Reviews

"The Park Is Gone" is the log line for this, being the 5th entry in the film series, based upon Michael Crichton's novel, "Jurassic Park" - Steven Spielberg directed the first two installments, where due to a greedy computer programmer looking sabotaged the park, in an attempt to flee with a shaving cream can full of dinosaur embryos, during a storm. His escape attempt, unwittingly deactivated all the safety measures and the cloned dinosaurs run amok, as the first few guests must flee for their lives. And the second film, "The Lost World" followed a venture onto Site B, where the Dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, were being raised before moving to the main park on a separate island, to bring some dinosaurs to a new San Diego based park. The lackluster Jurassic Park 3 involved rescuing someone's son, who trespassed to the Site B island. The film franchise lay dormant for over a decade, until Colin Trevorrow, director of "Safety Not Guaranteed" was offered to helm a reboot / return to Pre-Cambiran theme park. Trevorrow brought some big ideas, which, largely meant ignoring all but the first film, and weirdly, ostracizing it. In 2015's Jurassic World, a parks system operator, played by Jake Johnson, gets chastised by his boss, Bryce Dallas Howard's "Claire" for wearing a 'vintage' Jurassic Park shirt, while working the renovated park, that still bore many holdovers and shoddy homages to the original. In the Jurassic World timeline, shortly after the events of the first film, a new investor began to work with John Hammond to fix and open the park, though apparently under a different name, where it has been running for over 10 years, updating features, rides, and various other experiences as the technology became available. Jurassic Park was already on the cutting edge in 1993, Jurassic World, in 2015 was on the bleeding edge, well beyond the quaint Thinking Machines and Super Computers.

Fallen Kingdom, takes place 3 years after the events of Jurassic World, where a genetically modified 'designer dinosaur' managed to escape its enclosure and run amok through the park, because it just so happened to have enough of a little bit of every other kind of dinosaur, that it could control them. The MacGuffin-o-saurus could do anything and everything and was mean and smart and bloodthirsty and was, with 3 years of hindsight, boring to have such an over powered engine of pure malice. Jurassic World was a huge success at the box office, and the producers got Colin Trevorrow on to write the next two films, he was originally slated to direct Star Wars Episode 9, after Jurassic World, but had made a smaller film called "The Book of Henry" which, performed so poorly, and with the post-honeymoon conversations about Jurassic World not having the legs J.P. had, made Lucasfilm doubt Trevorrow was a directorial golden boy, and pulled the Star Wars film from him, and gave it to JJ Abrams. Trevorrow had also passed the torch to direct a Jurassic World sequel off to J.A. Bayona, the disciple of Guillermo Del Toro, whom had directed 2009's The Orphanage, 2012's The Impossible and 2016's "A Monster Calls." Bayona proved himself to be a powerful visual storyteller, though still had to play in Trevorrow's sandbox, as he was still the writer and an Executive Producer.

Fallen Kingdom, falls short of being its own movie, and is more a remake of The Lost World than anything, with a group of goons led by a 'great white hunter' played by Ted Levine (The Silence of The Lambs), working for John Hammond's previously non-existent business partner, who wanted to rescue as many dinosaurs as possible, since Isla Nublar, where Jurassic Park/World is/was, faces a fiery volcanic destruction, any day now. Survivors from Jurassic World, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt must go back to rescue "Blue" Pratt's pet Velociraptor, whom he had trained, and was the only person who could get close enough to the dino to offload her from the the island. Pratt's "Owen" tracks the Raptor down to, the same site, where, 25 years earlier, an electric Jurassic Park Ford Explorer had been knocked off its track and hurled into a tree by the T.Rex. Once out in the open, the Raptor gets tranq'd and we curse the sudden, yet inevitable betrayal by the Hunter and his horde, and we find out that Lockwood (James Cromwell)'s assistant Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) has no intention of relocating the dinosaurs to a safe haven, but to auction them off to a cabal of ridiculous rejected Bond Villains. The film is half, disaster porn and half sneaking around a mansion, but can't help borrowing heavily from The Lost World at every turn.

