PG-13.  That's all well and good.  Dinosaurs be eating people.  That's a PG-13.  What's almost more important than the PG-13 rating is the 93 minute runtime.  Do you know how much that can save a rough movie?  Like, this is a short film where dinosaurs are eating human beings and there's blood and stuff.  I'm about to tear this movie apart like two T-Rexes splitting a Richard Shiff (Lost World reference.  Don't worry about it.)  But always keep in mind that this movie is PG-13 and only 93 minutes long.  It can't be that awful.

DIRECTOR: Joe Johnston

This one should be easy to write.  I mean, it's Jurassic Park III.  It is bizarre that I've written reviews for only the bad movies in the franchise.  I love Jurassic Park.  It is so darned good.  When The Lost World: Jurassic Park came out, I lied to myself and convinced myself it was a good movie.  Jurassic Park III came out and I knew it was just a bad movie that I enjoyed.  That might be the most accurate description of this movie that I can imagine.  The only difference is that now, I don't enjoy it that much.  

I always play the snob and talk about directors until the cows come home.  But most of the movies that come out are made by for-hire directors.  These directors service the script as functionally as possible and they get paid.  They have the philosophy of, "The audience shouldn't notice the director and should be lost in the film."  Normally, that's just fine.  While I prefer a director with a voice (as did the New Wave directors), I understand that some properties don't necessarily need Quentin Tarantino behind the camera.  (Still curious about what is happening with Star Trek, by-the-way.)  But I've never seen a movie franchise point out how vanilla a director is like the incident with Jurassic Park III.  Holy moley.  Joe Johnston had to follow Steven Spielberg.  I don't love The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  It's a big step back in the series and you can tell that Spielberg just does not care about the film whatsoever.  But there is a technical craftsmanship that is involved in The Lost World.  I didn't realize it was there until I saw Part 3.  The movie starts off with a remarkably boring and studio driven Jurassic Park logo that is then slashed.  I got that with the X-Men movies as well.  It is a thing that advertising guys want to see.  It is extreme.  Then, there is about five seconds of hope for the movie.  We get the old font of "Isla Sorna: 209 Miles Off the Coast of Costa Rica" (or close to that) before I can see that Joe Johnston is not Steven Spielberg.  Immediately after that sense of familiarity, a big red letters in an old typewriter font says "Restricted" or "Quarantined" or something like that.  I thought I was a font snob in 2001.  That was the heyday of me playing with fonts and I watched Jurassic Park III a few times in the years following up on that.  How did I not get incensed then?  It is in these moments that the tone is set and this tone screamed "Syfy Original".  It's not that bad, but it is pretty close.  I will say that the one thing that is actually an improvement is the movement of the animals.  It seems like Jurassic Park III relies more on CG than its predecessors (but I might be wrong.  It's just the uncanny valley quality of the whole film).  But the dinosaurs "float" less.  I remember using that as a defense for this movie when I kept trying to explain why I kind of liked Part III.  Remember kids, just like what you like.  But don't fight for something that may be weaker.  Just enjoy it.  But that font shift is just the introduction to a color palate that just seems bizarre.  The entire movie looks way less cinematic.  I wonder if we're starting to get into the early days of digital or if the movie was shot on video.  When you watch The Lost World and Jurassic Park III back-to-back, you can see the differences in film stock.  Honestly, Jurassic Park III looks like a TV show. That's not the worst thing in the world, but it does feel like the stakes are way lower.

I hate harping on the same points, but there are fewer and fewer reasons to go back to this island.  JPIII might stress that the most.  Considering that this movie is only a sweet 93 minutes, a lot of it is dedicating to explaining how Alan Grant got tricked into going back.  Mr. Johnston, it is a dangerous move immediately before sending Alan Grant on a plane over the island to say that there is "no way in Heaven or on Earth" that he would ever step back onto that island.  Your movie is 93 minutes.  I know that you are the king of pacing here, but there is no time for a character change to have him just accept a whole bunch of money.  Also, the thing that got him to leave his dig in the first movie is the exact same thing that gets him to go to the island in the third movie.  So he says he learned his lesson, but really learned absolutely nothing?  Let's talk about that for a second.  JPIII might be the morality tale on how to turn something truly special into something absolutely boring.  Most people would jump to Star Wars, but people oddly defend the prequels.  I'm not going into that here, but feel free to visit my LISTS PAGE and read my thoughts on how the prequels took the edge off Star Wars. ) One crime that franchises commit is that they have to get these characters to act and feel like they did in previous movies.  People want to see curmudgeonly Alan Grant yelling at kids again.  The problem is that he learned his lesson in the first film.  He grew to love those kids and really fixed many of the problems he was having with Ellie Satler.  So what did this movie do?  Ellie is married to someone else now and Alan hates kids again.  Then what was the point of his character growth in the first film.  Spielberg realized a lot of this.  Ian Malcolm is almost a completely different individual in the second film.  It isn't a good movie, but he retained a lot of his growth from the first film.  While being fairly flawless with the exception of selfish tendencies, he evolved into someone who comments to someone who takes a stand.  It's great.  But Alan Grant somehow takes backwards steps. Lots of movies do this and it stinks.  Let the character grow a little bit.  But this becomes a movie about Alan Grant running from dinosaurs with a kid again.  Come on.  I've already seen that movie done way better.  And that kid?  He's too good at everything.  I've seen that trope before.  The innocent who becomes a Mary Sue because they have to be.  I'm sorry, but I don't buy that the kid thought to bottle T-Rex pee in eight weeks. Years, maybe.  But that kid became the Batman of Jurassic Park Site B real quick.  Also, while I think that they should save the kid, it is pretty lame that Alan Grant is there to save a kid who was having an illegal vacation.  I told you!  There's a fundamental problem with getting people back on the island and it always involves someone doing something dumb and wrong.  

