Monday, June 15, 2015

Jurassic World: Is America Getting Dumber?

You guys.

I saw Jurassic World this weekend. And oh my gosh. YOU GUYS.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US?

Seriously. Are we getting dumber? Is America getting dumber?!

I know the entire Internets are already full of people complaining about things and tearing apart whatever you love. And I know that I don't need to be yet another one of those voices of hate. But I'm going to be right this minute. Because I sat through all 247 hours of Jurassic World this weekend AND THIS IS MY ONLY OUTLET OK?!

I would warn you that this post is going to be a spoiler for the movie. But I don't think it actually is a spoiler. Because a movie has to have a plot in order for one to spoil it. And Jurassic World HAS NO PLOT.

I remember when Jurassic Park came out ten seconds before or after Wade was born. I remember it so well. It was amazing. The dinosaurs were spectacular. The characters were believable and likable. LAURA FREAKING DERN WAS IN IT.

I remember the plot making sense (as long as you suspended belief on the fact that they resurrected all of the dinosaurs. And oh my gosh I know that this isn't what actually happened in the movie but that is so not the point so calm down). We accepted that film. Embraced it. Loved it. Because it was amazing. It was like GOD HIMSELF came down and made a movie to explain to us why we shouldn't have dinosaurs anymore.

The violence was mostly subtle, with a few shocking moments. The suspense was palpable. You guys. WE ALL WANTED THAT CAR TO GO FASTER.

Then they made some sequels and they were mostly ridiculous but we didn't care because sequels are supposed to be ridiculous.

And then, the dinosaurs went extinct again. We didn't hear about them for a very long time.

Until, suddenly, all 1,200 of your Facebook friends simultaneously shared the article about how they were making Jurassic World and it was going to be AMAZING. And it wasn't really a sequel because it had a different name. And we ALL got excited. And if you just said that you did not get excited, then you are a liar and I GUESS THIS ISN'T EVEN AMERICA ANYMORE.

And we waited. And waited. And FINALLY, the movie came out.

I was taken to it by friends who will likely never see another movie with me again as long as I live. Because I audibly reacted to everything that happened in this film. And I earned that right. Because I sat through all 247 hours of a movie where a dozen one-dimensional characters played by terrible actors take turns saying cliche and cheesy one-liners while dinosaurs eat people in the background.

You guys. I cannot even begin to explain how bad the plot and writing in this movie was. It was like they picked up a bunch of people off the street, told them that they were each going to play a character who had exactly one character trait, and they just needed to make sure they stuck to that character trait at all times.

"You, sir, are BRAVE!" (Hashtag Chris Pratt)

"You are the villain who lurks in the shadows and wants to use the dinosaurs to fight war!"

"You are a teenager. Please watch the Disney channel and act like everyone on every show."

And then, the aunt. That aunt character. The aunt of those awful children who had perfectly blow-dried hair two minutes after jumping into the water. That aunt. She was practically ridiculed for having not seen her nephews in a few years. AS THOUGH SHE WAS A DEADBEAT MOTHER.

But she wasn't the kids' freaking mother. SHE'S THEIR AUNT WHO LIVES IN ANOTHER COUNTRY AND JUST PAID FOR THEM TO HAVE AN AMAZING TRIP WHERE THEY GET TO SEE DINOSAURS.

But they really really wanted you to see her as the deadbeat aunt because they realized halfway into the film that they forgot to make the kids look pathetic and since their loving parents were back at home excitedly waiting for their return, they could only neglect them through an aunt who has no legal responsibility for them.

I seriously think that 3,000 people wrote this film by taking turns passing around a script and writing one line at a time without reading what anyone else had contributed to that point.

But the film progresses. The kids, who are not being monitored by their DEADBEAT aunt who has hooked them up with the most amazing weekend of all time on a tropical island in a five-star resort and has given them VIP passes to see animals that went extinct millions of years ago--those poor neglected kids go wandering off the beaten path and find themselves in trouble.

Meanwhile, the evil scientists created a mutant dinosaur in a lab because they had to in order to keep the children's attention. Because apparently the now un-extinct dinosaurs who have been accessible in this park for a decade-ish and are only visited by a tiny portion of the world's population are so incredibly unimpressive that if they don't make a T. Rex with spikes and super powers, no one will care about Jurassic World anymore.

So that dinosaur. The mutant one. The one they created in a lab to wow the children. That dinosaur somehow got loose and started killing all of the other dinosaurs and people on the island. And by the way, it is gigantic and cannot be taken down by missiles. BY MISSILES.

