BEFORE: It's time to go back to that dangerous world, where everything is frustrating and dangerous and could kill you if you're not careful. No, not "Jurassic Park", I'm talking about Comic-Con. After 15 years of flying out to San Diego and giving up a week of my life each year, my body is getting ready for my annual trip. The only problem is, I'm not going this year, I finally convinced my boss that paying for the booth and the travel costs, shipping costs, etc. is a money-losing venture. The prices of everything kept going up, and our profit each year kept going down.
The problem is, I'm still getting the stress dreams, right on schedule. I had the dream the other night I was setting up my booth, and I suddenly realize I've forgotten the posters that I wanted to hang behind our table, or I never shipped the merchandise to arrive on time, and now it's too late to get anything there - plus, there are celebrities appearing at a booth just a few rows over, and I can't possibly get there in time! Then I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that I'm still in New York, the convention doesn't start for another week, and oh, yeah, I'm not even going this year.
It didn't help that I had to get a suitcase fixed by bringing it with me to work, there's a place I know that's been fixing suitcases since the Eisenhower administration, they've got photos on their walls of that time they fixed a bag for Jerry Lewis or Goldie Hawn while they were in town and had a luggage-based emergency. I've got to get a hole in the bag fixed before our vacation in October, but I happened to pick the day that I normally would have brought that bag to the office to fill it up with the supplies I'd need during Comic-Con, so the sense memory was still there. It's a wonder that I didn't act on reflex and fill up the bag with posters, Sharpies, paper clips and those little cardboard stands that hold DVDs - something I've done many times while barely thinking about it.
If you think about it, Comic-Con is a lot like "Jurassic Park" - it's very crowded, it's tropically hot, difficult to get around and there are tons of "dinosaurs" about (people like me, who still read paper comic books and sell DVDs when all the kids are streaming movies...). Plus, I was only slightly joking when I said the place is dangerous, I mean, what sort of idiot put the Convention Center on the other side of a busy highway AND two sets of train tracks, making the migration of 100,000 geeks to the Gaslamp District a potentially deadly operation?
Anyway, you probably guessed this is where I've been heading, with Bryce Dallas Howard carrying over again from "Pete's Dragon" to make for a three-peat.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Jurassic World" (Movie #2,095)
AFTER: It's really 2015 all over again - back then when I came back from Comic-Con, I had a very sci-fi/action string of films waiting for me, which included two films with Charlize Theron ("Aeon Flux" and "The Astronaut's Wife") then "Jurassic World" and a couple of tech films ("Transcendence" and "Jobs") followed by "The Lego Movie". Now, as the time for Comic-Con is approaching again (even if I'm not going) I'm back on "Jurassic World", I've got a film with Charlize Theron coming up tomorrow and a few more from the sci-fi/action vein, which would have been a GREAT set-up if I hadn't taken myself off that crazy Comic-Con treadmill. (Sorry, no Legos this time around...)
In some ways, this is just what I needed, to be scared out of my wits by some of those "OH, CRAP!" moments when the dinosaurs attack. Great, now I can stop having the Comic-Con set-up stress dreams and start having the "There's a dinosaur about to eat me!" stress dream - not to mention the falling off a cliff stress dream, the "I'm in a vehicle under water and it's sinking and I CAN'T SWIM!" stress dream, and the "I'm on an island and the volcano just blowed up and there's HOT LAVA EVERYWHERE!" stress dream. So, yeah, umm, thanks for that, I guess.
But once you crack the code on the "Jurassic Park" movies, and really, come on, you've had four chances before this to do so...the dinosaurs only (mostly) eat the BAD people, right? Umm, yeah, except for all those park guests in the last one. Well, let's pretend they were all bad people. But here the scientists have been hard at work, making some changes to the DNA codes here and there, instilling into the dinosaurs a true appreciation for dramatic irony, as well as comic timing. So a dino can't just EAT somebody, it has to be at the right time. They either have to be someone who's evil and deserves it, or they're rich (and therefore evil and deserves it) and even then, it has to come at an unexpected time, like after one of those "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?" moments. THEN the reaction shot complete with bloodcurdling scream, THEN the chomp. Really, it's just a matter of moving around a couple RNA receptors once you isolate the gene for irony.