I'm going to just unload my griping fanny pack for the rest of this review.  It's full of gripes that I have about this movie and I can't wait to unleash them.  I know I won't even cover all of these individual problems. I'm probably going to get interrupted by my kids throughout this review, but I'm going to try my best.  This is the movie that started to nerf raptors.  I know Jurassic World is the real culprit when it comes to this, but Alan Grant learned to talk to raptors.  Everyone complains about this and they are right to.  There's something in the early stages that kind of works here.  I like that Alan Grant discovers that raptors can kind of talk.  That's cool.  It makes them even smarter and I can get behind that.  But having Alan Grant talk raptor is dumb.  SPOILER:  That end sequence should be the end of the team.  Sorry, but they dug a really big hole for the characters to get out of.  They are completely surrounded by raptors in the open.  They have raptor eggs.  It is their comeuppens.  That's how that works.  Having Alan make raptor noises is a good idea to confuse them while they figure out a way out is fine.  But having the raptors understand Alan and his intentions, so they leave him alone?  Boo.  Boo forever.  That's weak storytelling.  I mean, it's dumb, but I don't hate the "Alan" raptor.  It's a dream.  I should get over it.  It just isn't as effective as it is supposed to be.  But this next gripe bothers me a lot.  It might get tangenty because there are a lot of threads that come off of this one.  Billy steals the raptor eggs.  Man alive, this is awful.  It isn't really clear whether he does this for academic purposes or if it is for financial gain.  But they are raptors and he's working to be a paleontologist.  It's such a terrible plan that I can't believe it in the context of the film.  I know Alan would be mad regardless of what kind of eggs he stole.  But even Nedry knew not to mess with the raptor paddock.  It is just a character who should know better throwing gasoline on the fire.  Why would he do this?  On top of that, Alan just comes up with the plan to hold onto them.  Send it on a boat the other way.  Get as far away from those eggs as possible.  Then Alan feels bad when Billy is attacked.  Um...no.  It's okay to feel bad for Billy, despite the fact that he's kind of a bad guy in my eyes.  But saying that you were out of line?  Not so much.  Calling someone on their evil appropriate.  It's pretty awful that Billy did that and I'm not concerned about disciplining him.  Then the movie saves him?  Why can't we just live with the moment that Billy is dead?  They rarely kill off the true protagonists and the movie kind of just lives in a world without consequence.  We were all appropriately okay with Billy dying.  Bringing him back is just one of the more spineless moves.  Also, how did Ellie Satler get everyone back?  Is it the guy she married?  If so, why not use this plan to get the kid back as well?  There's a lot of steps that go between Alan making a five second phone call from Site B to getting the Navy and the Marines out there to save him.  Alan Grant is not the national treasure that would bring the military out here. (Also, the militarized theme song of Jurassic Park?  *eyes roll*)  Also, that was quick.

I'm actually going to make a paragraph break here because I really want to stress this complaint.  Alan Grant's (reasonable) plan is to make way for the coast and hope for the best.  If they run into saving the kid along the way, the better it works out.  Even Alan acknowledges that it isn't likely to happen.  They make the joke that it is never going to work out like that.  But then, not only does he find the parachute, but he runs into everything Site B has to offer.  Apparently, a straight line takes the team to the parachute, the breeding center, the sinking car, the aviary, and a boat.  That is a heck of a point in space that you picked, Dr. Grant.  Everything that you need to get from Site B is conveniently in one straight line.  It isn't a moral decision to ignore the boy if everything works out anyway.  It's so lazy.

But I could still watch this movie.  For 93 minutes, I get William H. Macy and Tea Leoni across from Alan Grant again.  Sure, it's a bad shakeup of these elements, but it kind of is a good time.  Even the worst Jurassic Park movie still involves running from dinosaurs.  Sure, this dinosaur is the Spinosaurus, a shameless attempt to out-do the T-Rex. (Also, why is this dinosaur following them?  They are barely food.  They do not have anything special, like a baby Spinosaur on them.)  Also, the phone call, while effective as a means to scare, is beyond coincidental when people choose to call.  See?  That's this movie!  I started wrapping things up and talking about the positives and there are so many dumb moments that I have to complain again.  Whatever.  It's 93 minutes and has good stuff in it.  But it is a fabulously dumb movie, so keep that in mind.

Okay, it's PG-13.  But I don't remember much of anything being all that offensive.  Part of it can be blamed on the New Zealand accent.  Even the worst words sound fairly tame when uttered by a New Zealander.  Secondly, this is '80s PG.  This is everything that would have been included in The Goonies.  Honestly, I think the PG-13 is stopping this movie from becoming a film that my kids would watch.  There's a little blood involving a CG boar, but it's a pretty innocent movie.  PG-13.

DIRECTOR: Taika Waititi

I really tried selling some friends on What We Do in the Shadows this weekend.  It didn't work nearly as well as I hoped it would.  I'm surprised that everyone just doesn't lose their minds over that movie.  It's so good.  It might be my favorite Taika Waititi movie.  But everyone always recommends Hunt for the Wilderpeople.  They say that it was going to blow my mind and be one of my favorite movies of all time.  It's a very good movie.  I'll go as far as to say it is an excellent movie.  But Taika Waititi has gotten on my radar for being amongst the best contemporary directors.  My expectations were out of the park and what I got was simply a fantastic movie that was my least favorite of the three movies I've seen from him.

