Tag Archives: Dinosaurs

The Land That Time Forgot Review

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It’s time for a dinosaur film with a group of people having to try and get along. You can probably guess how the latter goes but surprisingly the dinosaurs themselves don’t do much for a majority of the film. If anything it’s more about the cave people who tend to generally be annoying. Unfortunately this film uses time travel in the opposite way of how you would want it to be used. Ideally you always want to go to the future with lots of cool gadgets and awesome concepts. Instead it ended up going to the past which is not the direction you want to go. There just aren’t nearly as many possibilities to be had there.

The movie starts with a ship being destroyed and so only a few of the passengers manage to survive. They are able to use their quick wits to take over an enemy submarine though and after a lot of in-fighting they manage to get the ship landed on a mysterious island. This island is like something out of the prehistoric age. There are dinosaurs around, cave people, and basically no sign of modern civilization. This could spell trouble or the heroes could adapt to the place. They will need some oil in order to get the ship operational again but will they be able to survive long enough to do so? It will all come down to whether this group of adventurers can get along with each other.

Now I am poking fun at the idea of these guys all working together and that’s because there are a lot of reasons to hold grudges with each other. Half of the crew are British and the other half are German and they would quickly murder each other if given the chance. The Germans are the ones who blew up the British ship at the start and then now they were being held hostage. So resentment is quite high and they will only work together for as long as is necessary. If either side shows any sign of weakness then it is absolutely game over. There will be no coming back from that.

That’s why true teamwork just won’t work here. Yes a shared goal may sound like it’s enough but not when you know that the person behind you wants to absolutely destroy you as soon as possible. That just means you have to watch yourself carefully at all times. You don’t actually trust the person standing right next to you. In the film we see constant betrayals and the main group keeps on getting whittled down. Realistically if they were one tight unit then the film would have been over rather quickly. They would have easily been able to defend themselves from the dinosaurs, fight off the cave people, and get their oil. Instead all the bickering and arguing slowed them down a little too much.

The dinosaurs that we do see get to have some action and fights but they didn’t help the film. For one thing, the dinosaurs are not bullet proof at all so they’re getting riddled with bullets the whole time and dying. Their first death scene even takes forever which has one of the characters comment on it. It’s just a little rough to be seeing the dinosaur getting absolutely dominated like that. Typically you would expect them to be the scary antagonists right? Sure they do still scare everyone but you can’t take it quite as seriously as long as the guns are around.

So what you have is some extra animal violence here and that’s not even considering the dinosaur vs dinosaur fights. I would definitely recommend cutting the dinosaurs out of the film entirely since they don’t change much. That or just keep them in the background since the designs themselves weren’t bad. Meanwhile what also hurts the film generally are the cave people. Naturally it is hard to have a conversation with them due to the language barrier and so those scenes tend to drag on. We didn’t need the brief fanservice by showing us how the egg work with the tribe jumping into the pool and generally this is why I don’t care much for the past. It was less sophisticated and doesn’t end up being as entertaining.

Whenever the main characters were getting defeated I would be shaking my head. Yeah these cave people would be tough in close quarters combat but why take so long to ready your gun? Half the time the heroes were using the gun like a baseball bat rather than as a projectile. That’s definitely the way to lose a fight, it’s certainly not going to help you win one. I can guarantee you that! At least one guy remembered to flip the opponent and use his momentum against him. The rest were picked off like novices.

One thing I will give the film is that the writing is still pretty good. I at least liked the attempts at teamwork and there was some good banter here. Yeah you knew that the alliance was doomed but getting to that point was still written very well. It wasn’t like the characters were written out of character or that it was all contrived. I thought it was fairly realistic as to how this could all play out without diminishing the intelligence of any of the characters. So I definitely appreciated that.

Overall, The Land That Time Forgot is a film that’s not very good and large part it is due to the premise. I don’t think there’s a lot you can do about a movie going back to the olden days. It felt like the writers more or less knew what they were doing and they couldn’t save the concept. Even aside from the animal violence and the characters being more on the annoying side, I think the biggest issue was that the film could be rather boring at times. It feels long as you’re going through the movie and it would have been so much better if no such island ever showed up. Have the tension be about the characters needing to survive on a week’s worth of supplies with both sides getting more and more anxious about the situation. If you do that then I would argue that the whole movie would work a lot better. I know it is a completely different movie at that point though so for better or worse, that’s the way I can see to save this film. But hey it could have been a whole lot worse to be honest.