So naturally, BRAVE Chris Pratt and his 1,000 one-liners take his four raptors and shotgun and head out to hunt down this mutant dinosaur. You know. THE ONE THAT ISN'T AFFECTED BY MISSILES.

Oh yeah. The raptors are now man's best friend because Chris Pratt taught them how to love.

Oh, and one of the raptors kills the villain who wanted to use them as weapons in war.

But the raptors don't want to kill the mutant because the mutant is apparently part raptor and can VERBALLY COMMUNICATE with the raptors. And we watch them have a FULL conversation. And the people are like, "oh crap! The mutant must be part raptor because he knows how to speak Raptor!"

Anyway, the people continue to pursue Godzilla or whatever the hell that thing is called, until they finally end up in downtown Jurassic World where deadbeat aunt lets T. Rex loose because she realizes that he's the only one who can stop the mutant. And somehow deadbeat aunt runs faster than the T. Rex, but let's not get nit-picky here.

Then T. Rex faces off against Godzilla but he's just not strong enough. UNTIL all of the other dinosaurs come to help.

You guys. I am not making this up. I swear to you. The other dinosaurs came to help fight Godzilla. This really happened. And I was laughing so hard by this point in the movie that I stopped breathing for a moment.

And I realized then, too, that this whole scene seemed so familiar. And then I realized why it seemed familiar. YOU GUYS. THIS WAS THE EXACT PLOT OF EVERY SINGLE EPISODE OF THE POWER RANGERS IN THE 90'S.

Jurassic World ripped its "story" from the Power Rangers!

Somewhere along the way the raptors decide to fight Godzilla after all because they remember everything Chris Pratt did for them.

Magically, the dinosaurs we know defeat the one we don't know. And they they all wander off peacefully and leave the humans alone. Because apparently sometime in the last twenty years they stopped eating people.

Oh. And probably because Chris Pratt taught them how to love.

Then everyone ends up in a warehouse together as doctors tend to the thousands of wounded people. And deadbeat aunt and Chris Pratt wander off with each other smiling because they're in love now and apparently totally forgot that yesterday they caused a mass genocide.

But the CGI was impressive. So there's that.

~It Just Gets Stranger

52 comments:

  1. I have no desire to see it bc this was what I thought it would be. Best post!!! Thanks for clinching it for me. Oh and I like Chris Pratt. Sad!

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  2. Hashtag how to train your dragon two.

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  3. I've been debating with myself for days - do I want to spend money to see it on the big screen? Or do I wait until it comes out on dvd and spend less money to rent it?

    Guess that settles that then.

    The Starving Inspired

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  4. I'm sitting here at work, two hours before anyone else shows up, laughing at the Power Rangers line.
    I thought the movie too was ill written. WAY too violent compared to the first movies.
    Still the CG was of course rockin'. But I will not see it again.

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  5. What about when the T-Rex nods knowingly to the raptor? Or the margarita pterodactyl guest? Or the T-Rex suddenly becoming Simba on PrideRock at the movie's conclusion? Our theater applauded when the movie ended and I wept for humanity and the standards we once had.

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    1. Oh my gosh. Meg. Whoever you are. Why are we not hanging out RIGHT THIS SECOND!

      I just laughed so hard at this comment that I nearly choked on the M&Ms I'm eating. (Please do not look at the time stamp on this comment).

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    2. Or the ginormous sea monster dinosaur jumping out of the water to eat the ginormous mutant dinosaur at the end. Or the mutant dinosaur staging an escape to get the humans to enter the cage.

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    3. Or when the mutant removed its own chip because it remembered where it was. Also I applauded when it ended as well. Not because I loved it, but because it was finally over.

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    4. Fun fact: that margarita-wielding guest? Jimmy Buffet, Mr. Margaritaville himself!

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    5. The margarita pterodactyl guest was Jimmy Buffet. Did you notice the Margaritaville? PRODUCT PLACEMENT ALL AROUND!!!

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    6. We did The Porch together a while ago. I was the pregnant warmup act before your story about the Ukrainian hospital. I actually write reviews and would love to collaborate if it's something you're interested in writing more of.

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    7. Meg, I loved your story. Shoot me an email when you have a chance.

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    8. Meg is one of the funniest writers I've ever read. Her recap of Juan Pablo's Bachelor season finale deserves a Pulitzer Prize. http://weareontv.blogspot.com/2014_03_01_archive.html

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    9. Amy, that makes me cry. Thank you.

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    10. Meg I've had a secret girl crush on you ever since one of our mutual Facebook friends (whom I've since defriended for racial reasons) posted a link to your blog. Please don't ever stop writing it!

