The Part-Time Critic

 

I just don't get this film at all. Who in their right mind thought the way to cash in on the promise of Fallen Kingdom's ending was to restrict the film to another "park" (but it's a reserve this time!) story? THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FILLED with dinosaurs now and we get a throwback to an evil engineering genius controlling a reserve of dinosaurs for his own desires? The franchise took an entire two films to setup the premise that the story has now gone global only to use the entire two acts of the next film to setup a return to a Jurassic Park -esque "reserve". Huh?

In a clear sign that the creatives behind this film don't really expect much of the audience's intelligence is the particularly insulting explanatory news broadcasts that open and close the film. Movies have always used news broadcast as a somewhat indirect way to share key exposition, but this one does so in a way that essentially retells you the entire story and even directly poses to the viewer the key questions and themes of the film. It’s almost as if the creatives are asking the audience during the film, “Did you get all the cool stuff we put into this? Did ya? Well, if you didn’t I’m gonna make sure you did cause I'm about to tell it you." It's one of the most egregious abuses of the news broadcast I've ever seen in a film.

Are there any redeeming factors? Man, that's tough to say here. Is it nice to see some of the old crew here? Sure. Do they get anything meaty or substantive to do as characters? Not really. It's pretty clear they are a cheap cash-in, shoe-horned in for some sense of grandness and closure to the story. While Ian, Grant, Saddler, and BD Wong are somewhat welcome returns, Pratt's Own and Howard's Claire continue to be a mysterious leading pair. Their relationship lacks chemistry and has been bungled so badly over the two previous films that the creatives seem to acknowledge it here by practically dropping it entirely from the script. There's a hilarious moment where a new character by the name of Watts asks Owen, "You love her don't you?" Owen's response is pretty much how we all feel - meh.

The action, which was never that good in the trilogy reboot, is pretty subpar here as well. Rather than featuring a few large set pieces, the film throws a bunch of shorter encounters with dinosaurs throughout the film. It’s a poor substitution that sacrifices memorable and gripping sequences with cheap moments that are forgotten before they are over. The best and most memorable sequence of the film takes place on the island of Malta and is emblematic of the central creativity problem plaguing the franchise. EVERYTHING about this Malta sequence says it was written/edited/reshot to be an action sequence in the vein of the other franchises. First, there's the Fast and Furious vibes with with multiple threads of a team working toward a goal and getting their own villains and conflicts. Second, there's the Mission Impossible/Bond franchise vibes with big stunts/chases with criminal elements in exotic locations (just with atrociraptors in chase rather than super skilled assassins). The creative crisis of the Jurassic World franchise is that the original premise has been exhausted so they are creating riffs on the same basic idea (we can't control genetic engineering or dinosaurs) and trying to dress it up in the success of other franchises. It's the old aged rock star who has nothing left to say but hires modern producers to make him sound like the kids these days. It's Bon Jovi making a cover of "It's My Life" in 2000. It's reiteration plus imitation without any innovation. The actual story about dinosaurs being smuggled and Biosyn keen on taking advantage of genetic engineering doesn't have any reason to give us this action and you can feel it with every scene as they rapidly introduce new characters, cut to confusing locations, give old characters new abilities (Claire is a roof jumping hero now?), and seemingly build an entire action sequence out of thin air. I don't know if the motorcycle chase with the raptors through Malta was always storyboarded and written to be presented as it is, but it certainly looks like a last second decision. Most of the sequences here are shot so tight in medium and close-ups to hide the CGI'ed Malta that it makes me wonder if the studio and creatives weren't tinkering and redesigning continually behind the scenes. Still, all that said, Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" while a creative void is quite an earworm and this still can still be quite enjoyable with just how ambitious and production heavy it is. Ironically, it's the best and most memorable action sequence of a creatively bankrupt film. (For a full run-down of every Jurassic Park action sequence in the franchise, click HERE)

I hope that Universal puts the Jurassic franchise into the vault for at least a decade or so. We don't need another entry, we don't need an immediate reboot, the franchise needs a nice long extinction. Let a future generation rediscover it, re-engineer it, and wonder if they should have brought it back to life. We already know the answer.

Before I jump into my main four points, let me say three quick things about them. First, it's impossible to give a full review without getting into spoilers. So if you don't want the plot, character arcs, and themes spoiled, stop reading and come back after you have seen it. Second, one of the strengths of this film is that it doesn't tip it's hand too early in the film. I really like that we go on a journey with Michelle Yeoh's character, learning about the multiverse as she does, and thinking incorrectly about it along with her as well. What I mean is that the character doesn't go from completely wrong thinking to completely right thinking. The character has spurts of insight, but also thinks in ways after initial growth that the movie wouldn't fully endorse. I bring this up, because it makes black/white critiques of the film's themes a bit more difficult. It also puts a heavy weight on the closing sequences to carry the true message of the film - after Yeoh's character has been enlightened to the message of the film. Thus, most of my critiques will be center on the final sequences as they provide the clearest way to understand what the film is trying to get across. Third, you can't understand my critiques clearly, without understanding the plot of the story. Since it's necessary, let's get into the story a bit.

Second, the film goes out of its way to try and provide philosophical support for the same-sex relationship the daughter Joy is in. In the film's definition of kindness, it is important to accept and approve of this relationship. To be clear, I'm not here to debate the morality of same-sex relationships, but in how the film isn't intellectually curious enough to realize it has undermines its own goals. If it's true that there is an essential part of humanity that longs for family (whether it comes from evolutionary biology or wherever) and in particular her mother, then this is an interesting endorsement of the biological family unit - father and mother. If there is something fundamental about biological family, something inherent in humanity that came from our biological development that we must learn to accept and embrace, then where does that leave same-sex relationships - which evolution, by design, says can't reproduce children? The film can't have it both ways - picking and choosing what biological structures we must accept and what ones we can construct to our own ends. Again, it's obvious if you think it out one step further but the film never seems to make the connection.

Third and finally, for a film that is so curious about purpose and meaning and the makeup of reality, it seems to have zero interest in religion. This isn't some "equal time" cry from a Christian whose sad they didn't make Christ the answer - this is an argument that a film as curious as this one ignores the one place that the majority of people throughout all of human history and even today go to for meaning - religion. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a thoughtful movie, but it assumes an atheistic world (or at least a brutally deist one) without any exploration of the topic. Shouldn't an obvious repercussion of all possible worlds be that there's a world where Evelyn and Joy explore, join, & lead religious lives as well? Why wouldn't the beliefs, experiences, and "feelings" of the majority of humans throughout history not make up a large portion of the possible lives/worlds of a multiverse? I really enjoyed the film as a film and think it's extremely well produced and acted. It will likely do very well at my film awards. I just think its passionate argument for an (atheistic) humanism fails to see just how self-defeating, subjective, chronologically-elitist, and uncurious it actually is.