Speaking of that, I think I might have mentioned this before, but I saw the preview (you might say "trailer", but I say "preview", because they don't "trail" after the films any more, they're shown before...) for this "Jurassic World" sequel SO many times, I practically had it memorized. I think I've been out to the movies __ times so far in 2018 (let's see, "Black Panther", "Avengers: Infinity War", "Solo", "Deadpool 2", "Ready Player One", "Isle of Dogs") and I think they ran this preview before ALL of those... And there were two very big problems I had with the trailer - one was dialogue from Jeff Goldblum's character as he testified before Congress about the dino situation. He said, "These creatures were here before us. And if we're not careful...they're going to be here after." HUH? This made no sense to me at the time, if he was fighting to save the dinosaurs, why didn't he say, "And if we're not careful, they WON'T be here after?" Ah, but I didn't understand the context, in the film it was clear that he was pointing out that HUMANS were on the brink of extinction, and that the dinosaurs would be here after we're all gone due to climate change, pollution and mucking around with genetics. His character was actually advocating for the dinosaurs to NOT be rescued from the island, because they never should have been created in the first place, and that inaction was the better form of action at that point, with the island likely to become inhabitable.
The other glaring mistake in the trailer was that scene where a couple characters are running from the volcano, surrounded by dinosaurs on all sides, and they climb into one of those plexiglass rolling gyrospheres, with a dino (Carnotaurus?) stalking them very closely. Just when things look bleak, a T. Rex comes BOOM, slam out of nowhere and takes out the other dino. Which is nuts, because that means somehow a T. Rex was able to sneak up on them! Which, if you've seen any of the previous movies, you'll know is just impossible, the T. Rex has ZERO stealth capabilities, and in fact will wait until you've poured yourself a glass of water or positioned yourself next to a puddle before it approaches, just so you can see the water shake with every footstep as he draws near. Again, remember, these dinosaurs were bred with an understanding of dramatic tension. I'm sad to say, this mistake DID carry forward into the movie itself, so it counts as NITPICK POINT #1.
Now, for NITPICK POINT #2, I have to go back to my review of "Jurassic World" from 2015, where there were two young kids at the park, because we always have to have dinosaurs chasing kids for some reason, it heightens the difference between the giant, savage dino and the young, innocent, very screamy kids. They went out of their way in "Jurassic World" to tell us that one of the young boys was a dinosaur expert, knew all their names and everything about them, and then failed to use this as a coherent plot point in any way. So, then, umm, why was it there? There's something very much like that here, and it concerns the young girl, the granddaughter of the crazy billionaire who was somehow a partner of the original crazy billionaire, only we've never heard him mentioned before, not once, not ever.
Anyway, this kid (who you just know is going to get chased by dinosaurs at some point, because come on, why else would she be there) has something unique about her, but when it's revealed, you might think it would be important, but it's just not. It similarly serves no practical purpose whatsoever, so why the HELL is it part of the story? She could have just been a regular kid, the heir to the crazy billionaire's fortune, and she would have exactly the same impact to the story as she does with this other fact in her bio. I don't know, is she going to be important to the next JW film somehow? Is some 18-year old girl with a budding interest in dinosaurs going to save the world in that one? Or is she going to finance the new Jurassic Park, where all the proper safety measures are in place, and everyone comes to the park, things go smoothly, the dinosaurs are treated well and everybody has a good time? Honestly, that would be the most shocking or surprising film to make at this point, now that we've had FIVE films where everything goes horribly wrong. Keep trying, guys, you'll get it right next time, I'm sure...
