Category: Gareth Edwards

JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH

By Marc S. Sanders

You’ve seen this movie before.  You likely saw it when you saw the trailer.  

The Jurassic films spawned from Michael Crichton’s ingenious best-selling novel, Jurassic Park (my favorite book of all time), stampede on and on, going on thirty-two years now.  Here is the seventh installment.  Once again, reinvigorated with a new cast and a bankable headliner/former Marvel Avenger.  

All year long, just like the last five films, I’m asking myself again why any of these people are going back to these islands.  Well Rebirth lends as good an answer as any.  Somehow the DNA from three different prehistoric mutated mega beasts will lead to a cure for heart disease.

Reader, from the outset I recognized the familiar pattern.  I knew precisely who was going to survive and who was going to perish before the closing credits arrived.  I got a perfect score, by the way.  Likely, you will too and thus the suspense is very watered down in Jurassic World: Rebirth. Seven times on the merry go round, you should know by now which direction this ride is moving.

Nevertheless, I was hoping against hope that the cure for heart disease will make it for the eventual consumption of human civilization.  The vials of Dino-DNA are collected and stored in an airtight briefcase.  So, while the scant cast of people screams, runs, tip-toes, swims, climbs and falls all over this tropical island, located close to the equator, my eyes were fixated on this medical breakthrough.  

Where are your priorities people? On the kid and her toddler dinosaur friend named Delores?  Come on!!!!! There’s much more at stake here than that or Scarlett Johansson and two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali. 

Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is new director in the franchise and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  The visuals of his dinosaur adventure are marvelous if not as impressive as they used to be.  Just like David Koepp’s script shamefully admits, the world no longer cares about dinosaurs as much.  Much of Jurassic World: Rebirth feels like a retread of the same old stuff.  At best, the only inventions left to tackle is to mold new monsters that are of a Frankenstein product.  The animals look fiercer and meaner and toothier and bigger…like way, way bigger.

Edwards and Koepp put the creatures in the ocean and in nestled caverns that have not been depicted as much before.  The sequences are done well but still I felt as if I had seen this movie before.

Not much can be said about Johansson or Ali’s performances.  She’s a high priced, skilled mercenary.  He’s the charter boat captain.  The rest of the cast is just the rest of the cast which includes some ready-to-sacrifice nameless folks gifted with screams to edit within and about five or six lines (one guy is privileged to share his French fluency), a pair of teenagers, an adorable kid and the resident greedy industrialist.  You know who I’m talking about, right?

I’m amused by those who rank the Jurassic movies.  How can you decide what is best or worst anymore?  The blueprints are so identical and the Dino gobbles and Dino chases and Dino roars all blend together for me by now.  If it was a Jeopardy category to identify which movie any scene was from, I’d lose big time and wager little on the Daily Double.

Beyond the first film from Spielberg none of these films are as special to me.  Like Chinese food, I fill up and I go back for more but that’s it.

Still…

Go to the movies.  Keep the cinema alive.  See the new Jurassic World movie and have fun with this new iteration of people going to the restricted island where dinosaurs romp and play.  I enjoyed it even if I never felt overwhelmingly stimulated.  At the very least I enjoyed watching my wife clap when she learned that one character survived.  

Me? 

…and 3…2…1… of course!

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

By Marc S. Sanders

On my 4th viewing of this film, I second guessed myself over and over. I know I’m a Star Wars junkie, but can I truly give an objective opinion about Rogue One? I think I can.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is of one of the best films of the last ten years. Now there are conditions that accompany that observation. It’s difficult to follow its trajectory if you haven’t seen A New Hope (the intended follow up story; the original Star Wars film). Frankly, reader if you are watching this film without ever watching A New Hope, I’d imagine you’ve been on a deserted island with a volleyball for a friend, unaware of this pop culture geek-oriented phenomenon from a galaxy far, far away, and upon your return to civilization you were just randomly flipping the channels. So, let’s just go ahead and dismiss that parameter right now.

Disney is the only studio with enough resources and scrutiny to ensure a good product is developed in the franchise. Rogue One proves that theory. From the Rebel uniforms to the Stormtroopers, to the Yavin 4 set recreation, and even a harkening back to Darth Vader’s original 1977 appearance (red eyes in the helmet), director Gareth Edwards, Lucasfilm and Disney ensure consistency in its side chapter apart from the 9-part saga. You relish the familiarity of it all, and what’s new you welcome with appreciated enthusiasm. It all works within the long-established universe.

The cast is superb with major highlights from Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso (great name) as a brash no nonsense rogue in and of herself. Jones comes off with tough bravado reminiscent of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, as well as Jodie Foster. Nothing will intimidate her, though she will show her heart and soul for her father, the reluctant architect of the Empire’s Death Star played by Mads Mikkelson, an important character to the story but not much material for him to capitalize on.

Alan Tudyk is a marvelous voice actor here as the tall droid K2SO, with a personality combination of Chewbacca & C3PO. He’s honest, maybe a little to honest, but he’s also physically strong and a smart aleck. His tone is Anthony Daniels, but his delivery is snide and arrogant. He’s just so entertaining.

Ben Mendohlson plays Imperial Director Krennic as a frightening antagonist who embraces the terror of this super weapon he oversees. “Oh it’s beautiful,” he sighs and really believes he sees beauty as a planet gradually combusts under the laser blast emanating from the Death Star. He expects greatness from his accomplishments and Mendohlson is also good at surrendering to what he’s not permitted to celebrate thanks to a strong Darth Vader and welcome return of Grand Moff Tarkin, a beautifully recreated CGI of deceased actor Peter Cushing. Tarkin is important to the Krennic storyline and his insertion in the film is flawless.

The cast also boasts Donnie Yen. He’s a real crowd pleasing blind martial artist. Not a Jedi, yet arguably even more fun.

The planets are crowded and different. Scarif where the final battle takes place is draped in palm trees and ocean blue. Great because it’s daylight setting allows all the action to be seen. Nothing is blurred.

The story structure is phenomenal as it centers on a race to make contact with an Imperial pilot who has just defected and then on to Jyn’s father in order to prevent this new Death Star from going into operation. I especially salute its honest, uncompromising, but still necessary ending. You’ll get a lump in your throat, followed by an adrenaline shot of excitement in the last five minutes. The end is pure genius. One of the great cinematic endings. Absolutely absorbing.

I really appreciate the various demographics in the film as well. For a story about an unending and lived in galaxy everyone should look and sound different. So, we are treated to Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian, and English, and then you have the droids and fictional alien species.

If anything is shortchanged, it might stem from some of the actors’ dialects. Forrest Whitaker, Diego Luna and Riz Amed play primarily roles that at times are hard to comprehend, even in a fourth viewing. This is forgivable though. The story lends value to all of the players on screen.

So yes. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is sensational; the best of the 4 Disney produced films thus far. There’s weight to its story, and its characters on both sides. It moves at a fast pace of action, dialogue and runaway suspense. It will go down as one of the best installments in the vast franchise that’s thrived for over 40 years so far.