Overall 4/10

65 Review

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It’s time for a film involving space and dinosaurs. An intriguing mix to be sure but ultimately it just didn’t work out. With dinosaurs it can already be hit or miss depending on how that plays out and then this film made the mistake of having a very small cast. The problem with this? There just isn’t a lot of dialogue or character dynamics to go through. It means that we are absolutely sunk because the film goes by very slowly.

The movie starts off with Mill getting ready to go on a 2 year journey. This one’s so long that he will really get to miss his daughter growing up and it’s rough because she’s already quite sick. Unfortunately the family does need the money so he goes aboard the spaceship. Everyone dies after an asteroid strikes the craft and Mills lands on a planet infested with dinosaurs. He has his energy gun which can take them all out but he also has to look out for a girl named Koa. Turns out that someone did survive after all. Unfortunately she doesn’t speak the same language that he does so communicating is difficult. Can they survive long enough to get off of this planet?

So you already see the dilemma here with there only being two characters and they can’t even communicate with each other. It means there are a ton of silent scenes as the characters walk around and their conversations can’t go beyond anything too basic or they can’t understand each other. It’s an original dynamic but not one that is going to be super interesting which is the main problem here.

At least Koa is a lot more likable than the average kid in these films. She is fairly resourceful and doesn’t panic all the time. Yeah Koa does have a few times where she breaks down and slows everyone up but it doesn’t happen too often. I can allow for it to happen a little bit. She’s still not a great character or anything but she’s not too bad. Meanwhile Mills is a decent lead but he gives up awful quick. He was about to end it all early on and I felt like that moment was a bit rushed. There were still more options and exploring to do surely. You only throw in the towel like that when you’re really on your last legs and don’t want to die a slow death of starvation or being eaten by dinosaurs. Yeah the last one isn’t super slow but it would definitely be painful.

One of the mistakes the film makes early on is that it just isn’t very fun. This is a very dreary film of the heroes wandering through the jungle and shooting up a bunch of dinosaurs. Occasionally there is a joke thrown in and the characters get to have some fun but this doesn’t happen often and it fades quickly. The backgrounds and areas don’t have much variety and so that doesn’t really help matters. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the soundtrack either.

Of course the big thing here is all of the violence against the dinosaurs. Whether this is the same as animal violence or not tends to depend on how realistic the effects are and how much the creatures look like animals. In this case they definitely look like animals all the way so seeing them get shot or pounded with blunt objects is never any fun. I would also argue that the gun is way too overpowered in this film. One shot can murder almost any of the dinosaurs in this film so there’s not even a lot of danger. The whole time you know that he can definitely secure the win if he just takes out the gun. That’s all he needs to do and it takes away from the survivor angle.

So now that’s weakened and without the gun there would be less dead dinosaurs as well so that would be a plus as well. Look, the dinosaurs have been on this planet for a long time and are just defending their turf so it’s rough to see them all getting mowed down the whole time. This is not how it was supposed to go. So there aren’t many positive aspects of the movie to think about once we’re done with all of this. I will also say that the film gets a bit needlessly grim in what happened back on the home planet while Mills was gone. Is there really any point to the final twist there? It feels like the film just wanted to make sure that there wasn’t almost anything to be happy about by the end.

There was only one avenue to success for this film and the downside is that it could possibly get a bit boring. Redo the film except there are no dinosaurs. So it’s just about the two characters bonding and learning how to communicate without talking. Then you have the humans show up as part of the rescue mission, except they want to murder the kid so our hero has to protect her. It would be a much more engaging film once the opponents show up and the first half can maybe get by on being wholesome. That’s how I would pitch it at least.

Overall, I suppose the film isn’t too long so that’s a good thing. In the end I would say that it just doesn’t deliver on being a really fun summer blockbuster kind of film. There’s no real reason to rewatch it and other dinosaur films like Jurassic World are better. Unless they make a sequel about aliens and cool battles or something then I think this franchise is basically doomed. There are many better sci-fi films for you to check out so I recommend going ahead and doing that instead. This one can definitely wait.

Overall 3/10

The Land Before Time Review

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Time for a fairly old film that most people have heard of. The Land Before Time was a really big deal back in the day and I’d say it’s definitely had a lasting effect on the world. People still haven’t forgotten the films after all. This one works pretty well to kick things off and you’ll have a wholesome time with the dinosaurs. One of them is definitely pretty annoying for most of the experience but there is a character arc involved.

