Tag: Jeff Goldblum

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Jurassic World: Dominion

Chris Pratt does this move eight times in Jurassic World: Dominion.

How many ways can you screw up a dinosaur movie? It seems like a slam dunk. The people are coming for the dinosaurs, so you give them dinosaurs. When you’re not doing that, just point your camera at Jeff Goldblum — because if you’re making a movie about dinosaurs, I assume you’ve paid your Goldblum money. 

In attempting a Star Trek: Generations move by uniting the old and new casts of a legacy franchise, Jurassic World: Dominion inadvertently exposes the biggest flaw of the Jurassic Park reboot trilogy: The lack of Jeff Goldblum. The new film’s greatest accomplishment is the completion of Chris Pratt’s quest to render his character Owen Grady completely devoid of personality. The former Navy Seal turned velociraptor whisperer is just there to be good at things like riding motorcycles and wrangling wild theropods, not to feel any pesky emotions. His sole move is to straight-arm dinosaurs into compliance, which he does eight times, by my count, in Dominion.  Since appearing in 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Bryce Dallas Howard has come into her own directing career, helming episodes of The Mandalorian, so her performance as former Jurassic Park manager turned dino-rights activist Claire Dearing is predictably checked-out. 

Director Colin Trevorrow struggles to fit his expanding cast of heroes into one frame in Jurassic World: Dominion.

When Dominion begins, they’re living together in a cabin in rural Montana with Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), the clone of the daughter of OG Jurassic Park researcher Benjamin Lockwood. Instead of instantly dying from the Anthropocine world’s onslaught of pollution and disease, the dinosaurs who escaped from the exploding volcano on Isla Nublar have spread across the planet. This sounds like the basis for a good story. Imagine dinosaurs tearing a swath through the modern world, while our heroes, led by Jeff Goldblum, tries to find a solution that preserves both humankind and dino-kind. It’s the proverbial un-screwable pooch. 

Life, in the person of writer/director Colin Trevorrow, finds a way. It turns out that Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) has been spending the years since her 1993 visit to Jurassic Park studying the effects of genetic engineering on the ecology. She’s hot on the trail of a mysterious new species of giant locust that have been bioengineered to eat everything not produced by megacorp Biosyn. This will cause a worldwide famine if she and her old palentologist flame Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill, remarkably well preserved) can’t find proof of the plan. Lucky for them (and us) Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff freakin’ Goldblum) has already infiltrated Biosyn by gaining the trust of its founder Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, in a Shatnerian performance). Even though dinos are now roaming wild through the woods and plains of the world, Biosyn has gathered a collection of the creatures into a large, protected space — a kind of Jurassic park, if you will — through which our ever-growing collection of heroes will have to navigate in order to save a kidnapped clone, a baby velociraptor, and also the world’s food supply.  

Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) faces down Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) in Jurassic World: Dominion.

Maybe a more skilled filmmaker would be able to successfully juggle three competing storylines, but the truth is, a skilled filmmaker would know better than to try. The giant locust attack seems to be an attempt at a climate change allegory, which is weird choice for a story that features a world overrun by already allegorical dinosaurs. Were the filmmakers under the impression that we’re begging for a stealth remake of  Beginning of the End, the 1957 giant locust movie skewered by Mystery Science Theater 3000? I thought we were here for dinosaurs. 

In fairness, there is some crunchy dino-action. The second act features a solid Spielbergian set piece, with trained velociraptor assassins under the command of a smuggler named Santos (Dichen Lachman) chasing a motorcycle-mounted Pratt through the streets of Malta. But even when Trevorrow manages to conjure a string of exciting images, the Adderall-addled script can’t sustain any momentum. 