Surprisingly, the preview didn't give everything away, because for once it only showed things that happen in the first half of a movie. After the plot turn, there's a whole new territory to explore, umm, that is, unless you saw the second "Jurassic Park" movie, in which case, same old shit. But the film manages to be timely on a few fronts, one thing that comes to mind is that Hawaiian volcano that erupted just two months ago, and is still active. From the amount of press coverage, you'd think that maybe all of Hawaii is being destroyed, but it's really just a small part, and hey, more lava flowing into the ocean means that technically, Hawaii is getting bigger. So once it's safe, there will be more island to enjoy! This leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, parts of the fictional Isla Nublar will still come out OK, and even if it doesn't, don't forget about Isla Sorna, the other dino island that was seen in "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic Park III". (You forgot about Isla Sorna, didn't you? That's OK, they'll probably remind you about it in the next "Jurassic World" film...)
Another timely plot contrivance concerns the "Eat the rich" philosophy, which I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet as a symptom of Hollywood's rampant leftist socialism. But it's also a key time right now for human DNA experimentation, I just saw a segment on "The John Oliver Show" about how people are using something called CRISPR to tinker with the genetic code of their pets, or even themselves. And this is being done by people at home, the kits only cost about $100, and I'm sure they come with absolutely no long-term repercussions whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong with people changing their own DNA to make themselves thinner or more muscular without diet or exercise? It's not like DNA gets passed down to future generations or anything like that... Wait a minute....it does? Oh, crap, then we're all doomed.
I know that real scientists have been working on re-creating the ancient wooly mammoth, because really, doesn't our world need more wooly mammoths, and saber-toothed tigers while we're at it? But even after finding a well-preserved mammoth, all they've been able to make so far in the real world looks like an elephant with male pattern baldness - that's not encouraging, so maybe it just wasn't meant to be. Maybe we should be working on preserving the elephants tigers that we STILL HAVE before we go mucking about with genetics trying to bring back the old ones. Someone's saving the DNA of tigers, whales and elephants somewhere, right? So maybe if they die out some future generation could conceivably bring them back, after we solve global warming and figure out how to get all the plastic out of the oceans? Hello? Anyone?
Who knew that the world one day would be like it is now, where we've all got one foot in the grave and the other on the proverbial banana peel, and just one epidemic or not enough attention paid to the rising temperature is going to put us over the tipping point? And it's kind of like those oxygen masks on the airplanes, we have to save ourselves first before we can save the other species, or maybe not? Maybe we should let the humans die out, or a fair number of them, and that way one of the other intelligent species on the planet could step up to the plate. I mean, we had our shot and I think we kind of blew it. Can you tell me for sure that the dolphins couldn't do a better job of running things? Once the ocean levels rise, that is, and those of use who can't grow gills via mutation end up living on top of very tall mountains or treading water for a decade. (Note to self: invest in a houseboat.) Now it's just a question of WHAT's going to take us down, whether it will be global warming, the simian flu or somebody messing with everyone's DNA.
Before I go, any other NITPICK POINTS? Oh, yeah, that scene where Jeff Goldblum's scientist character testifies before Congress about what to do vis-a-vis the dinosaur situation. That's ridiculous, because when has a Congressional hearing ever managed to accomplish anything? Ha ha, that's very humorous, but obviously very inaccurate also. Why wasn't there any reference like "A Congressional hearing? Maybe you don't understand, we need something to get DONE!"
Also starring Chris Pratt (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Ted Levine (last seen in "Bleed For This"), Rafe Spall (last seen in "A Good Year"), Toby Jones (last seen in "The Man Who Knew Infinity"), B.D. Wong (last seen in "Seven Years in Tibet"), James Cromwell (last seen in "The Bachelor"), Justice Smith, Geraldine Chaplin (last seen in "A Monster Calls"), Jeff Goldblum (last heard in "Isle of Dogs"), Isabella Sermon, Daniella Pineda (last seen in "Sleeping With Other People"), Kevin Layne, Peter Jason (last seen in "Heartbreak Ridge"), Alex Dower, with cameos from Michael Papajohn, Max Baker (last seen in "Hail, Caesar!")
RATING: 7 out of 10 diorama displays
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