The Story is by far the weakest of any Jurassic film, but attempts to open get the scope of the future films off the Island, and increase the dinosaur presence around the world and attempts to play philosophical with the ethics of do the dinosaurs deserve to live and even gets into the troublesome area of human cloning. Fallen Kingdom feels more like a ride at Universal, rather than its own film, as none of the stakes have any teeth, despite the constant threat of toothed carnivores. There are some fun moments, but they are far outnumbered by stupid sequences. I don't blame J.A. Bayona for the dull moments of the film, he's able to create some truly spectacular, impossible shots that must have taken months to render, because they were clearly shot in some green screen prison. The story also drags its feet by retreading the 'designer dinosaur' angle, this time with an "Indio Raptor" a smaller version of the "Indominous Rex" - The film's timeline, and even the dinosaurs felt inconsistent between shots, the iRaptor varied wildly from the size of a large horse to almost elephantine size, and then small enough to fit through a door.

I went in wanting to like this movie, but i had more problems with it, than i could set aside and attempt to enjoy it. And rather than continue the path these films are on, Frank Marshall (the Producer) should take a queue from his wife Kathleen Kennedy (Head of Lucasfilm) and remove Colin Trevorrow from any future films, and also look at how Sony handled "The Amazing Spider-Man" films, and just sweep the Jurassic World Franchise under the rug, and start over. It doesn't necessarily matter if a film makes money, if it hurts the IP, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom hurts the Jurassic Franchise.

4/10

Episode 16 of Gotham's 4th Season, was directed by the show's star, Ben McKenzie. "One of My Three Soups," as the episode is titled, follows a massive breakout from Arkham Asylum, the episode starts with a female guard, putting on headphones and a walkman, to check on The Mad Hatter, Jervis Tetch, the music, countering his powers of persuasion from hypnotizing the guard, though it's too late he had already gotten to another guard who slits the throats of all the other correction officers on this floor. We're a couple minutes in and there have already been a few laughs with the juxtaposition of the music choice (Alice Smith - Fool For You), to the dour interior of Gotham's home for the criminally insane, and the diminutive frame and bodycount of Guard Tortuga.

There was an early screening of this episode at the Warner Brothers Television building on the iconic movie studio lot, in a big fancy conference room bearing posters of all the Warner Brothers Television programs currently on air, in alphabetical order, featuring "The 100" "Arrow" "i, Zombie" "Lucifer" "Life Sentence" "Supernatural" "Riverdale" all the way to "Young Sheldon." At least one program on every broadcast network. After the episode screened, the dozen or so TV Journalists invited, got a private Q&A with Ben McKenzie. This wasn't his first episode as director, but he explained that, as the show has gone on as long as it has, he is uniquely qualified, as an expert on the tone of the show, second only to Danny Cannon, the pilot director, responsible for setting the original feel for the show and veteran of at least 10 episodes of Gotham. McKenzie also feels that the show has course corrected from it's original Episodic NYPD Blue / Comic Book Villain of the week feel, especially as David Mazouz, the Bruce Wayne of the show, has grown over the past 4 years.

The episode has further Joker-ification of Jerome Valeska, who organized the breakout which also finds The Scarecrow back on the street. Jervis Tetch uses his hypnotic voice on a radio station to coerce hundred of Gothamites to throw themselves from the tops of buildings at midnight unless Captain James Gordon suffers for taking Jervis's sister Alice from him (Alice jumped and had a rather pokey landing, after she was tired of her brother using her for his own nefarious plot a few seasons back) - Ben felt this episode best encapsulates how Gotham is better with the growth of its villains and tests the heroes mettle, and how humor doesn't hurt the show or undercut moments with bathos. After Jerome escaped he made his way to a diner run by his uncle, and reveals that this same uncle's abuse is what helped shape his malice and contempt for people. The uncle beat the young Jerome, for no reason and would continue the beatings for what seemed like hours. The episode's title plays into the scene, as the Uncle had prepared 3 soups, like Goldilocks's conundrum, one was too hot, one too cold, and the other, Just Right, the uncle then reveals he had figured out Jerome was coming for revenge, and had a former circus Strongman protect him from the proto-Joker, the "Just Right" soup was for the Strongman, and the Too Hot soup, was to be poured down Jerome's gullet, scarring his lips and further rasping his voice. Before the bad Uncle can do away with his Nephew's life, Bruce Wayne enters the diner and picks a fight with the Strongman, he feels responsible for Jerome and all that has befallen the ruined clown, there is some delightful plays with power dynamics throughout the episode, as Bruce's life later gets saved by Selina Kyle, and in a C Storyline, Barbara Kean, Jim Gordon's ex-wife, has inherited the mantle of Demon's Head from Ra's al Ghul, and by her actions, causes a culling of The League of Assassins of their weaker members, who refused to listen to a woman. Ben elaborated that it was not intended to be a lip service 'female empowerment' story, but rather furthering of the already strong female characters of the show.

