REVIEW: Redline

I've been on something of an anime kick as of late (getting up to speed on both Konosuba and My Hero Academia in less than a week), so it felt appropriate to finally tick off a film that's been sitting in my backlog for a good couple of years now; 2009's Redline. I normally tend to avoid summarizing movies as "X crossed with Y", but I simply can't help myself in the case of Redline. This is Speed Racer crossed with Wacky Races in the style of Mad Max: Fury Road, but in space. It's a film every bit as absurd as that description, more than making up for what it lacks in plot with some of the most stunningly engaging animation I've ever seen.

Set in the far reaches of space, the film follows "Sweet" JP (Takuya Kimura), a rockabilly racer with a checkered past whose driving skills are nearly as impressive as his pompadour. When JP finds himself voted in as a participant in the titular Redline race (a highly anticipated annual event using traditional motors only), he can't help but say no, even though the race is set to be held on the aptly-named Roboworld, a planet populated entirely by cyborg zealots. The president of Roboworld (Kōsei Hirota) is staunchly against hosting the Redline on his planet, as he fears the broadcast of the race could reveal a number of illegal military operations (which would undoubtedly violate a great number of treaties); as such, he has pledged to terminate any and all racers he finds on his planet. As if that wasn't enough, JP is oblivious to the treachery of his longtime partner, Frisbee (Tadanobu Asano), a mechanic who's gotten in deep with the mob. Not only does he need to win the Redline, he has to survive, all while pursuing the heart of fellow racer, Sonoshee McLaren (Yû Aoi). It's a romance/drama/action/sci-fi extravaganza and I honestly had so so much fun with it.

I tend to use the term "feast for the eyes" regrettably often whenever it comes to discussing animated films, and Redline is definitely no slouch when it comes to visuals. I love everything about the way this movie looks, feels, and moves. The character designs are imaginative and endearing, never getting too silly or outlandish so as to distract from the action. Along with JP and Sonoshee, we have a dirty-cop gorilla man (chasing after the other participants for speeding, naturally), a pair of bounty hunters that definitely aren't parodies of Batman and Robin, and a well-mannered robot who literally is his own car (among others). It feels trite to say something like "this film is bursting at the seams with pure imagination", as if something as abstract and subjective as imagination could be measured, but I really can't think of a better way to express myself here. It's an animated feature that most definitely leaves a big impression. There are obvious influences from existing works (see the initial Speed Racer/Wacky Races/Mad Max comparison), but it's got its own distinct identity as well. The designs of everything from the racers to their vehicles to the various planets themselves are just so vivid and creative; it's one of those films like Wizards or Fantastic Planet, where I just want to completely immerse myself in the art direction and design.

With such fantastic designs, it should go without saying that the animation here is also top-knotch. I don't know if I've ever uttered, "wew, that looked expensive" at an animated film as often as I did with Redline. According to my rudimentary research, the film was in production for some seven years, and took over 100,000 individual drawings to complete; rest assured, the final project looks it. I especially loved the fish-eye effect used to convey mind-blistering speeds (a winning combo when paired with JP's towering hairdo). If you're into psychadelic visuals like those found in FLCL or Yellow Submarine, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to add Redline to your "must watch" list.

If I have any real criticism, it simply has to do with the plot. Redline is by no means a complex or thematically-heavy movie; there's a race, our main character wants to win said race, said main character drives really really fast. That's about it. It's most definitely more about the visuals here than it is the plot, which I honestly feel is somewhat forgivable, given the circumstances. The entire plot of Redline focuses in on this one race, and damned if it isn't one hell of a race. It doesn't attempt to be anything more than it is by spouting off pseudo-intellectualisms in an attempt to trick the viewer into thinking that there's anything close to a healthy balance between style and substance. This is a film that 110% knows what it is about, and I honestly respect that. The filmmakers knew that they were making a movie about really cool-looking cars that drive really quickly across stunningly-detailed alien planets, and that's exactly what we get. 