The film starts off by showing us the world of the dinosaurs and how each species mostly keeps to themselves. Littlefoot doesn’t understand this since he wants to be friends with everyone but the grownups are adamant that the dinos keep to themselves. Well eventually a giant earthquake happens which splits all of the dinosaurs up. Littlefoot must now go on a great adventure to get back to his tribe but it will be a long journey. Fortunately he meets up with a few other kids along the way. Together they can show the world that dinosaurs of different species can get along!

I’d say one of the more emotional moments here is definitely when Littlefoot’s mother passes away. It’s pretty much a rite of passage in every animated film involving an animal that the parent dies early on and Littlefoot was not spared this tragedy. He still tries to put his best foot forward at all times which is admirable though. Throughout the movie I would say he is consistently the best character. Even when the other dinosaurs are being jerks or traitors he will do his best to save them. A key moment in this is when they all ditch him for Cera despite the latter not being dependable or a team player at any point. Littlefoot could have just took off and forgotten about the lot of them but he still ventures into the magma zone to save them all.

Littlefoot can definitely end up being the chief of the dinosaurs at some point with his courage and dedication. On the other hand Cera spends most of the film trying to prove herself to be a tough dinosaur while often having the opposite effect of that. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to present yourself as a tough fighter. It’s good to have courage and determination but at the same time she needs to realize her limits a bit sooner. I expected Cera to learn how to be humble a lot sooner than when it actually happened.

It’s really over 90% of the movie where she is doing her own thing and getting everyone into trouble. The worst of it has to be towards the magma zone when she decides to ditch Littlefoot and the others all follow her. Of course that translates really badly on them as well though. Seriously throughout the film Cera never lifted a foot to help any of them and that’s true here as well. Two of them get separated and Cera doesn’t care. One of them falls into the ocean and is about to drown and Cera doesn’t even notice. Yeah I’m going to need Cera to work really hard to be a likable character in the sequel because right now things are not going well for her at all.

Ducky is a nice character, she’s very outgoing and always doing her best. So in a lot of ways she has all of the right traits here but I do deduct some points for her going with Cera instead of Littlefoot. It’s the only error she made but it was a pretty big one. When all of your screentime is so positive though it’s hard for one moment to stop you so I still give her a lot of credit. Meanwhile Petrie also made that error but was decent otherwise. A little timid since he had a lot of trouble flying at first but gradually he is able to get past that. I suppose I’ll cut him a little slack since he was so young as they’re all kids here.

As a villain Sharptooth works pretty well. There is a bit of plot armor on the heroes to deal with him since a grown T Rex isn’t about to be stopped by a bunch of kids so easily. You almost feel bad for him in the sense that it’s more instinct to go after the prey rather than him being evil or anything like that. Of course you want the heroes to get away but you still hope Sharptooth will be okay as opposed to getting taken down by the kids. They can’t all be winners in the end but at least a truce can happen in some films. I can tell you right now that this doesn’t happen.

I was half expecting a little more of a reaction from the grown up dinosaurs at the end though. Like they see everyone getting along so well and decide that maybe dinosaurs can all get along. Some kind of coming of age moment where they realize the error of their ways. Perhaps the film writers felt that would be too cheesy or just too rushed to put in the last minutes though. I mean you could say it’s pretty much implied I guess, everyone is hanging out at the same area after all and at this point the kids have been through enough where they’re probably old enough to hang out with whoever they want. One of these days I’ll probably watch the sequels so we’ll see how they go.

Overall, The Land Before Time is a pretty fun film. It has a reasonable cast of characters and I was glad that Littlefoot got the win in the end since Cera really wasn’t being helpful or grateful at all the whole time. It is fairly short so the movie ends really fast but I’d say it got a good amount of plot in there. It might not be the most exciting movie out there which keeps it from being a bit higher but the quick length keeps it from dragging on. For example if this had been a 2 hour movie I would argue that it would actually hurt the experience since that would just be too much. At about an hour? Yeah that’s a pretty good length for this one.

Overall 6/10

Naruto: Sasuke’s Story – The Uchiha and the Heavenly Stardust Review

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When this manga came out I feel like I saw it everywhere because of how big the whole dinosaurs angle got. People were super stoked to finally see the dinosaurs getting their props and hey who could blame them right? It’s a pretty big deal for most to have the dinos around. Personally for me that’s not a big deal since I’m more here for the big battles but I can still get the appeal and they have a lot of screen time so it’s not click bait. While I have some power level issues like with the Mirai spinoff, this one has a real story with an intense plot and high stakes to cover that up.

