My Own Little World

What is the Jurassic Park franchise, and what should it be? Those two questions are sitting at the front of my mind the morning after watching the fifth installment in this series, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom . Sleeping on this movie was not a good idea; instead of being ambivalent as I was last night, I am now deeply concerned that this franchise is not going to continue being one of my more anticipated summer movie events as it has been for both this film and Jurassic World . The predominant problem with watching Fallen Kingdom is structure and pacing. It appears like two separate movies were put together end to end and played as the final product. The first half revolves around getting the dinosaurs off the island of Isla Nublar, saving the animals from its active volcano, while the second half turns into a gothic horror-esque monster movie that is tonally inconsistent by itself. These distinct aesthetics and tones make the finished film nothing more than a bridge b...

Somehow, some way, Jurassic World  is both one of my most anticipated films of the year and one of the most surprising. The anticipation shouldn't be hard to grasp: I remember seeing the original Jurassic Park  on VHS when I was give or take 8 years old. I fell in love with it immediately and even more so when last summer I saw it on the big screen for the first time at my local arthouse. So, where did the skepticism come from? Well, as I saw more and more material come from Jurassic World , I kept thinking (and hearing from others) that it looked more and more like a mindless CG crapfest similar to the Transformers  franchise...or Jurassic Park III . Thankfully, the 14 years we've waited for a fourth Jurassic Park  film were well worth the wait. Not only is Jurassic World  visually entertaining and thrilling, it also captures a lot of the magic of the original film. The majority of this magic comes from the story. The "too long; didn't read" version...