Even then, with how simple the plot is, I found myself surprisingly invested in the drama between JP and Frisbee; the film does slow down at points to give us some insight into their history together, allowing us time to breathe between the insanely engaging action beats. For as simplistic as the plot is, the character interactions are given a good amount of attention (at least moreso than one might expect with a project as visually-focused as this). The time we spend with our main cast isn't just a formality before we can get back to the fast cars and hellacious crashes. Rather than having the characters outright state what their motivations are, the audience is left to piece everything together from implicit details after the credits roll; some might call this lazy, I call it efficient. Both the film and the audience are on the same page, the movie's strongest suit is the manner in which it liberally doles out speed and adrenaline. Additional exposition would have just weighed everything down, so I appreciate the film's confidence in its audience to figure out why certain characters act the way that they do without spoon-feeding it to us, getting in the way of the main event in the process.

I don't really have much else to say about Redline. It's an awesome little flick. If you're a fan of animation (or anime specifically), consider this mandatory viewing; the same goes for those of you who are into cars. It's not an overly-complicated movie, it's just an all-around good time. The plot isn't much to write home about, but Redline more than makes up for its lack of subtextual depth with its positively stunning animation and art direction; watch it on a big screen with a good sound system and all the lights turned off, it'll blow you away.

REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Speaking as someone who liked the first Ant-Man, I feel like even I have to agree with everyone else in saying "who even cares about Ant-Man and The Wasp after THAT?" I mean, can you blame us? I figured I'd change my mind and come around after the hype from Infinity War died down, but it's two months later and I still can't fathom why Marvel decided to release their biggest and most-awaited film to date before their sequel to Ant-Man. I was reasonably excited for this movie, yet I still found myself saying "oh yeah, that did just came out, didn't it?" last weekend. I went to the theater, grabbed my ticket, and settled in with low expectations for an offbeat, inoffensive sci-fi/comedy romp. Unfortunately, I feel like the filmmakers approached this project with those same expectations in mind, and therein lies the problem.

Set two years after the first film, we find Scott Lang under house arrest after the airport incident in Captain America: Civil War. He hasn't worn the Ant-Man suit since, spending his sentence making up for lost time with his daughter, Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson); this all changes when he's contacted once again by Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and her father, Hank (Michael Douglas). After the events of the first Ant-Man film, the two have been working on a device capable of accessing the Quantum Realm, the mysterious, sub-atomic dimension where Hope's mother (and Hank's wife), Janet (Michelle Pfeifer), is thought to be lost. Seeing as how Scott successfully navigated the Quantum Realm in the first movie, Hank and Hope believe him to be the key to locating and rescuing Janet. Naturally, it's not quite that easy; things are complicated, not only by Scott's incarceration, but by the Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a sinister operative with the ability to phase through solid matter and a keen interest in Hank's research on Quantum energy. With Janet's life hanging in the balance, it's up to Ant-Man and The Wasp to save the day without violating the terms of Scott's plea arrangement.

If this movie has a strong-suit, it's most definitely the character interactions. Scott Lang continues to be one of the most likeable protagonists in the MCU, and his dynamic with Hope reaches new heights this time around. It would have been so simple to go with the old cliché of "inept but loveable man/capable but angry woman", but instead we're allowed moments to see that Hope genuinely cares about Scott. This isn't a one-sided attraction, meant to act as wish-fulfillment for any divorced dads in the audience; they work well together, both as superheroes and human beings, and this is all thanks to Rudd and Lilly's charming "workplace romance"-style chemistry. I also really liked Scott's family dynamic this time around; his relationship with Cassie continues to be tooth-achingly adorable, and it's really nice to see a divorced couple interact in a realistic yet positive manner. There's no glimmer of hope that Scott and his ex-wife (played by Judy Greer) are going to get back together, but they're both totally invested in putting their daughter first, despite the circumstances of their family situation. There isn't any of that "my ex-wife is a shrew and her new man is a tool, they're gonna get some gratifying comuppance" nonsense to be found here; it's a genuinely sweet (if a tad idyllic) portrayal of how parents and step-parents can overcome personal drama and past disputes to make a positive impact in their child's life.

