the drunken, boorish Scottish seaman (snigger) who comes to learn that his destiny lies along a different course... but perhaps Serkis was just happy at not having to play Snowy the dog!
Spielberg first became aware of Tintin back in 1982 when film critics compared elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark to the boy reporter's series of adventures, and this film is more in keeping with the tone and feel of Raiders than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Exotic locations, missing treasure and artefacts, non-stop action, and of course, a terrific John Williams score.  The film excels during some stunning action sequences but it's a shame the script doesn't masure in terms of the vision which is disappointing considering it was written by such talented guys as Moffat, Wright & Cornish.
Spielberg demonstrates why he is one of the best directors of all time with a chase sequence through the port of Bacchar that is done in one complete shot and rivals the truck chase in Raiders or the mine cart chase in Temple of Doom for sheer excitement.
With CGI and motion capture, what can be achieved on screen is only limited by imagination, and Spielberg shows how good he is with Haddock vividly recounting the tale of his grandfather and Pirate Red Rackham as it seamlessly switches between flashback and present day.
If the script and characterisation can match the imagination, passion and vision of messers Spielberg and Jackson, then I'm prepared to give Tintin another shot... as long as the sequel doesn't involve aliens!

3 stars