I complained a lot about Julian Dennison when I saw Deadpool 2.  My love for New Zealand accents seemed to be pushed too far when watching that movie and I thought that it should take more than a New Zealand accent to tell a joke.  I might have been wrong about that kid.  It is really odd.  The reason that Julian Dennison is in Deadpool 2 is because of his role as Ricky in Hunt for the Wilderpeople.  He's playing the exact same character, only the one in Deadpool 2 has superpowers.  But the character works so well here.  The biggest takeaway that I get from Hunt for the Wilderpeople is that it is Waititi's most vulnerable movie.  (Again, this is of three that I've seen.) (Never mind.  I also saw Eagle vs. Shark and I didn't love that.)  It definitely has his sense of humor, but he's tempering it a bit.  Waititi, first and foremost, is making the story of a unique family.  Because this family is already in a little bit of an odd situation, the comedy can flow pretty naturally from there.  But, at its core, it is a story about family.  Waititi has a really odd job in this movie.  The movie has a lot of content to get through in a very short amount of time to get to the main plot.  Only once Ricky and Heck are on the run did I get what the movie was going to be about. (I avoided trailers and I guess I never figured out the title until Ricky said, "We're the Wilderpeople" or something like that.  I never claimed to be a genius.)  But the movie has to get through a lot of emotional baggage really quickly and it works somehow.  Like, it makes no sense to me.  Maybe it is the use of the chapter structure, but I had no problem making major jumps in emotional vulnerability to get to the main plot.  Honestly, Bella and Ricky's relationship is one of my favorite theatrical relationships.  This is where Waititi does something that I normally don't care for.  Bella is a bit of an intense character.  She has these odd quirks that read like a character out of a movie.  When Bella is introducing Ricky to his room, she points out all of the weird things that she has put in this room.  It's very funny, but usually that pulls me out of the movie.  For some reason, I didn't care.  It was this funny and touching moment.  Waititi, in this scene, associates something as silly as a hot water bottle with the idea of being cared for.  Yeah, it is very goofy, but the hot water bottle becomes something remarkably touching throughout the movie.  I never thought a hot water bottle would be a metaphor for mourning, but this object keeps on appearing at the right times to connect the adventure to the emotional importance of the film.

I had a mildly long discussion about Sam Neill on my podcast.  We can't read him.  Is he a guy who wants to be an actor or is he a farmer who uses his acting roles to pay for his sheep farm?  Regardless, it is amazing to see him play a role that is just an illiterate version of the person he wants to be. I really like Sam Neill.  Like, I'm not convinced he is the most powerful actor on the planet, but there's this unexplainable joy that I get when I see him in a movie.  Perhaps I'm doing the thing that he probably hates and I'm associating him with Jurassic Park, but I'm glad to see him do this movie.  I had no idea that he lived in New Zealand now.  I didn't actually know his father was from New Zealand.  I thought he was British (not Irish) and that he was doing an accent.  Nope.  He's living in New Zealand today as a sheep farmer and that's the role he has in this movie.  I suppose that much of the success of this movie relies on Sam Neill's Heck.  I would say that Ricky is the main character, but Ricky makes the major change in the film in the first fifteen minutes of the movie.  Heck is the character who is constantly making growth.  I found it a little odd to make Heck illiterate.  It doesn't really pay off in the traditional sense.  I mean LIGHT SPOILER, he starts learning to read by the end.  But I didn't really tie that element of his character to the overall narrative.  Perhaps it is something to make him fallible to Ricky.  After all, Heck has way too much knowledge about the bush, so giving him a trait that makes him somehow inferior is probably important narratively.  But there was no real moment in the story where Heck and Ricky's survival depended on Heck being able to read.  But Heck's narrative, and his true fault, lies in his inability to open up with Ricky, whom he views as a bother.  Oh man, I just realized that this is A Christmas Carol on the run from the Australian law and social services.  But Heck also offers something interesting in his portrayal of Heck.  It's not something I'm going to write home about, but I do find Heck's grief interesting.  Heck is a character is (WAIT, his name is spelled "Hec"?  From here on out, I'm going to be spelling it the right way.)  Going on!  Hec is a character who kind of deserves to be selfish.  He's fundamentally a lone wolf.  He values his privacy and it seems like Bella interrupted that solitude for the better.  From moment one, you get the vibe that Ricky's presence there is entirely due to Bella's desires.  He desperately wants Bella back, but the alternative to Bella's companionship is a return to solitude. Instead, he has Ricky, with whom he has not bonded.  He is a different individual from Bella or anyone that he would freely associate with and he just wants to be alone.  Having to hang out with this little turd seems to be the worst, especially due to his incompetence.  But there's this slow moving arc where Ricky becomes gradually better at survival and Hec feels like what it means to be a father.  That's pretty exciting growth.

The side characters bring some interesting elements into the story and I'm not sure if those are all good or all bad.  I'm referring to Paula and the hunters.  Psycho Sam, played by Rhys Darby, is perfect because he's Rhys Darby.  But Paula is such a good punchline that I don't know if she fits the needs of the movie by being such an intense character.  I get it.  That's the joke.  I should be able to live with it and it is a great joke.  But it also is at odds with the intensity of the movie.  I think that Waititi gets that.  There's this moment of just self-awareness at the end.  Paula completes her objective and has this moment of awareness at the end.  Paula completes her objective and just looks forlorn.  She is empty without this quest.  It's a really interesting character arc, but I wonder if that same emotion is true for most people.  I guess there's something there.  Again, I have to understand that some things are done for comedic effect.  The root emotion that Paula is experiencing probably is grounded, but the presentation, being so over-the-top, can be distancing at times.  A better writer than I would completely delete this paragraph, realizing that he had critical-thinkinged his way out of this conundrum.  But I've been really distracted writing these posts.  Often, I'm sleep deprived and distracted by other things I want to do.  But my analysis into Paula isn't completely meritless.  There is something to improve there, but I don't know if it can be done easily.  Paula is far too complex piece of the narrative puzzle to simply hit backspace on.  She has this core that really is thematically appropriate.  To simply tweak her might improve her character, but it may cause damage on the rest of the film.  The hunters, however, seem like a bit of lazy casting.  Maybe Waititi really wanted me to love the recurring joke of the hunters constantly getting their comeuppens, but I didn't really get that.  It just seemed bananas that they were everywhere the protagonists were.  But this is nitpicky.  I mean, this is nitpicky even for me.  The characters are fine.  If I was to make the movie, I would have had that Ace in the Hole feeling where everyone just came across as an opportunist.  But that's me and that's not what this movie was.