Really, this movie does a lot of interesting things regarding morality and the way people overcome personal conflicts with one another. Ghost is another excellent antagonist in the modern MCU, doing questionable things for perfectly understandable reasons. Her life is at risk, the same as Janet's, so our heroes are placed in a tricky spot; if they do as Ghost asks, they're throwing away their chance at saving Hope's mother. But if they "beat" Ghost the way a superhero usually might, they're essentially condemning her to a painful death, as her condition worsens to the point that it literally causes her to phase out of existence. It's a curious predicament that leads to an admittedly inventive outcome, albeit by way of a conflict resolution that completely dismisses any and all intrigue generated by this catch-22 of a situation (not unlike the way things were resolved in Black Panther). It gives us a host of charming character interactions and a villain who plays with the story and cast in ways you wouldn't necessarily expect, only to handicap itself with a complete and utter lack of any and all ambition in every other respect.

It's a film that, compared to its predecessor, feels much more confident and self-assured of its own identity. Typically, this would be a positive thing, except that the identity in question is painfully unremarkable in nearly every way. The first Ant-Man felt like a truly daring experiment for Marvel Studios; it's the film that made everyone say "okay, I liked The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, but really? Ant-Man?" It had an uphill battle to fight in winning over mainstream audiences, and it more than succeeded. Ant-Man and The Wasp, however, feels like exactly what you'd expect if you asked someone to make a generic Marvel movie. It feels like it lacks an identity of its own, especially in a visual sense, which leads me to believe that everything I found so impressive and imaginative about the first Ant-Man was just left-over details from the original Edgar Wright draft. Unlike its predecessor, Ant-Man and The Wasp has no groundwork to build off of, so everything feels noticably flatter as a result.

The action in particular suffers the worst here; outside of a fun and engaging chase sequence through the streets of San Francisco, the fight scenes here are nothing to write home about. We rarely see things from Ant-Man or Wasp's tiny perspective (which, visually speaking, was the best thing about the first movie); instead, get ready to watch that "shrink, dodge, grow, kick, shrink, dodge, grow, kick" maneuver over and over and over again. I understand that it can be challenging to showcase shrinking powers when the main villain is a normal-sized human 100% of the time, but then that's sort of the challenge, isn't it? There's also next to no ant-based action, which was a huge disappointment for me, seeing as how that's easily Ant-Man's most unique ability. Remember that insane sequence in the first movie where Scott learned about all the different types of ants he'd be using during the heist? Here, the ants are purely set dressing and transportation, nothing more (in a movie called Ant-Man and The Wasp, no less). It's a nitpick, sure, but again, why do it at all if you're not even going to try? Ant-Man is a challenging character to bring to life on the big screen, but that's supposed to be the appeal; a movie about Ant-Man isn't going to be as straightforward in terms of its action, direction, or visuals as a movie about Captain America or The Hulk. Instead of rising to the occasion like the first movie did, Ant-Man and The Wasp puts all of its chips on its (admittedly endearing) cast and ends up feeling lesser overall because of it.

All of those flaws, however, more or less fell within my expectations. I came in expecting a lighthearted, low-stakes sci-fi adventure, nothing anywhere near on the same level as Infinity War, and that's basically what I got. I can excuse some preference-based hang-ups and nitpicks for a situation like this, where the film in question isn't really aspiring to be anything more than an enjoyable, down-to-earth romp. What I can't excuse, however, is the numerous plot holes, conveniences, and outright examples of laziness found within this film's storyline. I love Michelle Pfeifer and think she's a perfect choice for the role of Janet Van Dyne, but it's not hyperbole to say that her chunk of the story is held together with chewing gum and dental floss. Everyone's talking about the amount of technobabble in this film, which, to be fair, is to be expected from a character as deeply-rooted in the world of fantastical super-science as Ant-Man. Normally, a character like Scott Lang would act as the everyman, giving Hank and Hope an excuse to put everything in layman's terms for the audience. It's a well-worn trope, but it's more or less forgivable, seeing as how it plays a practical purpose in conveying plot details to the audience (i.e. the scene in Event Horizon in which Sam Niell sticks a pencil through a folded sheet of paper to explain warp-travel). 