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    11. Not super excited to learn that racists are sharing my posts. But thank you for still reading despite some idiot being your original source.

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  6. Will you please review every movie that has ever been made? Thank you for your time.

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  7. And it all just got better and better with the comments. Loved this post and Netflix is soon enough. I admit. I wanted to see it. I'm a sucker for dinosaurs. I would have been one of the visitors who got eaten at the park because I was dumb enough to go there. Fortunately, I won't be dumber and spend money to see this in a theater. Thanks to your hilarious post.

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  8. After Jurassic Park, all the other movies could have just been titled "We're Not Even Trying, But Here's a Cool CG Dinosaur. Now Give Us Your Money." And if you didn't see this, here's another hilarious take on why Jurassic World sucked: http://www.buzzfeed.com/keelyflaherty/life-uh-finds-a-way#.ugzyQAXgg1

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  9. Um you forgot about the high heels she so skillfully ran away from dinosaurs in the entire movie! But cynicism has to be ignored during the movie because the point was fun and ridiculousness so I personally laughed a lot but thoroughly enjoyed myself. Plus Chris Pratt was hot

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    1. My thoughts exactly! Those heels! I agree the movie was just fun and ridiculous, and you can't take it too seriously. It's easy to make fun of, and so many parts make you roll your eyes, but I was still entertained. And Chris Pratt is hot.

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  10. I have not seen this movie (I know right...gasps from all of you that the nerd didn't go see this). Yes, I enjoy the comic book movies for the most part, but there were flags that made me say "I'll watch this when it comes out on Netflix or something". Firstly, I hate Chris Pratt. I don't know why people seem to like him, but whatever. I did, however, like him in Guardians of the Galaxy, but other then that, he seems to just show up in shows just to do stupid things. And stupid things seem to be what people like to see lately because SHOCKVALUE! Anyway, I watched the trailer for this thing and I saw Pratt in it trying to "tame the beasts". And my first thought was...there is no way a raptor doesn't just jump him and eat him. Now I've never met a dinosaur, but when I look at a raptor the only thing that comes to mind is blood thirsty reptile. And I know they were apparently very intelligent creatures and if they hadn't been wiped off the planet would probably have evolved into some kind of intelligent species, but in this state, they are primordial intelligent killing machines and there is no way in hell they would allow him to "tame" them. It took centuries for dogs and cats to be tamed by humans. This isn't just going to happen over a 10 year period. I won't get into some of the other things that set off red flags for me, but needless to say, this felt like another "Transformers" movie. Lots of cool special effects, crap story. What people call a "popcorn flick".

    Yeah, I agree. People seem to be getting dumber. How they drive, what they watch, what they allow their children to watch, how they treat people, the fact that Glee is still on tv, etc... It's just sad. Movies like this don't help because they end up making gobs of money and then the suits in Hollywood just go "hey, this is what they want to watch and what makes us money, let's make more of it." And eventually they are convinced that the story was good even though it wasn't. My favorite things idiots say online to me when I say something doesn't make sense are "uh, it's a movie about fiction/fantasy, they can do whatever they want". And my reply back is always "you're stupid". No I'm kidding. I normally say that, even in fiction/fantasy, you have to have laws. You can bend them, but if you break them, the story starts to suck. For example, ok, they created dinosaurs. But if those dino's all of a sudden start to fly or shoot laser beams out of their eyes, the story loses it's traction.

    Anyway, blah blah blah I'm going to shut up now.

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    1. Gah! LEE!!!! How can you hate Chris Pratt? I love your comments, but now I'm unsure if I can even read them anymore. His latest buzzfeed on why he and his wife are perfect made me love even more. Andy!? How can you hate Andy!? Also, I do question his ability to discern between good and bad roles. I was shocked he agreed to do this movie.

      Wait, okay, I kept reading and you hate Glee. I'm back on your side, Lee. Even if you had to change your name from G. Lee so you could post here.

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    2. Haha, "gah lee"...I see what you did there. Now don't ever EVER DO THAT AGAIN! That is SACRILEGIOUS!!!

      Yeah, I don't hate Chris Pratt the person, I just don't like the roles he's been in other then GotG. And if you're talking about Parks and Recreation...yes...I do not like that show. I'm sure people want to flame me for saying that, but I just can't stand it.

      But yeah...Glee...blah...just saying the word makes me nauseous. DOWN WITH GLEE!!! It's even worse because my wife likes it and watches it on Netflix AND THEN has the audacity to allow my 7 year old to listen to some of the music and record him dancing to the tunes...and I use the word "tunes" loosely as they are really a bastardization of good/great songs. Let us fight against these atrocities of evil! WE MUST PREVAIL!!!!

