Jurassic World Rebirth And Living Up To Hype
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about Jurassic World Rebirth and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this dinosaur-filled movie, you might wish to skip this post.
I LOVE dinosaurs and I’ve enjoyed all of the Jurassic Park/World movies.
Yes, even the second one. (grins)
Jurassic World Rebirth is my least favorite.
It has moments of wonder in it. I loved the saved family, especially the boyfriend and his character arc. I thought the scene with the Titanosaurus was absolutely beautiful.
My big disappointment was with Distortus rex.
Every Jurassic movie has a new ‘terrifying’ dinosaur. This dinosaur is usually bigger and scarier and more deadly than any we’ve seen thus far.
And this is set up to be true in Jurassic World Rebirth.
We first ‘encounter’ Distortus rex in the first scene. We don’t see her but we know she’s huge and deadly.
And I was waiting excitedly the entire movie to finally see her.
When we did see her, toward the end of the movie, she was a let down.
She definitely didn’t live up to the hype.
She was hard to look at. She was so ugly. She had numerous arms but we didn’t really see how that was much of an advantage.
Because her scenes were few. And the fight was over quickly.
We weren’t shown how she was a better predator than the T-Rex, one of our favorites.
She had no endearing aspects or traits, nothing to give us a connection to her.
And I’m not interested in seeing Distortus rex ever again.
If she is the future of Jurassic dinosaurs, I’ll give that beloved franchise a pass.
This is a reminder for myself and writing buddies.
If we build hype, we have to deliver on that hype.
If we tell readers, for example, our hero will do ANYTHING to protect his love interest, we have to show him doing some serious sh*t to safeguard that being.
If we hint that sh*t will hit the fan if anyone found out about their relationship, someone has to find out and sh*t has to hit the fan. Hard.
Live up to the hype.
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Deep Impact, Bad Parents And Flawed Heroines
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about Deep Impact and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this awesome comet disaster movie from the previous century (1998 – grins), you might wish to skip this post.
Deep Impact is my favorite comet disaster movie. I really like that it has a news media/journalism angle to it and that it talks about how a government might cover up a possible world ending disaster.
(It stars Morgan Freeman as one of my favorite movie world leaders which is a huge plus.)
I also like that the characters are fully developed, including some seen-only-in-one-scene characters like the older gentleman reading his paper.
Jenny Lerner and her parents are especially nuanced. Jenny, as a high profile journalist, has a guaranteed spot in the humanity saving ‘arc.’
If she chooses, she can survive the disaster.
You and I suspect she won’t survive it because she’s the heroine, yes, but also because she has character traits that serve as flaws in any disaster situation.
She is soft-hearted and VERY easy to emotionally manipulate.
Her mom knows this.
Jenny’s mom doesn’t have a place in the ‘arc’ and she realizes her daughter won’t allow her to die alone. Jenny will, if given the choice, walk away from her place in the ‘arc’ and sacrifice her life to be with her mom during the comet strike.
So Jenny’s mom makes her own sacrifice and ensures Jenny doesn’t have that choice. She does everything left in her power to increase the odds her beloved daughter will survive.
That’s how much Jenny’s mom loves her.
Jenny’s dad also knows Jenny is easy to emotionally manipulate.
And he, being a selfish bastard, has no qualms about doing that to ensure HE doesn’t die alone. He, without hesitation or any hint of regret, emotionally blackmails his daughter, knowing it will result in her death.
I hated him for doing that.
But I LOVED that the writers built this nuance into the story.
The writers could have given Jenny solely the expected-in-an-action-movie heroic motivation of saving an innocent child and stopped there.
But they gave her a secondary motivation. She is manipulated by someone she loves.
Someone whose last act shows he doesn’t love her enough.
And that is great writing.
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The Killer And Strong Motivation For Change
Spoiler Alert – This post will talk about The Killer and it WILL contain spoilers. If you haven’t yet watched this 2024 John Woo film, you might wish to skip this post.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I recently watched The Killer, a remake of the 1989 film with the same English title, directed by the same director – John Woo.
I usually love John Woo movies. And I watched the original movie many years ago.
So I knew what to expect.
I should have loved this remake, especially as it stars Nathalie Emmanuel as the lead character Zee. She’s a gifted actress and always gives a great performance. The Killer was no exception to that.
My issue with The Killer is…
Motivation.
We are expected to believe Zee, a cynical, highly trained assassin, would face off against her boss and her fellow assassins, risking her life and her career, to protect a stranger who…isn’t a good person.
At all.
Jenn is a drug dealer and doesn’t seem to have any redeeming qualities other than she’s a great singer and she’s beautiful.
(I know what you’re thinking but no, there’s no indication Zee is interested in Jenn romantically.)
The only reason we receive for Zee taking that risk is Jenn reminds Zee of a younger her.
Except the two women appear to be roughly the same age. Jenn is definitely no naïve teenager or innocent.
For a viewer or a reader to believe a character can change significantly, there has to be a strong motivation for that character to change.
Maybe his dog is killed on the anniversary of his beloved wife’s death (John Wick). Or a child he has befriended comes to him, a killer, begging for help (The Professional). Or he is double crossed and targeted for death (The Accountant).
Those are all strong motivations for change.
Saving a beautiful singing stranger is, in contrast, NOT a strong motivation for change.
Unfortunately.
The action scenes and the actors make this movie worth watching…once.
This isn’t a keeper movie for me.
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