The only problem is that we never really get that explanation. The constant repetition of the word "quantum" is just filler, to the point that the film itself makes it the punchline of a joke. You could make the argument that this is meant to be a clever subversion of a classic sci-fi trope (since, in reality, Hank Pym probably wouldn't waste his time explaining the ins and outs of quantum science to a schmo like Scott, especially while on the clock), but I feel that it's much more likely that the filmmakers realized that if they attempted to explain the technobabble, the entire plot would fall apart. The whole point of sci-fi is that it's fiction rooted in science; it's fascinating because, even though concepts like laser guns and robot suits are fantastical, we can more or less rationalize how they might work. Here, the Quantum Realm is essentially magic; if you were to remove every instance of the word "quantum" from the script, you'd end up with a story that answers every pertinent question with "because". How did Janet survive in the Quantum Realm for 30 years without starving or going insane? Because. Why do our heroes only have a set amount of time to rescue her? Because. I'd be fine if the Ant-Man series started to become more fantasy than sci-fi (hey, the opposite worked out alright for Thor), but this just feels indefensibly lazy. Any time a plot point has to happen, the film forces it through by way of some made-up science-y sounding words. It's the same issue I had with the black goo in Prometheus, and I honestly wouldn't care if all of these conveniences didn't occur in places that are integral to the plot we're supposed to care about. You can have harmless conveniences in your movie; it's convenient that Scott happened to be robbing a house with a shrink suit in the basement in the first Ant-Man, but the film isn't lesser for it. You can use coincidence to get your characters into a predicament, but you should never use it to get them out of it, which is something Ant-Man and The Wasp does at all the worst moments. A movie can be off-beat and endearing without insulting the viewer's intelligence, but then that's a balance that this film struggles to grasp (despite a few clever moments here and there).

Despite some really enjoyable performances and some occasionally fun action, Ant-Man and The Wasp only manages to feel painfully average at best. It's inoffensive, but altogether unremarkable, which is a shame, seeing as how this is the 20th film in the MCU. If you're just looking for an excuse to go to the cinema this summer, you could most definitely do worse, and I know kids are gonna love this just as much as they loved the first one (if you have small children, it's sure to inspire less awkward conversations about the nature of mortality than Infinity War did). That said, I'm not sure I need another Ant-Man adventure after this, if this is all they're going to aspire to be. There's nothing wrong with having more low-key entries in something as massive as the MCU; movies like Ant-Man can provide some much needed levity and breathing room in-between the larger blockbusters. But just because a movie aims to be fun and laid-back doesn't mean it has to feel this unambitious and lazy. It's just a victory lap after Infinity War, and I really hope Marvel Studios avoids this kind of attitude in the future. With how much time, effort, and money they've poured into crafting the MCU into an interwoven narrative of annual blockbusters, the one thing they should never aspire to be is "fun enough, but nonessential viewing", which is exactly what Ant-Man and The Wasp turned out to be.

Best Boys Episode 5: Predator's Day Out

On this latest episode of Best Boys, Mark is joined once again by Chris as the two discuss the new trailer for Shane Black's The Predator, that time Black Manta pretended to have autism, and how that one Teen Titans shirt with the waffles showed up in literally every anime club across the late 2000's.

(Incredibles 2 spoilers start at 01:14:00 and end at 01:49:57)

REVIEW: Hereditary

This is going to be awkward. Many a time on this blog, I've sung the praises of A24, the company responsible for distributing some of the best films I've seen in recent years (The VVitch, The Lobster, and The Disaster Artist, among others). It's gotten to the point that I get excited whenever I see an A24 logo in a trailer; the films they put out vary in terms of tone and genre, but it's safe to say that I haven't seen anything from them that I haven't completely loved. That is to say, until now. Horror is one of my favorite genres and 2016's The VVitch is one of my all-time favorite horror films; so when I heard that A24 was putting out another low-key horror film helmed by a first-time director that relied heavily on atmosphere and tension, I was all-in from the very beginning. The media push didn't hurt either, with critics calling Hereditary one of the scariest films of all time, comparable to classics like The Exorcist. I was chomping at the bit to see it, hoping for something that would surely haunt my dreams for countless nights to come. What I got instead is a somewhat clunky yet spectacularly well-acted thriller that unfortunately doesn't amount to more than the sum of its parts.