I really liked this movie.  I thought it was absolutely beautiful and vulnerable.  I mean, I'm head-over-heels with What We Did in the Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok might be the easiest MCU movie to give a repeat viewing to.  So it gets third place.  Oh no.  It's a great film and I'll probably rewatch it in the next year or two.  But for now, the movie served more than its purpose.  

PG-13, for people getting all munched upon by dinosaurs in gruesome and gross ways.  Franchise, movies, folks.  Very rarely does the jump go from PG to R.  Occasionally, they go R to PG-13.  Like, Die Hard did that.  But I'm fairly certain that as long as the MPAA exists, the Jurassic Park movies will be PG-13...despite the fact that they are kind of gross when you think about them.  Regardless, I'm very okay with PG-13 with these movies.

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg

The weird thing is that I swore that I reviewed this movie already.  I was actually watching it because I wanted to see a high def version of it.  Besides, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, this was the entry in the series that I watched most recently and I was just getting ready to watch my super cheap copy of Jurassic Park III.  (Watch out for that amazing review in the near future.)  But apparently, it's been at least three years since I watched it because I don't have a review for it up.  That's fine.  I actually am kind of looking forward to reviewing this movie.  But I also really want to take a nap, so we'll see which one wins out.

I remember when I first saw this movie in the theater.  I loved the first Jurassic Park movie and still do.  I think the first grown-up independent read ever was Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.  I don't know if I read it just to read it or because I remember seeing The Lost World on the shelf and thought I should probably read the first book first.  Regardless, I was so excited to see the new Jurassic Park movie.  I was going to read the book and then I was going to see the movie everything was going to be perfect.  Remember, the movie came out in 1997.  I was 14.  And from my perspective, this movie was everything I wanted it to be.  Okay, it wasn't everything because I thought it was odd that Alan Grant wasn't the protagonist for the sequel, but Ian Malcolm was the hero.  Jeff Goldblum hadn't been discovered as a national treasure yet and I wouldn't have appreciated how self-aware the movie would have gotten if Steven Spielberg knew what he had on his hands.  I saw this movie at the Birmingham 8 right after their first major overhaul and I loved it.  I thought that it was as good as the first and no one could tell me otherwise.  I then remember hearing naysayers talking about this movie and I thought they were wrong.  How dare they view this movie as anything less than cinematic genius?  If you didn't guess where I'm going with this, I now realize that they were right and that I was totally off.  The Lost World: Jurassic Park is an inferior movie to the first film.  When I watched it three years ago, I became really depressed over how bad the movie was.  I mean, I thought I was getting into something magical again.  I thought I was going to see a Steven Spielberg Jurassic Park movie.  I'm going to give credit where credit is due.  Steven Spielberg isn't at fault for a lot of this movie.  The biggest sin he probably had a hand in, but the rest of it is actually pretty well directed.  I didn't know that until I saw Jurassic Park III and realized what poor direction can really do to a film, but I digress.  I'll be mining that ore when I write the review for the next one.  Spielberg still can make dinosaurs pretty scary and solidify his pacing.  It's just that The Lost World has a remarkably dumb plot.  It's balance is all off.  First of all, and I mentioned this with my Fallen Kingdom review, there is no reason why civilians should be visiting any island with dinosaurs.  It's pretty ridiculous.  A lot of this movie spends a lot of time trying to forgive Sarah Harding for ignoring Ian Malcolm. It's a really weird relationship dynamic.  

The first film establishes that Malcolm has a horrible history of relationships.  Crichton had this big old leap to make: how would Ian Malcolm get pulled back on that island.  Remember, Malcolm, while moral, is a fairly selfish character in the first movie.  He spends the movie hitting on Ellie Satler (until Alan Grant puts him in his place) and is there simply because he's being paid to do it.  He does have a moral compass.  But at best, he's chaotic good.  (He is a chaotician, let me have it.)  Chichton does something smart at first, but then that gets screwed up.  To make Ian Malcolm the hero of the story, Malcolm is the only one to stand up to InGen.  He refuses to take the payout and writes a book about the events of the first Jurassic Park, making him a social pariah.  He's discredited and has to deal with InGen and their crack legal division.  At one point, the antagonist, Ludlow, even points out that the children took the buyout and listen to the nondisclosure agreement.  This puts him as the hero of the story. He is the sole rebel against the evil corporation.  That's great.  This is where it falls apart.  During that time, he begins dating Sarah Harding.  This relationship has been going on long enough that his daughter, Kelly, often spends time with just Sarah.  Sarah knows the story of Ian's time on the island and knows how important the whole thing is to him.  He has sacrificed everything to ensure that InGen never gets away with something like this again.  He has told her of the fear and the nightmare that happened in the first film.  Being a philosopher, he probably spouted a lot of the same beliefs that he had about man abusing science in creating dinosaurs.  With all that in mind, Sarah Harding still went to the island.  Not only that, but she did it secretly, knowing that he would be mad.  Isn't that a fundamental disrespect?  I mean, this is Ian's crusade and she just goes behind his back and does it anyway.  But from a filmmaking perspective, Sarah has to be a hero as well.  You have to root for her to survive.  To do that, Sarah has to make Ian seem like he's ridiculous for all of his paranoia.  Not only does Malcolm come to rescue her, but he is seen as the bad guy.  Do you see what I'm getting at?  There are all these hoops to get Ian Malcolm back on the island, but it actually detracts from the storyline to do it.