The manga starts with Naruto getting sick again as his heart is giving him more problems. Sasuke heads off to a prison that might have the legendary particle needed to save Naruto’s life. This Heavenly Stardust will be a little difficult to acquire though as most people don’t even know it exists. It really is a mystery through and through but Sasuke is definitely the man for the job. Sasuke basically has to infiltrate a prison as a prisoner to get intel from the inmates but it won’t be so easy. Naturally a lot of them are very guarded around newcomers. There’s also one more wrinkle. This jail is built to keep people in as one of the most secure facilities in the world and there are even dinosaur guards. Sasuke may have gotten in…but can he get out?

I’m always very vocal about how I don’t like the “Lets get captures on purpose!” plans because I find them to be too risky. Sure it sounds good to get intel but while you’re in cuffs or depowered then the villains might just shoot you. In virtually every film I’ve seen about this I’ve always been very skeptical. In this manga at least Sasuke keeps his powers so it’s not as risky. When you can move faster than light and have the world’s top visual ninjutsu and teleportation techniques then I can cut you in some slack. In theory Sasuke is never in danger here but I also feel like he could have completed the mission a lot easier if he just went in and mind controlled everybody at once. Why even bother with stealth?

I see no downside to just using the Sharingan en masse here. So yeah the plot seems a bit forced in that respect but it’s not a big deal and since a lo of the info they had to find out from books and such that part still ended up helping. I’ll just get the power level stuff out of the way now too. Like I said, Sasuke is incredibly powerful to the point where he would really shine as a higher level being to the other humans in the cells. They can’t possibly keep up with his movements and he has a thousand ways around every scenario with his powers. You can’t get me to believe that he would have any trouble with any dinosaurs at any point in the story. I’m just not buying it at all.

The story tries to build up some tension and that’s always good but it’s never remotely believable. Later on Sakura gets punked by a random guy with a knife and then she is unable to lift basic rubble. Sakura may take a lot of heat from the online community but at the end of the day she is still a very powerful warrior with top fighting instincts. This just isn’t going to happen. Even if you say this takes place deep in Boruto where everyone seems a bit nerfed it doesn’t work. This is just the kind of problem you run into the more powerful your characters get. DBZ knows this problem well too. It’s not the kind of thing that would lower a title’s score for me as power levels tend to just be something I still want to point out unless it’s extremely egregious. That said, what the manga should have actually done was give us some kind of powerful Dinoaur chimera at the end. That would have been a really good idea to give a struggle because even though there were an army of dinosaurs at the end, it’s fair to say that they were still not a threat.

The art is pretty good here, it definitely looks like classic Naruto and the artist really understood the character builds all the way through. The action scenes we get are clean and streamlined. I definitely had no issues here at all. The pacing is good and the series is fairly short so you’ll be blasting through it. The story itself is good and the mystery elements were handled well. This would make for a pretty solid standalone movie if it wasn’t already adapted as a mini arc in the anime.

We even get some romance scenes with Sasuke and Sakura to try and set that pairing up a bit more since a lot of fans say they don’t show as much emotion as you would expect. It comes off a bit cheesy I have to admit because that’s just not really Sasuke’s character. He’s the kind of guy who just fights and gets the job done without worrying about the romantic gestures. You could probably tone that down a bit in this title even if the scenes are really just trying to be wholesome the whole time.

Otherwise Sasuke’s portrayal here is on point. Again just ignoring his power level since he should have easily crushed everyone in this series and not been knocked out once. You just don’t buy into him losing or getting injured at all. Likewise Sakura was good here as well. Definitely needs to keep her guard up more but it was nice to see her show up basically just to back Sasuke up and make sure he was okay. Having an ally when you’re behind enemy lines is huge.

There are a few prisoners running around but the main supporting character here was Jiji. Jiji is definitely not a likable character at all right from the jump. See he has a fiance at home but he still doesn’t mind flirting while at jail and tries to get together with Sakura. Even ignoring all of the twists and development later that already doomed his character. You just can’t root for a guy like that so he was awful and I feel like the ending lets him off easy. At the end of the day the guy made his own decisions and nobody was really holding a gun to his head. He’s a villain who really needed to pay for his mistakes. The guy also can’t really fight much so he mainly gets lucky.