Without giving too much away, the story focuses on Annie Graham (Toni Collette, giving the performance of her career), a mother of two and independent artist working through the loss of her mother. That's honestly just about all I can say, without giving away vital plot details (or just outright lying), but I think the strong points of the film's narrative definitely lie moreso in the themes it attempts to convey rather than the actual story itself. This is a film that is very much about the grieving process, as well as the less concrete things we inherit from our parents. In case the title wasn't clear enough, I'm talking about mental illness; we're told in the opening scene that Annie's mother suffered from dissociative identity disorder and dimentia, and we gradually come to learn as the film goes on that Annie herself (as well as her children) are definitely struggling with their own issues and conditions (as such things are typically, all together now, hereditary). It's a fascinating concept to base a horror film off of; the idea that mental illness is something we're saddled with against our will from the day we're born, almost like it's been decided for us by some sinister, unknown power. The film definitely has fun with the ways in which it weaves these underlying themes into its base plot, but whether the way it does so is effective or not will definitely vary depending on one's personal tastes and expectations.

Before I delve into the elements of this film that left me feeling somewhat let-down, I think it would be a good idea to discuss what this film does right; horror (especially horror built heavily around a thematic metaphor) tends to be a subjective beast, but there are definitely several areas in which Hereditary objectively succeeds. Despite a meager budget of only $10 million, the film looks stunning. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski has his work cut for him on this project, his eerily still, symmetrical framing mirroring the posed precision found within Annie's various miniature models. Combined with Ari Aster's superb direction (much like Robert Eggers with The VVitch, this is a shockingly strong debut that's sure to leave a lasting impression), the film presents a truly distinct visual style. The Graham house looks completely mundane in the best kind of way, making the eerie atmosphere hit all the more closer to home, and the stark day-to-night cuts are used to remarkable effect in the film's final scenes. It's definitely a film that, visually-speaking, knows exactly what it wants to be; it's as beautiful as it is haunting, leaving the audience with a legitimately creepy atmosphere that had me curling into my seat on more than a few occasions. This is, of course, helped along by one of the finest performances in a horror film (or indeed, any film) I've ever seen.

Everyone here more or less gives an excellent performance (in particular young Milly Shapiro, who makes her feature film debut as Annie's creepy daughter, Charlie), but they're all a distant second place to Toni Collette as our lead. I'll be honest and say I'm not 100% sure I've ever seen her in anything before this, but she's most certainly on my radar now and forever more. I can't think of any other way to describe this performance other than simply "real", in both the best and worst kind of ways (and I of course mean "worst" in the best kind of way). As one might expect, there are those moments where we simply get to see life go on as usual (lulling us into a false sense of security before things get ominous), and Collette pulls those off with aplomb. She feels like any average woman we might cross paths with at the store. And sure, once things start to get spooky, she can play scared as well as anyone. But then there are the moments where she has to completely break down, and this is when the movie becomes pure gold. Again, I'm completely avoiding spoilers here, but there's a moment around the end of the first act (those who have seen the movie know exactly what I'm talking about) where we really see her disappear into her role as this grieving, troubled mother of two. And that's not even the only moment where her performance completely blew me away; it's merely the first, where I suddenly understood that there simply had to be some sort of award nomination in her future. I'll be frank; for me, Toni Collette's performance is basically the only thing elevating Hereditary in my mind from being nothing more than a very pretty mess.

While there are undoubtedly some elements at play here that transcend the vast majority of horror films in recent years, there are also those that, as far as I'm concerned, have a much harder time getting off the ground. First and foremost is the runtime; at just over two hours, this is a film that very much feels its length. While a slow pace is often beneficial when it comes to building tension (which, as I mentioned, is something this film admittedly does very well), there has to be some sort of payoff in order for that time to come off feeling like a good investment. You have horror classics like Alien that most definitely fall under the mantle of "slow burn", but the buildup is used efficiently, generating momentum to propel us from scene to scene (and from scare to scare). With Hereditary, there isn't really much payoff to that tension until the last ten or so minutes, when the film becomes a very traditional modern horror film. Those like myself who have spent the whole film waiting for something scary to happen will feel cheated, and those who enjoyed the quiet, tense atmosphere will be disappointed in the film's regression into more conventional "haunted house" style scares. Whether you were enjoying the film or not, everyone will feel in some way dissatisfied by the time the credits roll, which is unfortunate, considering how effective some parts of this film can be.