Okay, all that's fine, I guess.  But the thing that drives me most nuts is the one thing that I'm allowed to yell at Spielberg for.  Good golly, this movie is toyetic.  For people who haven't heard this coined word before, it's not in any real dictionary.  I heard it...somewhere.  I don't remember where.  Being toyetic is when a movie or a television show includes things that are just meant to sell toys.  I think I heard this word when Joel Schumacher explained the pressures involved in making Batman & Robin. There is one scene in particular that is just the absolute worst.  There are good scenes in the movie as well.  Don't get me wrong.  But one scene almost completely negates my good will towards this film.  There's a scene where the InGen team arrives at Site B.  It is the most macho sequence I've ever seen and it's oddly devoted to the bad guys of the film.  The InGen team has these tricked out Hummers that are just being launched over mounds.  Narratively, it kind of fits because it is contrasting how non-invasive Harding's team is.  But no one in their right minds would be driving that dangerously without a purpose.  Then these tricked out hummers start capturing dinosaurs.  The thing I love about the first Jurassic Park (and by extension, Jurassic World) is that it is science fiction that feels like it really could happen.  If someone figured out how to clone dinosaurs today, I think it would look and feel very much like the first Jurassic Park movie.  But the dinosaur capturing scene in The Lost World has these vehicles that you can just see being set up to sell toys.  There's a Hummer that has two extend-o chairs with a locking arm air-bag grabber.  These are guys who have tranq guns. Why does this car even exist?  Remember, InGen is trying to salvage itself by making as much money as possible.  Why build this ridiculous piece of equipment meant for capturing a very specific dinosaur that is an herbivore?  It honestly kills the movie for me.  It's not the only problem with the movie, but I cringe at that sequence pretty hard.

There's nuance to the first Jurassic Park movie.  It might be a perfect film for me.  I love it a lot.  But The Lost World is the first movie to paint with broad strokes in the series.  InGen is in the first film, but it is an almost faceless corporation.  Dennis Nedry is the antagonist, but he's simply a tool for the plot.  It's great.  It's all about corporate greed without it being directed with a sledgehammer.  But John Hammond's Ghost, does this one every want to give a moral about the corruption of corporations?  I mean, InGen isn't given any degree of morality.  John Hammond, in the first film, is in the wrong.  But from his perspective, he is being a philanthropist.  His subconscious is about greed and fame, but he honestly believes that he is returning extinct species to the world.  He skips some steps and gets in trouble, but Hammond, for most of the film, believes himself to be the hero.  InGen entirely is about the money.  The closest thing that gets to nuance in The Lost World is Ludlow's message about fulfilling John Hammond's dream.  But John Hammond wasn't dead.  He knows Hammond's wishes and he is actively betraying them.  That actually makes him even more evil with that knowledge.  I guess a lot of that racks up to a story being rushed into development.  I weirdly think about how quickly The Lost World came out after Jurassic Park was a success.  It is entirely possible that Crichton had the story in is mind when he was writing the first novel, but I feel like there was pressure to get this book out so it could be adapted soon after.  For a sequel, it is okay, but it also establishes a history of diminishing returns when it comes to the franchise for a while.  Jurassic World works better (not perfectly, but better) because there was a lot of time to focus on what could be done with the series. (Also, like The Force Awakens, it steals a lot of beats from the first film.)   There are thing that work for the movie.  While it is silly that Malcolm is the hero, he kind of works as the hero.  The trailer sequence is still memorable.  But even more so, the sequence in the tall grass is one of my favorite movie moments from the entire series.  It is very scary and even the passive dinosaurs pose earnest threats.  I also love the attention to territories that this movie sets up.  Jurassic Park III treats those territories like suggestions, so I kind of applaud how the this movie does a bit to set up how dinosaurs might act given a new island.

The movie is far from perfect.  I loved it as a kid, but I see a lot of mistakes as an adult. That being said, I didn't hate watching it.  It's got some weird pacing issues and the T-Rex sequence at the end is a bit hamfisted.  But it is an okay Jurassic Park movie.  That's a shame, but that's only because I love Jurassic Park.

R, but not just R.  Super R.  Honestly, these movies are exploitative as they can get.  In terms of narrative, it says that it condemns rape and violence towards women, but ensures that the audience sees the entire act before saying it is bad.  This happens in each one of these movies and multiple times during the film.  It has that horror movie morality where it says that fornication and drug use is bad, but is going to glorify it before there are consequences for the actions.  Also, it has a lot of red paint blood going on.  The Lone Wolf and Cub movies are not morally good films.  R.

DIRECTOR: Kenji Misumi

I don't know how people could binge something like this.  There are six Lone Wolf and Cub movies.  I love me some samurai films.  In the past, when I was free of responsibility, I could binge a whole bunch of samurai films in a night.  I'm not talking about that.  I'm talking about specifically Lone Wolf and Cub. Man alive, these movies are about brutality.  I am kind of amazed that Criterion released all of them.  I get that there is some artistic value.  I do get that a bit.  I'm thinking about that quote about the difference between art and pornography.  While I don't think that Lone Wolf and Cub is explicitly pornography, I think its intention is similar to that of pornography.  There is no real message here, but it is meant to release the darker intentions of those who watch it.  I don't want to draw straws because this leads to questionable morality, but I do think the Lone Wolf and Cub movies might be truly a terrible thing in the hands of some people.  This all leads me to the question, "Do I like these movies?"  I'm not sure.  I don't abhor them.  I'm disgusted that they exist, but do they have a fun storytelling element to them?  Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades might be the one that makes me question this the most.

