Jurassic World

Colin Trevorrow, 2015

IMDB

3/5

Basically any boy who grew up in the early nineties saw Jurassic Park. It can easily be considered the millennial generation's Jaws. It's now been 22 years since the original film hit theaters. So Jurassic World is trying to do two things. It's trying to satisfy original generation who grew up with the original, because they are certainly going to the be the ones accompanying the easier-to-please younger generation of kids who already have dinosaur posters on their walls. And who knows, maybe some of these kids have caught the original on cable or figured out how to operate daddy's VHS player. Long shot. I know. Okay, well to be fair it's also on DVD.

One of the immediately pleasant things that you notice with Jurassic World is that it's very self-aware of it's own cultural existence. There are satirical elements at work; displayed by the corporate forces trying to get increased park attendance, clearly poking fun at the whole trying to get movie audiences back in seats to the franchise. It blankets the franchise with a very modern touch. Just like in our own real-life world, the corporate entities are everywhere you turn. There is now a Starbucks in the park. Guys in suits are looking for any possible surface to plaster a logo to create a new revenue stream. Also gone is any of the old school corporate etiquette. We notice quite quickly that the modern day Jurassic Park is a corporate environment where low-totem guys like Lowery (Jake Johnson) can mouth back to their superiors with no real punishment.

Jurassic World ultimately succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish. It revitalizes an old franchise and gets people in seats hoping for some new terrors in questionably secure confinement. There are some eyebrow-raising moments, like when two kids are able to quickly fix a 20 year old Jeep covered in vegetation and get it running in what seems like a few minutes. There are some worn-out themes, like Bryce Dallas Howard's character as the cold corporate woman that we have seen so often in cinema. Because of the attempts to sort of one-up itself in the story and in real-life by creating something new for audiences to see, it actually morphs into more of a monster movie and less of a dinosaur movie. That's okay, because the characters are developed enough that you have some moderate investment in them and you still get some of the classic Jurassic Park touches. If you go into Jurassic World with the right expectations, you will probably walk away from it satisfied enough. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel, it goes down easy. Especially for someone who was raised on the originals and wants a dose of dino-nostalgia. 

Drinking Buddies

Joe Swanberg, 2013

Can I Stream It?

2/5

It's quite obvious that Luke (Jake Johnson) and Kate (Olivia Wilde) have a crush on each other. They both spend a good portion of their days working at the Revolution Brewery in Chicago goofing around. The only problem that they face is that they are both already involved with someone else.

When you're pitched a film that's going to be 100% improvised, that probably sounds quite appealing and fun, especially when it involves actual drinking. But this is essentially a film packing empty calories much like the stouts and pale ales they are constantly consuming on the job. The Brewery seems like the best place in the world to work. You can drink during your shift, smoke in your office. It appears that the only real work you must do is hose off some kegs and make some phone calls to distributors. The only real boss you must answer to is Gene (Jason Sudeikis) who is hard to respect when he is sitting next to you at the bar every night drinking. Everything that transpires is quite predictable, and you can get a clear feeling for the direction it's going to take at the 20 minute mark. And while Luke and Kate are pulling pigtails, they aren't providing a whole lot of funny. The sexual tension drags on. And on. And on. It's disappointing because Olivia Wilde and Anna Kendrick have proven that they are capable of pulling off good performances but they aren't given much to work with here. And perhaps it's not fair to judge them so harshly, they are clearly just not great with improv. It's an hour of power of pleasure delaying, loosey-goosey to a fault, and simply lacking. Swanberg deserves some credit for taking a risk, but Drinking Buddies is better on paper. It provides you with a lot to look at, but not enough substance behind it.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Colin Trevorrow, 2012

4/5

Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni and Mark Duplass star in this film about a magazine doing a piece on a Craigslist ad from a mystery man looking for a companion to go back in time with. The film jumps right into the introduction of Plaza's character Darius. Darius is a sad sap, still living at home, who is looking for a minimum wage job to spark some kind of progression in her life. She settles for an intern gig at Seattle magazine. She has immediate interest in the investigative piece on the time travel ad, and ends up going away for a few days with the two other men who work for the magazine. One guy is the misogynistic frat-guy type who has the ulterior motive of hooking up with an old fling while they are away (even though it was his idea to pursue the Craigslist ad), and the other guy is an intellectual Middle-Eastern introvert in his early twenties. He's only working for the magazine to add some extra color to a presumably long list of academic and occupational achievements on his resume.

From a cinematic perspective the film is cleanly edited, has witty dialogue, good music and a genuine romantic element.  I am REALLY picky with comedies these days - in fact I don't even remember the last really good one I've seen. I was happy to see Mark Duplass outside of The League, and he seems to have some range because his character Kenneth was quite distant from his League character Pete. I was really impressed with Aubrey Plaza's performance. She fits nicely into that category of comedic actresses who play on that awkward/uncomfortable theme (Kristen Wiig, Amy Poehler, Kristen Schaal).

The films in the "romantic comedy/time travel" genre do not have a lot of company... So you're already in pretty unfamiliar territory when making a film like this. It also puts you in the company of films like Back to the Future, so there are also high expectations. This film succeeded in the sense that it doesn't even matter if the time machine exists. The humor hits when it needs to and the love feels real.