I also wasn't entirely taken with the overall plot; the long runtime is only exasperated by the film's reluctance to show even a hint of its hand until it's far too late (and, again, rushing out an entire film's worth of exposition during the climax). I don't need my films (especially my horror films) to be predictable or straightforward, but I need a hook in order to stay engaged. The film takes a shocking turn at one point that I truly didn't see coming, and then proceeds to do nothing even remotely as interesting or unexpected until the very end. With other metaphor-driven horror films, it's typically not too difficult to get from point A to point B when dissecting the underlying themes and motifs buried within. This doesn't mean that the film lacks depth, but rather that it's conveyed in such a way that the audience doesn't have to strain themselves in order to connect the dots. For example, take The Babadook, another atmospheric horror film that is essentially one big metaphor for mental illness. The film doesn't need to dumb itself down in order for the viewer to understand what it's really about; the filmmaker makes it look easy. But Hereditary just keeps getting in its own way, bouncing from story beat to story beat without really honing in on anything specific. Instead, it places all its chips on mood and atmosphere, which, while strong, makes the entire thing feel somewhat aimless and needlessly obtuse from a plot perspective. It places story cohesion on the backburner so that, once it's all explained in the last five minutes, the audience can go "ohhhhhh, I get it" and it ends up working out about as well as you'd expect. After the first act, you spend the remainder of the film waiting for the other shoe to drop, only for the film to then spend the next hour and a half pretending like it's about to drop before gently placing it on the ground and immediately cutting to credits.

In spite of everything, I still think I would recommend Hereditary. While it definitely didn't click with me, I definitely can't speak for everyone in this case. Every element of this film that isn't related to the way the story unfolds (the camerawork, the direction, the performances, etc.) is sheer brilliance, absolute 10/10 filmmaking. The issues come in when you try to combine the haunting visuals and stellar cast with the clunky, unintuitive story. It feels like a product composed entirely of gourmet ingredients that was left in the oven for about 20 minutes longer than intended; while you can definitely appreciate the individual components on their own, it's the execution that leaves the whole experience feeling not quite as good as it should have been. But then again, I happened to see this movie with a friend of mine (who utterly loathed it, I might add). After the credits rolled, we spent a good couple of hours discussing the various themes and metaphors at play, so there's definitely something to it (though your mileage may vary). It's simply a matter of whether or not it will click for you better than it did for us. I think The VVitch is a masterpiece, yet didn't care much for this, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would champion the exact opposite. If you're looking for a horror film that definitely favors the road-less-traveled in this age of generic, jump-scare-filled ghost flicks, give Hereditary a shot and see how it leaves you.

REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Let's talk about the current state of Hollywood, shall we? Not in the "surprise, everyone is a sex monster" kind of way, more in the "your profits are eventually going to reflect your lack of effort" kind of way. It's a situation, ironically enough, not dissimilar from the one presented in Jurassic Park; a big corporation bankrolls something stupid and indulgent, "spares no expense", tries to cash in on an entity they don't even begin to understand, and eventually has to suffer the consequences when the whole thing comes tumbling down. Ever since The Avengers proved that audiences were capable of following a shared-universe, multi-film narrative, every big studio under the sun has been trying to replicate that success without stopping for one moment to actually consider what made that success possible in the first place, forgetting that it took ten whole years and nearly 20 movies for the MCU to become what it is today. Modern studios seem to think that building a successful franchise is as simple as slapping a recognizable brand on literally whatever and calling it a day, when it's really far more complex than that. I'll tell you the problem with the cinematic power that they're using here; it didn't require any discipline to attain it. They saw what others had done, and they took the next step. They didn't earn the knowledge for themselves, so they don't take any responsibility for it. They stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they could, and before they even knew what they had, they patented it and packaged it and shipped it off to theaters, and now they're selling it. They wanna sell it. 