Back to the A story, it seems like Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock have swapped their attitudes towards policing, Jim has more skeletons in his closet now, and resorts to much more violent methods than his first year, and Bullock acts more selfless and altruistic than we've ever seen him through the series, though the characters continue to ground each other.

If this episode proves nothing else, it should prove that Ben McKenzie should sit in the director's chair more often.

10/10

A Family Friendly Tale of Friendship.

For Wes Anderson's ninth film, the auteur director took what he learned while making "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and and expanded upon it to make his magnum opus. Mixing the mediums of Stop Motion, Puppetry, Miniatures, Still Image, Traditional Animation, and Tableau for this stunning homage to the Japanese 'Iki' Aesthetic. Taking place "Twenty Years in the Future" from whenever you're watching, in the fictional Megasaki City on the Japanese coast, "Isle of Dogs" on its face is the story of a boy, Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin) looking for his dog / bodyguard, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber) after Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), Atari's uncle and guardian, passes a law that banishes all canines to the offshore "Trash Island" after an epidemic of "Snout Fever" has infected nearly all the dogs in the city, though the Mayor may have a more nefarious plot...

While not the simplistic "Cats Evil, Dogs Good" of some other family friendly film fare, the pooches portrayed feel betrayed by their mislead masters. After six months, Atari steals a small plane and crashes on Trash Island to seek out his four legged companion, and is recused from the wreck by our hero pack, Rex; the leader of the pack (Edward Norton), Boss; the former mascot of a Little League team (Bill Murray), King; the face of a popular dog food (Bob Balaban), Duke; a gossip (Jeff Goldblum), and Chief; a stray (Bryan Cranston). Atari and the Pack also must fight off henchmen who work for the Mayor, in their search for Spots. Meanwhile on the Mainland, we learn of the evil plot set out by the Mayor, to replace all the dogs with robots, made by his company, and he is also responsible for spreading the puppy plague, and it is up to a small group of science minded students to defend the honor of man's best friend.

While there is an All Star voice cast, including Ladybird scribe and director, Greta Gerwig as American Foreign Exchange Student, Tracy Walker, and Oscar Winner, Frances McDormand as an international wire service interpreter, the rest of the cast are Japanese, speaking in Japanese with no subtitles, their characters intentions and body language are enough to convey what they are saying despite a language barrier. The only subtitles are on Japanese text, and the film cleverly states at the beginning, all Barking is translated to English, as a way to respond to cultural appropriation critiques. "Isle of Dogs" is not a pastiche of an American Filmmaker wanting to make a movie set in Japan with American actors. This is as close to perfect as hybrid storytelling can get. A very Japanese film, told in Wes Anderson's personal way of whimsy. The Dogs love their masters and don't understand why they've been sent here, but when a "master" comes to Trash Island, they do what Good Dogs do, and protect their human. The way the corruption gets handled is also very Japanese as well, it is firstly in the name of business, and what is best for their bottom dollar, and the bad guys go about their plans legally, until the legality becomes their downfall, and rather than fight and lie, the bad guys accept their fate, as they acted dishonorably.

Composer, Alexandre Desplat, brought his A-Game to Isle of Dogs as much as he did for Shape of Water and Anderson's last live action feature, The Grand Budapest Hotel (both films which Desplat won Oscars for), his haunting melodies will have you whistling Atari's little 3 note ditty on your way to your car after. Cinematographer Tristan Oliver, of Wallace and Grommet pedigree and Anderson's lenser for Fantastic Mr Fox outdoes himself, with how visually interesting with every frame of Isle of Dogs, partially due to Production Designers Paul Harrod and Adam Stockhausen, who won an Oscar for Grand Budapest Hotel as well. Harrod, an expert on the Japanese Aesthetic and Stockhausen, an expert at Wes Anderson's Aesthetic flawlessly fused the two styles.

