Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

 

This is less of a review and more of a PSA: if you value your time and have a fleeting amount of it to spend, for the love of god don't waste it on this awful film. I only watched this movie because I was on a plane and I still feel as though I could have spent my time better. This soulless cash grab of a dino flick is even more banal and pointless than the last two (which I really thought was impossible.

I would go into more spoilery details because I would honestly be doing everyone who hasn't seen it yet a favor, but the movie is so lacking in memorable moments (outside of the laughably bad acting and writing) it isn't even worth spoiling (you already know this movie is on some serious BS when the film starts with a single empty Snickers wrapper bringing a multi-billion dollar experimental scientific facility to its knees). One saving grace for this disaster of a film could have been some satisfying dinosaur-eating-humans scenes but unfortunately we don't even really get anything memorable in that department either, at least the previous Jurassic World movies could get that right (in at least one of the death scenes our view is completely blocked and we can't even see the person getting eaten. I feel robbed!). 

If you do decide to subject yourself to this movie, then expect to find dialogue full of mind-numbingly unsubtle exposition, characters whose motivations make no sense and don't line up with their actions at all (Scarlett Johansson and her band of merry mercenaries with hearts of gold, but also they want to get rich quick are not doing it for me, I'm sorry) and one of the lamest, dumbest-looking final boss "dinosaurs" I've ever seen; I seriously couldn't decide whether to laugh or be disgusted, (just stick with the T-Rex folks, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here). 

I could overlook some of this nonsense if the movie was at least fun at all and wasn't full of annoying characters (ah look, it's the useless, lazy boyfriend who inexplicably performs heroic actions that you would have never expected from him and somehow earns the trust and respect of his girlfriend's father and don't forget the scared kid who doesn't talk half the time because they are so scared, or the father whose leg is only injured when one of his daughters is in danger, and I already mentioned the mercenaries with hearts of gold *eyeroll*); unfortunately, this movie is a true bore, even the scenes that are borrowed from the original novels fall flat and don't have nearly as much intensity as the books did (I was so looking forward to the T-rex raft chase scene as a fan of the novel, but even that didn't live up to expectations). Everything in this movie just sort of happens because that's what was in the script, if that makes sense. If you find yourself craving a dinosaur flick, do yourself a favor and just watch the original Jurassic Park again, or even the original Jurassic World, heck even the 1960 version of The Lost World would be a better use of your time. 

-Ryan Maples

Rating: 2/10

Lucy (2014)

Ever since I first saw the trailer for Luc Besson’s Lucy, I knew I was going to have a tough time swallowing the premise. The theory that we use only ten percent of our “cerebral capacity” is utter nonsense and even if it weren’t I find it hard to believe that gaining more access to our brain power would grant us the ability to change hairdos on demand. However, I decided that if I can accept (for the sake of a movie) that apes can leapfrog us in evolution and take over the world, then I could go along with this premise. Well, I tried, but after watching Lucy, I’m pretty sure apes being our ultimate demise makes more sense than anything in this film.

Luc Besson himself described this movie as having three parts: the first, his very own Leon:  the Professional. The second part is supposed to be Inception (other than one zero gravity sequence, I’m not sure where that part comes into play), and finally, the third part is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This definitely helps to explain the film, but unfortunately it does nothing to make it better. In fact, it explains why the movie seems like it’s always aiming for something more, and missing.

Admittedly, some of the sequences in this picture are interesting, but none of them seem to add up or make any sort of sense, and Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of Lucy does nothing to help. Apparently, gaining more control of your “cerebral capacity” not only makes your more aware of (and gives you control of) radio waves, electrical waves, all the waves really, but also causes you to be distant and rude… for some reason. She goes from being a real person, who is initially terrified of being killed, to a soulless zombie, mumbling nonsensical things and predicting the color of pens next to people on the other end of telephone lines (because increased brain power, I guess).

Of course, all of these powers that Lucy discovers throughout the film are totally explained by none other than Morgan Freeman, the ultimate explainer. In a completely superfluous role, Freeman plays a professor that Lucy must impart her newfound knowledge to, because the movie demands it. He also explains to us how this is all completely plausible, because dolphins have sonar. Seriously, I’m not making this up.

That’s another thing about Lucy, no one’s motivations make any sense. Why is Lucy so desperate to reach 100% brain capacity (whatever that means)? We’re led to believe that she must because she can (no word on why no one else can try and Get Smart like her). Of course, the only way she can do this is by taking all of the drugs, but these aren’t just any drugs, they’re special synthetic fetus drugs, or something like that; and the movie just wouldn’t be complete if there wasn’t an Asian drug cartel chasing after her, shooting up airports, hospitals and schools, because they must really need those four bags of drugs back badly. Personally, I might have tried a more subtle approach, but to each their own.

I understand this is just a sci-fi film, and of course it’s not really saying that any of this could ever happen (at least I really hope not), however, I feel like this film simply throws us into its plot, daring us to question it. Everything that happens is explained (or not explained) because of more brain power, but the more the film went on the less brain power I felt in my own head (maybe that’s where Lucy was gaining all her power, by sucking it from the minds of the audience). At one point, Morgan Freeman urges Lucy to “pass on” the knowledge she has gained; I wish this movie could have at least attempted to do the same, but then again, maybe it just has nothing to pass on in the first place.

-Ryan Maples

Rating: 4.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1