Well... Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Set 3 years after Jurassic World, the film follows the increasingly convoluted adventures of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). After the dormant volcano that Jurassic Park was apparently built on top of begins to erupt, Claire is approached by a mysterious businessman (Rafe Spall), who represents John Hammond's old friend and business partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell, as a character we've never heard of up until just now). He proposes that Claire and Owen join a slightly less-than-legal expedition back to Isla Nublar in order to save what dinosaurs they can before the entire thing goes up in smoke (literally this time). Although reluctant to go at first, Owen decides to tag along in order to rescue Blue the velociraptor from certain doom; their reunion is short-lived, however, as it's revealed that the supposed rescue mission was actually a front for far seedier activities. With the island destroyed, it's up to Owen, Claire, and a group of side-characters (who are somehow more bland than our already impressively-bland protagonists) to save the dinosaurs from Rafe Spall's immoral business dealings, all while avoiding the jaws of Henry Wu's (B.D. Wong) latest genetically-altered murdersaur, the Indoraptor.

The first and most strikingly bad thing about this movie, I think, is the script. Jurassic World was nothing revolutionary, but it did its job; it was cool finally seeing the park open and we got one of the most blissfully absurd climaxes I'd ever seen in a big-budget action movie. I left the theater more or less happy, if not exactly impressed. This, however, is just painfully bad. You get the impression that everything's been dumbed down even moreso, as though this movie has no pretense that it's just something meant to sell toys to children. The characters are one-note, the leaps in logic are downright olympian, and the story truly spares no expense in outright disregarding the recurrent themes and lessons presented in literally every previous Jurassic film. I'm not going to pretend that any of these movies were exactly head-scratchers, but they at least posed an interesting question about the potential ramifications of tampering with genetic power. One of the best scenes in the original film involves everyone simply eating dinner while debating whether or not a dinosaur theme park is an ethical idea in the first place. It's a multifaceted issue; for all of Ian Malcolm's moralizing, even he is stricken with a sense of childlike awe and excitement upon seeing a live dinosaur for the first time. And despite John Hammond's fatal shortsightedness, he's never portrayed as a "bad" guy; we completely understand why he would want to open Jurassic Park, even while understanding why it's a bad idea to do so. In Fallen Kingdom, the entire point of the movie basically boils down to "yeah yeah tampering in God's domain is immoral and junk, but wouldn't it be sad if da dinosauws died? :,(".

This is essentially Bryce Dallas Howard's entire arc in this movie; I guess the controversy her character stirred up last time around scared the studio execs bad enough that they'd rather she do basically nothing at all from this point on. In Jurassic World, her character progressed from a cold, profit-oriented businesswoman to someone who was prepared to take responsibility for the abomination she was complicit in creating. In Fallen Kingdom, she's essentially just an affluent white lady who wants to save the animals because it's sad when animals die; well-done, moral guardians, another victory for the rights of fictional women. We also have Chris Pratt at possibly his most boring. Owen, as a character (though I hesitate to even call it that), doesn't really have much of a personality, something Chris Pratt possesses a "deplorable excess" of. I know this is basically a carry-over from a few years ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy made more money than anyone could have possibly predicted and Chris Pratt was forcibly inserted into everything and anything, but taking a man who's been described as the human equivalent of a golden retriever and casting him as a straight-laced, rough and tumble, military manly man just doesn't work (and I can't imagine why anyone might think it would). His performance comes off like an audition tape for a store-brand version of Indiana Jones and it's honestly impressive how this movie manages to capture exactly none of Chris Pratt's natural charm or charisma. The only actor who's properly utilized throughout the whole thing is Jeff Goldblum, returning for a few minutes as Dr. Ian Malcolm to explain why the entire plot to the movie is a generally bad idea. Out of all the characters we're shown, his is the only one that makes a lick of sense. He's the true hero of this movie (which makes sense, seeing as how this is essentially a soft-reboot of The Lost World), even though he shows up, reads his lines, and leaves in less time than it takes for me to eat a Wawa sandwich.

