Jurassic World Review: An Exercise in Cynically Racking up Nostalgia by Undermining Its Roots

In the twenty five years since its release, Jurassic Park has still remained a staple for 1990’s cinema because of its innovative visual effects and to this day, it’s astonishing that it still happens to look every bit as beautiful as it does. But as the franchise had only grown to become as big as it did, the meaning behind Crichton’s original creation had slowly been fading away. Surely enough, it’s hard to deny that the original Jurassic Park still remains a spectacle for the eyes because of what it had taken in order to make you truly believe that you were seeing actual dinosaurs on the screen through the film’s innovative use of both computer-generated imagery and animatronics. But there comes a point to which one can only get too caught up by the image of the spectacle that Jurassic Park had set into place and Jurassic World only emphasizes that danger all the more, because it cynically exploits that nostalgia one would have had for the original film without ever finding its own way to carry itself through. It cynically boils down what Crichton would have wanted to say about the eventual spectacle of nature’s own ways only to what audiences would buy in as “dumb fun,” and to me, that never felt right – it just felt ugly.

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The Magnificent Seven (2016) – Review

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Antoine Fuqua remakes another remake with The Magnificent Seven, his latest offering thus far. Being a remake of a remake, there’s always room to turn something into one’s own vision and that’s part of what I was hoping for in this new take on the story inspired from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, but something about it also feels empty. What happened to the excitement of watching a group of seven fight for good? Sure, there’s fun to be had within certain moments of the film but perhaps they only work because of how the film presents itself out to be as a result of those involved rather than offering much to stand on its own. Quite surprisingly, that is actually not what bothered me most about this re-imagining of the classic tale. Continue reading →

The Player – Review

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It’s nice to see a film that plays with the usual Hollywood tropes yet at the same time expose something rather truthful about the way the system works, and suddenly the in-joke being presented hits you. Robert Altman, a director who always was searching for a manner to go against the norms amidst the studio influence gives a clear picture of what harm it does to the most valuable thing behind what forms what we come to view; the visions. Amazingly, The Player chooses never to head into the territory where it would highly offend anyone working within the business, but there’s a uniqueness to the satire we’re finding here that just allows it to stand out from other films that poke fun at the system, especially with what it hides under. Continue reading →