T. Rex searching for snacks in Jurassic World: Dominion.

When things do perk up, it’s usually because of Jeff Goldblum. He effortlessly dominates the screen, delivering schtick with his trademark sly wink at the audience. I was reminded of the infamous story of when Michael Caine, another actor who was always the best thing in bad movies, was asked about appearing in another rock-bottom sequel of a great Steven Spielberg film, Jaws: The Revenge. “I haven’t seen it, and by all accounts, it is terrible,” he said. “But I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.” 

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Film Features Film/TV

Isle Of Dogs

When you’re a film critic, you have to watch a lot of crap. It’s right there in the job description: I watch crap so you don’t have to. But what I don’t think I was prepared for was the sheer shoddiness of some of the films I see. I’m not talking about the kind of corner-cutting you see on low-budget pictures. I’m talking about poor craftsmanship in studio blockbusters. You’d think if you’re spending $200 million on a production, you would at least care enough to make it look good on screen. It’s disheartening to see stuff like Transformers: The Last Knight, where the special effects finale included terrible composite jobs and recycled stock footage. If they don’t care about their product, why should I?

That’s one of the reasons critics like Wes Anderson. His work can be truly great, like The Royal Tennenbaums or Moonrise Kingdom; or divisive, like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or head-scratchingly misguided, like The Darjeeling Limited. But at least it’s never shoddy. Even when it doesn’t work, you can tell he and his team are paying attention to detail, making each individual shot look the best it can.

I guess what I’m saying is, in my reviews, even if you fail, you get points for honestly trying — and deductions for cynical, advertising-driven cash grabs that are directly proportional to the size of your budget. So when I see a film that is both as lovingly crafted and as emotionally resonant as Isle of Dogs, I’m gonna praise it like it was Medicare for All.

Wes Anderson celebrates his love for dogs and Japanese culture in Isle of Dogs.

This film is about two things: Anderson’s love of dogs, and his love of Japanese culture. Isle of Dogs‘ prologue is a Noh drama about “a little samurai” lovingly staged in flawless stop motion, complete with black-clad stagehands the audience is trained to ignore. Right from the beginning, Anderson uses layers and layers of artifice stacked together to reach for something higher. But his little curlicues, which have in the past threatened to overwhelm the bigger picture, are here focused on the story. The Noh bit sets up the history of the powerful, cat-loving Kobayashi family before flashing forward to the near future, where Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) rules fictional Megasaki City. The mayor uses the cover of a dog flu epidemic to banish all of the city’s dogs to Trash Island, which prompts his ward Atari (Koyu Rankin) to steal an airplane and fly to rescue his beloved pet, Spots (Liev Schreiber).

Atari’s landing skills are not great, so he quickly finds himself needing a rescue. Fortunately, he’s found by a pack of heroic dogs, voiced by Anderson regulars: Chief (Bryan Cranston), Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray), and Duke (Jeff Goldblum). They take the “Little Pilot” under their paws and help him navigate treacherous Trash Island in search of his lost dog. Meanwhile, Professor Watanabe (Akira Ito) and his assistant Yoko Ono (voiced by the actual Yoko Ono) search for a cure to dog flu, and an American exchange student named Tracy (Greta Gerwig) uses her school newspaper to unseat Mayor Kobayashi.

Anderson careens from one incredible set piece to another. Professor Watanabe’s lab comes right out of a Toho production like The Mysterians. The director uses Kobayashi’s brief visit to a sumo match as an excuse to create a fully realized arena tableau that echoes Raging Bull. The island where most of the adventure plays out provides endlessly varied environments, from orderly stacks of cubes made from compacted trash to a slimy toxic wasteland. Our canine heroes hide out in a hut made of discarded saki bottles that provide a luminous and colorful background. Unlike the finely polished (and criminally overlooked) Kubo and the Two Strings, Anderson foregrounds the stop motion process — like King Kong; the dogs’ fur is in constant motion, disturbed by the animator’s unseen fingers. But there are also some spectacular effects, such as when characters eyes well with artificial tears.