Aside from the miserable script (which includes such gems as "It needs a mother!" and "What a nasty woman...") and the flat, incompetent characters, the film's pacing is also all over the place. It definitely falls into your traditional three-act structure, but still finds a way to divide its story directly down the middle. It's essentially two hour-long movies mashed together, making the entire thing feel even more like a pilot for a children's cartoon series. The situation isn't helped by the over-complicated mess of a plot; I excused some of the sillier bits in Jurassic World because I was just happy to see this franchise return from extinction, but the levels of outright stupidity Fallen Kingdom achieves feel like attempts to take advantage of my good nature. Jurassic Park is a premise that, like most metaphor-driven narratives, works best when there's as little fat to trim as possible. There's a theme park full of dinosaurs; the power gets shut off due to industrial espionage, nature runs amok, don't play God, life finds a way. Simple and clean. Then you have Fallen Kingdom, in which an evil businessman needs a team of mercenaries to save a velociraptor from an exploding island so that it can teach his weaponized super-dinosaur how to feel empathy, only for said super-dinosaur to run amok inside a Scooby-Doo mystery mansion, and also conservation is important or whatever. I get the impression that the people behind these movies have no idea why Jurassic Park is as good as it is beyond "WOAH COOL DINOSAURS".

To be perfectly fair, however, none of this is the fault of the director, J.A. Bayona. In fact, I'd say that the direction is one of the few things in this movie that I unironically liked; hell, I loved it. Bayona is, first and foremost, a horror director (having directed films like The Orphanage), so he's able to bring his own, unique style to the table (rather than just attempting to ape Spielberg like so many before him). The opening sequence in particular is unironically excellent, one of the best scenes in any Jurassic movie (if you can ignore them moving the mosasaur lagoon from the center of the island to the shoreline for plot reasons). There's a great amount of emphasis placed on the use of color and lighting, helping this corporate-designed product feel a little bit more like an actual film, rather than something meant to sell baby raptor toys to all the kids in the audience. For as schlocky as it is, the climax (in which the film essentially becomes a gothic monster movie) is actually a pretty fun time, thanks entirely to Bayona's fresh perspective. The action, while not exactly deep or emotionally engaging, is well-shot and exciting, which definitely kept me from outright hating this movie. I'm all but convinced by this point that Colin Trevorrow is responsible for everything wrong with Jurassic World, as he's relegated to script duty for this one and, as I've covered, that's where all of the film's problems occur. If there's one thing the executives at Universal should take away from this experience, it's the benefit that having a fresh face in the director's chair can bring to a project. With how well Fallen Kingdom is doing financially, a sequel is inevitable, and I truly hope that Bayona gets another shot at bat (hopefully to make something less inane than what we have here).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an easy lock for the stupidest thing I'm going to see in theaters in 2018. Normally, I'll be the first to champion the use of suspension of disbelief (especially in a summer blockbuster about genetically-altered dinosaurs), but even I have my limits. Much like with Disney's handling of Star Wars, the pendulum has swung way too far and now things are getting out of hand; the studios were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. When it comes to these modern mega-blockbusters, the goal is no longer to make an enjoyable, accessible film, so much as it is to replicate the financial success of the first Jurassic World and break $1 billion at the box office.  In order to make a sustainable franchise, it's important that the product itself is more or less something of quality; this is why, after an entire decade of Marvel movies, everyone who saw Infinity War is excited and eager for what comes next. Meanwhile, you have Star Wars, which has had exclusively mediocre to outright bad movies since The Force Awakens and, surprise, now has to be completely reevaluated only three short years after they got the ball rolling. It'll happen to Jurassic World as well; they'll make their money now, but they're only postponing the inevitably embarrassing crash-and-burn that awaits all franchises tackled in this manner. Jurassic World made a ton of money, and Fallen Kingdom appears to be on the same track. But at the end of the day (and after adjusting for inflation), the original Jurassic Park is still the top dog of the franchise, both critically and financially. That kind of success is well within Universal's reach, they simply need expend the effort needed to seize it. And as we've learned time and time again, sloppy work in the name of maximizing profit only leads to catastrophic failure.

If you don't mind spoilers, be sure to check out my full plot-rundown on YouTube!