10/10

Set 200 years before the destruction of Superman's homeworld, Krypton, we follow the life Seg El (Cameron Cuffe), Superman's Grandfather, as a young adult, and we're prefaced initially with the fall of the House of El. Krypton has a very deliberate Caste system of Noble houses and guilds, similar to Game of Thrones and their Great Houses. The House of El has always been in the Science Guild, researching and exploring, in efforts to make the lives of Kryptonians easier. When Seg was a boy, a new religious order comes to power and Krypton falls into a dark age, Seg's Grandfather Val El (played by Game of Thrones veteran, Ian McElhinny (Ser Barristan Selmy) Is told to either bend the knee or walk the plank, he'd rather die and cause his house to be cast out, than compromise his honor.

Thats just the first 5 minutes of the Pilot. Front loading a lot of convoluted ideas. Krypton fancies itself a mixture of Game of Thrones meets Terminator on an familiar-ish Alien World. The Terminator aspect comes in as Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos), one of DC Comic's oldest cosmic characters plays the "Kyle Reese" of the show, traveling back in time, to Krypton before its destruction, to save it, and Superman's Grandfather from the looming threat of Brainiac. In the Comics, Adam Strange could travel to distant planets by way of Zeta Beam. Time travel, however, was never part of his skill set, though he was the most likely character for this task. Its not like there's another team of Time Traveling DC Heroes, on Television... In Strange's timeline, Brainiac (Blake Ritson) somehow prevents Superman from existing, much like how in Back to the Future, Marty started to fade away because the events of the past were changed. This is known as the "Grandfather Paradox" in science, 'if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, will you cease to exist?'

The Game of Thrones allusions are also pretty strong with Krypton, the new religious leader, The Word of Rao, wears a helmet of multiple faces, which looks like Marvel's "Living Tribunal" mixed with the Multi-faced God that the Faceless Men of Braavos serve. (Rao is the name of Krypton's Red Son, Chad Lowe on Supergirl has a whole thing about the Roaism religion).

Seg El is also in love with Lyta Zod (Georgina Campbell). A forbidden love, Krypton is a weird society, as part of a deal to restore the honor of House El, Seg must marry Nyssa Vexx (Wallis Day), the daughter of the man that cast his grandfather out, and they go to the Genesis Center, put their thumbs on a panel and that makes a baby, and projects how long the child will live and what kind of career he is destined to have. What you may recognize is the Zod name, Lyta, it seems is General Zod's mother...

Performance-wise, the actors do their best with a fair bit of nonsense that are the scripts (take a drink anytime someone says Rao, Kandor, or a monosyllabic name). English Accents in an Alien Society everywhere. Seeing Ian McElhinny, was an initial ray of hope, although short-lived, and the only joke in the show is in regards to Adam Strange's Detroit Lions cap, a not so subtle wink at DC Helmer, Geoff Johns always wearing a Detroit hat. Costuming is a little pedestrian, the 'everything needs to have complicated textures' is a little too prevalent as of late, and does not fit the Uncaste society we see for much of the pilot episode, and the repeating oblong cut outs that dart the production design is a lazy bit of "Doctor Who did it, so everyone has to do it" the general design aesthetic for Krypton does carry over from Man of Steel, Smallville and Supergirl. The Graphics are good although what also seems to be a glaring omission is, in the opening shot, we see a second domed city in the distance, before we're brought into Kandor, the primary setting, and probably most famous Kryptonian city, as in nearly every version of Superman, Brainiac miniaturizes and collects the "bottled city of Kandor" the show treats Kandor, as if it is the ONLY city on Krypton.

In short, "Krypton" is kind of a mess, to fully get it you need to be an in-the-weeds kind of comic book / sci-fi fan. It's not terribly interesting, it does not connect to any of the DCEU Films, (although Elliot Cowan does look a lot like Russell Crowe, the Jor-El of "Man of Steel"), Krypton doesn't connect to any of the 5 Greg Berlanti Arrow/Supergirl-verse series, or any of the animated shows. Krypton has its own timeline and the last thing I want is to keep track of another rogue DC series. Though the first season may be worth a binge watch. It's skippable.

3/10