The idea behind Lone Wolf and Cub is kind of cool.  Former executioner refuses to kill the son of the shogun, so he raises the kid as his own.  Because the kid is the next in line for the shogunate, the boss sends out assassins to take out the couple.  I like that.  That's very cool.  I mean, the movies get to be absolutely silly.  Ogami Itto, the Lone Wolf, is a Batman / Mary Sue.  He can't lose.  You know that he's going to crush every fight until he has to fight his match.  But don't worry, he'll still win.  But the cool element is that the kid is used as a bait-and-switch from time-to-time.  Add to the fact the most ridiculous, 1970s element to the whole thing: the baby cart.  The baby cart is James Bond's Aston Martin DB5.  Considering that the story takes place in feudal Japan, the cart is a tank.  Each movie keeps adding something to it to make it more insane.  Before, it used to come apart to form all kinds of cool swords and spears.  While insanely ridiculous, there was a suspension of disbelief.  Maybe something like that could exist.  I don't know.  I'm not a baby cart designer in feudal Japan.  I have no authority over such things.  In this one, SPOILERS: The baby cart turns into a literal tank / machine gun.  Baby Cart to Hades really introduces how Ogami would go against guns.  I mean, in an absolutely silly way because sometimes guns matter and sometimes they do nothing.  But he, apparently, is also awesome with guns. So the major concept of Lone Wolf and Cub should be compelling, blood splatter and rape removed.  Baby Cart to Hades is the third Lone Wolf and Cub movie made in the same year. This is episodic television.  I know that production schedules were often like this.  I'm also watching the Zatoichi movies and those come out in bulk as well.  But with the Lone Wolf and Cub movies, the kid isn't allowed to age.  He has to be that age, like, forever.  He has to be old enough to stand up and run, but he can't be old enough to defend himself or else that baby cart makes no sense. (See, I'm validating it.)  But Baby Cart to Hades doesn't have a story.  It has scenes.  It definitely has scenes.  But it has absolutely no story.

Baby Cart to Hades is a fundamental misunderstanding of Chekhov's Gun.  Chekhov's Gun is the idea that if the author focuses on an object and imbues it with importance, it has to come back in some meaningful way.  This movie barely has a narrative. The first two movies had actually pretty structured plots.  Ogami Itto would be given a mission that tied into his overall mythology in the first fifteen minutes of the film and then would be attacked all the way through that mission.  Fine.  It was lazy storytelling, but the purpose of this movie is to cram in as much action and sex into the film as was humanly possible.  But there was at least a plot.  I don't know if this movie was mostly improvised because there are four separate disparate plots that really don't last longer than 20-25 minutes.  But it tries to Chekhov's Gun all of them.  Like the rest of the franchise, there is a big showdown at the end.  How is Ogami Itto going to beat this massive threat?  Well, everyone from the separate storylines are going to show up and conclude their plots.  That's really lazy.  SPOILER:  For example, Ogami Itto meets this amoral mercenary on the road.  He is sickened by other mercenaries because of their rapey behaviors and he murders both the rapists and their victims.  When Ogami Itto witnesses this, there is a duel and Ogami Itto proclaims it a draw.  He says that he sees the potential for a true samurai in this mercenary and he wants to see that man.  That's the end of that plot until that guy comes in at the end and they duel for real.  None of the stuff previously mattered.  That mercenary wasn't throughout the story, developing a conscience or his skills.  Rather, he tells the story of how he used to be a noble man before being shunned by his lord.  That's fine, I guess, but it has nothing to do with Ogami Itto's current situation.  That second duel means that he is only brought back to see who would win in a fight.  The actual drama is completely ignored.  Why introduce all of that stuff about him becoming a true samurai?  Why not actually complete the duel at the first battle?  Nothing had changed about the mercenary.  He just announced his backstory later on in the plot versus during the main plot.  It was a lame excuse A) to tie everything together as if it was important and B) to give Ogami Itto something else to fight during an already insane climate.  That's the entire movie.  Ogami Itto would meet a threat.  He would deal with that threat.  The story would go on.  There would be an off-handed reference to that earlier threat.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Like, it's pretty bad.  I can tell why this one probably got edited for Shogun Assassin.  Although, from what I know about Shogun Assassin, they probably loved this movie. 