Anderson loves nothing more than making self-contained worlds that play by their own internal rules. But there’s an underlying melancholy to his work. His orderly creations are a way to provide escape from the chaos and pain of the real world, if only for a couple of hours. Isle of Dogs is twee as you would expect from Anderson making a movie about dogs, but the underlying hurt is much closer to the surface here than in an idyl like Moonrise Kingdom, and that gives it a fairy-tale vibe. This is a kids movie that knows the kids can handle the darkness better than the grown ups.

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Film Features Film/TV

Thor: Ragnarok

Since superheroes first ventured onto screens, one name rises above all others. He was the single most influential figure in the development of the tone and character of the genre, and his name was not Thor — it was Adam West.

From 1966 to 1968, West played Batman on ABC. He was a hero to millions of children all over the world, and he was still remembered fondly and respected throughout Hollywood at the time of his death last summer at age 88. The real genius in West’s portrayal of the Caped Crusader was that he realized exactly how ridiculous the premise of Batman was. A millionaire dresses up as a bat to fight crime because his parents were killed? Not only that, but there are a bunch of other people whose life experiences have led them to obsessively play themed dress-up and try to take over the world, from whom this Batman must protect us? It’s ludicrous.

West managed to look like he was taking the whole thing seriously on the surface, and yet still wink at the audience. Okay, yeah. A bubble with the word “POW!” appears every time I punch this guy wearing a “HENCHMAN” shirt. Just go with it and have fun. West was magnetic on screen and was zealous about making sure the Batman he portrayed was a good guy, even if that sometimes meant making fun of how square that made him.

The 1960s Batman series was a product of its time. The comic book industry had been creatively neutered after the Seduction of the Innocent Congressional hearings decided violent comics were the cause of juvenile crime and the Comics Code Authority was established. West’s Batman, as wildly popular as it was, cemented the image of the comic book superhero as a joke for kids. It wasn’t until Frank Miller and Alan Moore’s work in the 1980s that costumed vigilantes began to be scary again. Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman cast Michael Keaton as a brooding PTSD case in an attempt to get as far as possible from West’s vision of the World’s Greatest Detective. But that’s exactly what makes an artist influential — all subsequent people working in the same field or genre have to respond to him or her. In the influence game, total negation is just as powerful as embrace and emulation.

Over the years, Batman got grittier and grittier. His darkness infected even Superman, replacing Christopher Reeve’s charismatic blue Boy Scout with Henry Cavill’s charisma-free brood-a-thon. On the Marvel side, the X-Men traded their yellow spandex for Burton-esque black leather. The grimdark trend crested with Christopher Nolan’s insanely paranoid The Dark Knight Rises. In 2014, the worm finally turned with Guardians of the Galaxy, which made the argument that saving the universe in tights should be fun again.

Cate Blanchett plays Hela, Thor’s estranged older sister in Taika Waititi’s heroically funny Thor: Ragnarok.

Which brings us to Thor: Ragnarok. Despite the hunky presence of Chris Hemsworth, the Thor films have easily been the weakest link in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But last year’s Ghostbusters reboot proved that Hemsworth has comedic chops to spare, so Marvel mastermind Kevin Feige hired Taika Waititi, a New Zealander whose What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople are two of the decade’s sharpest comedies, to take the franchise in a new direction.

In Thor: Ragnarok, Waititi lets Hemsworth go full Adam West. That’s not to say Hemsworth has adopted West’s glorious deadpan, but he has perfected the art of convincing the audience that we’re all in on the same joke. No longer a glowering tower of muscle, Thor now cracks wise and flashes lopsided smiles at the slightest provocation. When he and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) do schtick together, you believe they’re brothers.

Thor’s main job is to protect his home Asgard from Hela (Cate Blanchett), his estranged older sister who helped their father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) conquer the realm with violence before being banished as a threat to peace, but a pleasing subplot takes him to Sakkar, a garbage dump ruled by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, in fine form) where he is forced into battle against his fellow Avenger the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

As usual for these $100-million Marvel monstrosities, Thor: Ragnarok is busy and overstuffed, both visually and with characters. But it’s at its best when it’s being irreverent and meta — Waititi’s speciality. He recognized that the best thing that could happen to Thor is for the pendulum to swing back toward West.

