Jurassic World (2015)

"What happened to the sibling?" -Owen Grady
"She ate it."- Claire

"What kind of diet doesn't allow tequila shots?"- Owen Grady

**Contains Spoilers**

Jurassic World has dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are big.  The dinosaurs run amok. Children, tourists, and prissy business ladies are in danger. Different archetypes of masculinity vie to protect them.  That is all. Done and done.

On to a more interesting topic for Jurassic World. As evidenced by the weekend box office, there appears to be no law of diminishing returns on spectacle and WOW!!, financially. The more funding one puts into bigger, meaner, scarier, faster, sexier, destruction causing things the more it pays off. Yet, this is not the moral of Jurassic World. My takeaway was that the writers, director, and producer-Steven Spielberg- feel there are diminishing returns on spectacle.  Bigger, meaner, scarier, faster, sexier, destruction causing things lose their luster instantaneously, do not endure, and have diminishing, if not non-existent, artistic returns. Few movies have ever put forth a thesis so counter to their underlying financial raison dêtre.

Is it possible we are reaching a macro-leveling effect of visual effects effectiveness across the movie industry? Can audiences actually tell and demonstrably appreciate the differences between CGI in 2003 and CGI in 2015?  Or is the difference just less than between say 1988 and 2003? Perhaps the visual effects singularity is near at hand?

Back to Jurassic World. Watching the original T-Rex fight and defeat the new improved Indominus Rex was like watching an updated version of Godzilla 2000. Of course the foam suited Godzilla will defeat the 3D one. I would pick foam suit Godzilla to defeat 1993 T-Rex or even 2015 T-Rex.  No contest.

What do you all think?  Are there diminishing artistic returns on visual effects in film?

On scale of Technicolor to 3D, I give Jurassic World 2.89 out of 5 stars.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2014)

"You shall ride eternal: shiny and chrome." -Immortan Joe

WHOA!! Just whoa!  It's been over a week and I am still geekin out. Mad Max Fury Road is a cinematic spectacle, and I loved it.

In turns, it is: terrifying, disgusting, shock inducing, unsettling, and beautiful. oh and while I hate to think that I am part of hyperbole creep....Mad Max Fury Road is awesome.

The only thing that I believe holds Mad Max: Fury Road back from true cinematic greatness is that, as of now, I don't connect Mad Max to any higher themes of human existence or treatises on current issues. Mad Max: Fury Road seems to be just the most well done bit of "RAWR!!" I have seen this decade, if not ever. Perhaps that is theme of human existence...?

On to the technical highlights.

1. The story boarding and shot selection for Mad Max reminded me of Ozu or Kurowsawa. Every shot is worthy of a still frame. George Miller, you have outdone yourself.
2. The first 5 minutes are possibly the most terrifying five minutes of the decade. I was amazed at how filming in fast motion and then slowing it down increased the terror.
3. Those stunts were ridiculous.  Of course there was CG, but I appreciate how many of the stunts were real.
4.To go along with my praise for George Miller, I really appreciate it when a film knows how to conduct tension throughout a film.  Fury Road is essentially just one big chase scene for two hours.  That could get boring. *I'm thinking of you Duel.* Yet, through the use of ever more impressive narrative devices and stunts that beggar belief tension and attention are held. I thought it was over when there was a gasoline spitting contest on the front of two speeding semis, but no.
5. The icky factor: much of what made Fury Road suspend belief was its attention to the details and tactile nature of icky icky things, Immortan Joe's back for instance.  Without that solid grounding in putrescence, other things like a blind guitar player shredding the horde on to war might seem silly.  (It was not. It was just too cool.)

*Point for conversation* I saw this film in a rather shabby theater in a mall in Phnom Penh, and with a little research I believe there were some rather significant edits to the Cambodian version.  1. There is apparently a lactation sequence that was cut and 2. The damsel in distress in a cage was supposed to be naked. In the Khmer version she was wearing clothes. Were there other changes? Comment and let me know.

On a scale of the little drummer boy to the blind albino guitar fire guitar player of the horde, I give Mad Max: Fury Road 4.1 out of 5 stars.

also the cat name of Imperator Furryosa is pretty great.