I mean, he fights ninjas.  And these ninjas are what Americans think ninjas are.  They are practically magical in this movie.  This is where the initial question I raise is. (Also the original sentence I wrote hate.)  I don't quite know why these are Criterion movies.  Criterion has mostly claimed to be the art house release company.  I know.  You can get Supercop and Ghostbusters on LaserDisc.  (I have a few weird ones on Laserdisc, including Ghostbusters.)  Armageddon and The Rock are among the earlier DVD Criterion releases.  I know that there is high art and there is low art.  But the only reason that Lone Wolf and Cub might be in the Criterion Collection is because it is Japanese and old.  I'm going to play devil's advocate here.  They are Japanese samurai movies.  They also have kind of a cult following.  There are a few releases on the Criterion Collection that are very culty movies.  I mean, I don't see much artistic merit to stuff like Repo Man, but at least I can kind of see that one.  I'm watching the ninja scene and, while I think it might be my favorite three minutes of the film, I have to acknowledge that it is pure popcorn schlock.  I don't think that anyone on the crew thought that they were changing the world.  I mean, the movies, for being absolutely violent and completely over-the-top, they are kind of pretty.  But a lot of that comes mostly from being a genre film.  Are all Westerns a form of art?  Can there be an action film that's part of the canon?  (I mean, samurai films tend to be action movies.  But I still argue that the Lone Wolf and Cub movies don't exactly belong in the canon.)  I suppose that I've always had an issue about what the canon actually means.  I'm usually on the other side, arguing for genre films to be accepted as high art.  But it is odd that Lone Wolf and Cub gets a little more acceptance than a film like The Dark Knight.  Is it cultural permeation?  While I love myself some snobbery, is it the fact that only a select few really know about the films that give them their credentials?  That kind of bums me out.  I mean, we have Citizen Kane and The Godfather, but those aren't always fun movies.  (Okay, The Godfather can be kind of fun, but I'm talking about truly enjoyable popcorn cinema.)  Lone Wolf and Cub is popcorn cinema and almost nothing else.  But The Dark Knight is popcorn cinema with amazing cinematography and decent themes.  Heck, I'd even settle for Lord of the Rings, which is nearly considered beyond its genre.  But how does Lone Wolf and Cub get lauded so highly.  It's kind of filthy and that's weird.

I'm getting bummed out on this series.  I mean, I'm getting bummed out on Zatoichi as well, but that's just because of a diminishing returns element to it.  Lone Wolf and Cub is super gross.  There's is only so much blood and rape before it makes you question why you are even watching these movies.  If you aren't into deviancy, there's not much more to be offered.  I want to get through the box set to see if the storyline actually closes up.  Considering that Baby Cart to Hades lacked plot and character development altogether, I hope that the rest of the series focuses on the mythology.  The itch I have at the back of my head is that this was cut together to make one movie: Shogun Assassin.  There had to be a conclusion to that film, which makes me believe that there has to be the semblance of a narrative for the rest of the films.  Mind you, it is going to be a while before I come back to this well.

It's PG-13 because...surprise!  The rest of the series is PG-13.  Did you know that Ethan Hunt, in this movie, does dangerous things?  Like, he gets into all kinds of fights!  Oh my goodness!  There's a moderate amount of violence, totally unlike the other ones.  There's some mild language that some people would consider family friendly amounts, but who knows what that means!  (I hate writing MPAA summaries for franchises that all that the same amount of objectionable content.)  PG-13.

DIRECTOR: Christopher McQuarrie

I have a CNA article pending for this one.  I don't know when it is coming out, but it is really weird writing a review for a movie that I just reviewed.  It is my cross to carry.  I do this for you (the people! --Bane and Donald Trump).  I was at night class last night when a big family get together happened.  The topic of Mission: Impossible -Fallout came up and it was simply assumed that I hated it.  That's weird.  I think I like too much stuff.  I mean, I'm critical of stuff.  That's the point of writing this review.  I'm trying to think about all films somewhat critically. But I overall enjoyed it.  I know, it makes me a big stick in the mud to write negative stuff about everything I see.  But I also do like thinking about this kind of stuff and no one really talks to me in depth about movies.  It's all therapy, folks.  Warning: because my other review avoided SPOILERS, this one is just going to be littered with HEAVY SPOILERS.  Why write the same article twice?

There was a plan.  I have to believe that. Skydance Pictures and Ali Baba Films (a Chinese corporation, believe it or not) saw which way the wind was blowing with action franchises.  The Daniel Craig James Bond did something that the other James Bond films mostly avoided.  They became a mythology.  Bond's characterization became as important as the action on screen.  I don't hate that.  Before Casino Royale, the James Bond movies were more episodic.  They were almost like old-timey TV where the events of the previous episode barely came into play in the next episode.  For Bond, I think it really works.  James Bond has been around for over 50 years.  There's a lot of James Bond movies and there needed to be a change.  Mission: Impossible saw that the Craig Bond movies became important and can't-miss, so they copied the formula.  Mission: Impossible -Fallout, as the title implies, is all about Ethan Hunt dealing with the consequences of his actions.  There is continuity between this movie and the last.  Before I go any further, I have to stress that you should probably watch Rogue Nation before watching Fallout at bare minimum.  I binged the whole franchise, as you can probably tell from my week of Mission: Impossible movies.  This creates an interesting dynamic.  I think James Bond probably has a more intense fanbase than the Mission: Impossible movies.  Bond is part of our public consciousness.  Mission: Impossible is just teetering on that level of cultural impact.  When a new Bond movie comes out and it is built upon the previous mythology, I don't really have to rewatch the last movies because I remember what happened pretty well.  It is weird to try to do the same thing with Mission: Impossible.  The thing is, the Mission: Impossible is truly outstanding in small doses.  I even think that the Craig Bond movies would be a bit much to binge.  Action really becomes a bit tired when it is binged.  Honestly, if I hadn't seen the entire franchise the week leading into Fallout, I don't think I could really appreciate Fallout outside of just being an action movie.  All that being said, it is a fun movie.  I mean, outside of Mission: Impossible II, the series really doesn't have a bad film. That's pretty impressive.  