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Film Features Film/TV

Independence Day: Resurgence

I’m on my knees in the handicap stall of the Paradiso men’s room. I’ve just seen Independence Day: Resurgence, so I’ve decided to drown myself in the toilet. I’m sure there are other, more dignified ways to end it all in a movie theater, but this feels appropriate.

A blue glow suffuses the stall. I turn to see the Force ghost of Will Smith’s character from the 1996 Independence Day standing there in his flight suit, helmet tucked under one translucent arm. “Hold on there, partner!” he says. “Crawl away from the toilet.”

“Will Smith!” I exclaim. “What are you doing here?”

“Technically I’m Capt. Steven Hiller, fighter pilot, alien puncher, world savior. Right now, I’m here to save you from drowning yourself in this toilet. You know you’re in the handicap stall, right? If you drown yourself here, some poor guy in a wheelchair is going to have to move your Brexit-ass out of the way to pee. And he’s got enough problems. So I need you to get up off this floor and go write that review of Independence Day: Resurgence.”

“Man, Roland Emmerich sure coulda used you in that movie,” I say. “All he had was this guy, Jessie Usher, playing your son, who also happened to be a crack fighter pilot in the right place at the right time to fight alien invaders and save the world. But he was just a big slap of nothing. He didn’t even look like you. But you were too smart to get involved in that debacle, weren’t you?”

Force ghost Will Smith lights an ectoplasmic stogie. “Scheduling conflict with Suicide Squad,” he says, chuckling. “So tell me, why are you getting ready to take the pee-pee plunge? Bad movie hurt your feelings?”

“Bad? I eat bad movies for breakfast. This … this was not a movie. This is a symptom of a diseased system. This is a third-generation simulacrum of other, better movies repackaged for the export market. You can actually see the places where they’re cutting in extra scenes for the Chinese, like when Rain Lao, the Chinese pilot played by an actress actually named Angelababy, is briefly seen giving the tail end of a speech in front of a giant Chinese flag. You bet that scene is a lot longer in Beijing. But it’s not going to help. Can you believe they actually expect to sell a Fourth of July-themed movie in China? And waitaminute, why are you a Force ghost? That’s a Star Wars thing.”

“It doesn’t matter,” says Force ghost Will Smith. “It’s just a trope you’re familiar with so I don’t have to spend time on exposition.”

“Exactly! I kept envisioning Roland Emmerich saying ‘It doesn’t matter,’ over and over again. How do we get Jeff Goldblum from Africa to the moon? Have the Hunger Games guy steal a space tug. It doesn’t matter. Brent Spiner’s been in a coma for 17 years, and now his previously unmentioned gay partner runs Area 51? Why not? It doesn’t matter. No Will Smith? Show a painting of him in the White House. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Just steal some beats from Star Wars, Alien, Starship Troopers, whatever, hit the four quadrants with your $100 million ad spend, and watch the sheep bleat in. There were five writers listed on this thing, and when the Save the Cat outline says to save a cat, they literally saved a cat. Except it was a dog, escaped from a school bus full of kids that Judd Hirsch brought to the big showdown with the aliens in Nevada salt flats for no reason! Nothing matters!”

I lunge for the toilet, but am brought up short by a glowing blue hand on my shoulder. “That’s why you’ve got to live! You have to write this review! Warn the world!”

“Oh yeah. Writing a bad review always works. Plus, I got a mortgage. Thanks, Force ghost Will Smith! You saved my life.”

“All in a day’s work,” he says, turning to leave.

“Hey Will. Which headline to do like better: SHIT PARADE or POO-POO PLATTER?”

“It doesn’t matter.”