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  11. It is weird that this review makes me want to see it? I wasn't planning on it before...

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    1. Not weird. WRITING this review made me want to see it again. Because I think I would laugh even harder the second time.

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  12. The high heels!!!! HOW ARE YOU WEARING HIGH HEELS IN THE JUNGLE?! Also the ten bajillion times they could have shot the mutant dinosaur but just sat around watching it talk to raptors. And all the stupid decisions they made. Yes, that mutant cost a buttload of money but losing all the other dinosaurs and people DYING cost a LOT more! And the gratuitous violence... that poor British nanny. And the total Deus Ex Machina ending with the water dino. And how Kingpin leaves his life of crime in New York to twirl his villainous mustache at the raptors. UGH. Plus I was annoyed that there were only four female characters and the most interesting one was the girl in the control room

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  13. This whole post makes me feel so much better. All weekend, all my Facebook friends were all "OMG, WENT AND SAW JURASSIC WORLD!!! BEST. MOVIE. EVER!!!!!" and I was all "That looks like the DUMBEST MOVIE EVER!!!! But, since I am clearly the only person on the planet, this probably also makes me a mean, nasty cynical killer of all things fun for everyone else." and I wondered when I became such an awful person.
    Thank you. For restoring my faith in humanity and for making me feel like I might not be as horrible as I thought I was every time I looked at Facebook and rolled my eyes. (So much so, that my head started to hurt, and I was seeing hair follicles.)

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  14. THANK YOU!!! So many people proclaim to love this movie that I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I didn't hate it or anything, but it's not a great movie. And Chris Pratt didn't even take off his shirt. I'm in the middle of writing a post for tomorrow about how Jurassic World is the reason we can't have nice movies anymore.

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  15. One thing I thought was funny/meta was the blatant commercialism and product placement and how they talk about it in the film.

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  16. Can you please start writing reviews of all movies? This was AWESOME. And so informative! You just saved me 247 hours of my life.

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  17. Wait wait wait wait wait.
    When did you develop the ability to follow a plot?

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    1. No seriously, how did you?

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    2. I think the one thing that is clear from this post is that I did not follow any kind of a plot.

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  18. You sound like that whiney person that used to troll your posts, until you asked them to be kind and not critical. This was not uplifting.

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    1. Who said all his posts need to be uplifting? Sometimes you just need to talk about what's going on with the world or crap that happens in your life that you just need to get off your chest.

      *whispers* plus he's trying to be funny in some of it so just smile and nod....smile and nod...

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  19. My husband and I pretty much buy movie tickets these days with the expectation that most of the enjoyment we derive from the movie will be in making fun of it. We laughed so hard that we cried during Interstellar because....well, we know enough aerospace engineers to be a tad bit skeptical of NASA saving the world. Pretty sure the only studio putting out intelligent movies these days is Pixar. We've sadly jaded our children against the magic of movies, too. My daughter leaned over to me during Cinderella and said, "Seriously? You call that DATING?"

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  20. Oh my gosh. The Power Rangers reference is my new favorite thing you have ever written. I stopped breathing for a moment I was laughing so hard.

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  21. Okay... well when you say it like that........ lol
    I suppose I have to agree (although I might be getting a little dumber myself I must say because I was a little entertained while watching it. haha maybe I was just impressed by the CGI haha)

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    1. Clearly I was entertained, too. BUT NOT BECAUSE IT HAD A PLOT THAT MADE SENSE.

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  22. Can we talk about how the kids were able to shop a jeep from the '90's? Would gas and oil that old even still be good?

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  23. Have you even seen Parks and Rec? Chris Pratt can teach anyone to love! Just look at him and April who hates the entire world. Also, granted this was a terrible role for Bryce Howard to play, but she is either one hell of an actress, or she just really is an evil racist bitch (The Help) So yeah, it was pretty disappointing, but not ALL of the actors are terrible, they just weren't given much to work with.

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  24. Have you even seen Parks and Rec? Chris Pratt can teach anyone to love! Just look at him and April who hates the entire world. Also, granted this was a terrible role for Bryce Howard to play, but she is either one hell of an actress, or she just really is an evil racist bitch (The Help) So yeah, it was pretty disappointing, but not ALL of the actors are terrible, they just weren't given much to work with.

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  25. This was an awesome takedown of a horrible movie. I wanted to turn it off after five minutes, but instead I just did some house chores and kept it on as background music. "Is this still going?" I thought to myself after about two hours. Ugh.

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