My biggest complaint about the movie (I swear, I liked it!) is the cheap misdirects.  Mission: Impossible is fundamentally about misdirection, but there is good misdirection and bad misdirection.  There are two big moments that are bad misdirection.  The first one I'll give a C- because it doesn't break all of the rules.  The second one gets a straight up F.  Remember, this is all about spoilers.  The C- one is right at the beginning.  Ethan Hunt and his team have failed to secure the bombs and they say that a disaster is imminent. I was really impressed with the movie for a few seconds.  The one thing that the franchise really has never dealt with is consequences.  I mean, Ghost Protocol blew up the Kremlin.  That has never come back to bite them in the butt in a significant way. While I don't want the Vatican irradiated by plutonium, I also know that if someone says that there are going to be consequences for failure, I need consequences for failure.  When the three sites aren't actually destroyed, it's a cop out.  You established a rule early in the film.  Ethan made a choice between securing the nuclear material or protecting his friends and he protected his friends. There shouldn't be a cake-and-eat-it-too situation here.  If the fundamental problem that Ethan Hunt is dealing with is that he had a binary choice, he should have to live with that binary choice.  These reviews keep coming back to Star Trek.  The lesson that Kirk learns from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is that the Kobiyashi Maru is a nice sentiment, but there has to be a consequence.  Kirk secures the Genesis device and defeats Khan, but loses Spock as a consequence.  At least he loses him for one movie.  If you call Alec Baldwin's character the equivalent of Spock, I giggle at that idea.  Really, Ethan comes out of this movie with no regrets.  His nuclear device doesn't blow anything up and his failure is inconsequential.  But I only give it a C-, because it is fabulously executed.  The second that Luther asked for the information, I knew that it was a con.  That's fine. The con is awesome.  The Wolf Blitzer gag really toes that line between cute and too much, but I'm okay with it in the long run.  The one that gets an F is the fakeout at the end.  Ethan is trying to stop a nuclear device from going off.  (The name of the movie is Fallout.  They really ride that as far as that train will go.) There's one second left and then the editing fades to white. We all know that Ethan Hunt and his crew didn't all die.  We know that.  The thing that makes it a little bit worse is that the characters aren't experiencing that editing technique.  They didn't see a flash of white, so why did we?  It is horse manure.  I know.  It's boring to do the same image of the clock stopping at "1".  Everyone's done it and McQuarrie wanted to do something different. Too bad it is just straight up lying instead of being a misdirect.  Sorry, that second one gets an F.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK ABOUT HENRY CAVILL.  I have a very complex relationship with him.  I want to like the guy, but he keeps doing things that make me dislike him.  Before I go on my rant, I have to say that he's fine in this movie.  He's a good bad guy and he finally feels like a guy who would wreck Ethan Hunt.  We've needed that and the movie provides that, arm-cocking and magic beard included.  He's a really good bad guy, but his cockiness does get a bit much.  (He got hit by lightning and saved by Ethan without any gratitude.)  But Henry Cavill is the bad Superman.  I mean, he's okay in Justice League, despite how terrible that movie was.  Also, every interview I've read from him makes him sound like the biggest tool in the world.  I think the Mission: Impossible movies seem to attract actors who make bigger headlines than their characters are worth.  I could barely watch Mission: Impossible III in the theater because it was immediately after Tom Cruise wouldn't stop jumping on a couch. (Okay, he did it...once.)  Henry Cavill acts not because he appreciates the craft of acting.  Oh no.  That would be noble.  He just likes money and every role he has chosen has been about getting him more of that money.  He also seems super sexist based on some of the things he has said. So this is one of those situations where I have to like the character, but not the actor on a case-by-case basis.  He does a fantastic job in this.  The mustached Henry Cavill is better than the digitally removed mustached Henry Cavill.  He's fantastic as this tank.  It's weird because Superman in Justice League was supposed to be this scary guy who could just rip everyone apart, but I am actually more afraid of his character in Fallout.  That's pretty impressive.  I do like that the movie comes down to Ethan and Walker.  I don't want to see him fight Solomon Lane.  I am confused about the mystery character though.  Is Walker the guy who came up with the lame idea that "the greater the suffering, the greater the peace?"  It implied that at one point and that doesn't line up with his character at all.  Solomon Lane actually seems like a crazy zealot of that philosophy, so it makes sense with his actions.  I don't see Walker being that character.  Also, so many people claim to have come up with that line that it just gets lost at the end.

You know who I want to care about, but actively don't?  Ilsa Faust.  I'm Team Julia and I'll always be Team Julia.  This movie has the weirdest message about marriage.  Like, Ilsa clearly is a placeholder for Julia and she's totally cool with that.  Also, Ilsa and Ethan is entirely based on attraction.  She's betrayed him so many times that there's no way that it is about personality or any kind of connection outside of both being attractive spies.  The resolution to the Julia story is fine, I guess.  It's as good as it can get because it is really flawed.  There's no fixing it and, clearly, the characters aren't going to end up together.  It just feels like a cop-out to have Julia okay with the relationship that Ethan provided.  It doesn't feel real at all.  She's entirely logical about the whole thing and just has a convenient husband.  I don't know.  It all feels very fake and very contrived to set Ethan up with Ilsa.  I don't like it.  Also, giving Ilsa the same dynamic that she had in the previous movie is cheap.  She should be full on IMF in this one, so stretching out her allegiances is a poor decision.  It's that whole thing of throwing yet another thing into the mix and this movie doesn't need it.  She made her character turn in Rogue Nation.  Rehashing it again means that none of this stuff is going to stick.  That makes those choices weak.

At the end of the day, Fallout is a perfectly fine movie.  It's even a movie that I enjoy and would watch a couple more times.  But I can't help but see the flaws that Christopher McQuarrie brings to the mix.  He wants there to be a gravity to the events and it just isn't there.  I know that everyone always wants to make it personal for Ethan, but it doesn't have to be.  A nuclear bomb is a nuclear bomb.  It doesn't have to be about Ethan suffering.  Also, Walker should have shot him in the head when he had the chance.  Not doing that is just a thing of the movies.