The main villain here is Zansuru and he’s a good villain. The guy’s a bit convenient with how his glass eye can block the Sharingan. I don’t mind the glass pulling this off logically but Sasuke could still just knock him out. This villain was just so smug the whole time. He has his big master plans and everything so I don’t want to shortchange him. He’s a good villain and gets results but he’s not nearly as tough as he acts.

A fun supporting character was Meno. He ends up being the main dinosaur here and a solid fighter through and through. He’s someone who is easy to root for even if he also gets a bit of a cheesy scene where he resists Sasuke’s Sharingan. There’s no glass here so you can’t tell me that a living creature can just reflect it like it’s nothing. That’s not happening and they were trying a bit too hard to hype up the dinosaur. Meno is cool and I wouldn’t mind seeing him again but lets not get too crazy here.

Having dinosaurs around is also risky for animal violence. By the end most of the dinosaurs start to go poof when they are destroyed but some seem to take real injuries so I’m not sure exactly how it works. The series mainly avoids getting too crazy with this but it started to get worrisome at some points. At the end of the day you mostly do want to avoid getting animals mixed up in the action because it can be risky.

I think this is a title that ultimately reads even better as a marathon as you can blast through the adventure and enjoy all the turns. The manga is part mystery after all so that should really hook you in. I won’t exaggerate and say it’s super thrilling or anything but it’s pretty good which is all that it really needs to be. I was satisfied with my experience by the end and would be down for more Sasuke adventures like this. Just remember how powerful he is a little more often to avoid odd power leveling issues.

We also get to see a bit into how much easier life is when you have ninjutsu. Sasuke uses it when playing dice or escaping his room with some visual tricks. I’d actually be down to see a lot more of that. Just daily life and showing how useful ninjutsu can be. Considering that a lot of these villages and areas outside of the lead barely know what ninja even are, it puts the characters at a fairly massive advantage.

Overall, Sasuke and Sakura finally got their big team up so fans will be pleased with this. It’s not often that you get to see them going up against a villain without being backed up by Naruto. The plot starts to crumble when you really look into it so for the most part you’ll have to suspend a lot of disbelief. The romance is also a bit shaky but the series delivers on the action scenes and mystery. If you’re a Naruto fan or just want a fun adventure then you need to make sure that you don’t miss this one.

Overall 7/10

Jurassic World: Dominion Review

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It’s time to bring the Jurassic World series to a close. It’s been quite the run and while I have yet to find any of these titles to be good movies yet, it’s always neat seeing dinosaurs. You could just say that the films are usually doomed from the start because it’s hard to have a dinosaur film without the dinosaurs themselves eventually running into peril. The animal violence sabotages the film right from the jump and this one is no exception with several hunting scenes. I’m afraid the franchise has overstayed its welcome and needs a new premise like robotic dinosaurs to get to the next level.

The film starts off by giving us a massive info dump about the dinosaurs having taken refuge in all parts of the planet. There is no escape from these dinosaurs and so Biosyn has taken this chance to quickly become one of the biggest companies in the world. Yes, it’s time to rake in those profits like nobody’s business! They were granted exclusive rights to grab the dinosaurs and so everyone else needs to stay back. Naturally they aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their heart though and seem to be doing something nefarious with the insects in their company. If they aren’t stopped quickly then the entire planet could be in danger.

There are two main plots here. First, you’ve got Owen and Claire who are still trying to raise Maisie as best they can, but they seem to have gotten lost in the sauce as in trying to protect her from everything around them, they’ve effectively trapped her in a house. Maisie quickly started to resent this and so she ran off and gets captured along with Blue’s kid. The heroes are in a race against time to find her and so we get a good amount of action here as they get to relive their action hero days.

In the B plot, the 3 main characters from the original trilogy have to try and get proof of Biosyn’s wrongdoings by infiltrating their headquarters. This plot has less action by comparison as they do their best to find out the facts but it’s all a bit more low key. I feel like this is intentional as the old characters do things by the book and it’s a very old fashioned type approach while the new characters are having fancy gun fights and hand to hand combat scenes. Naturally the main plot was typically more interesting. Then eventually the plots converge.

Lets get the obvious issue out of the way first and that’s the animal violence. Within 20 minutes of the film starting you have a rabbit eaten and a wolf murdered. Later on you’ve also got birds taken out and a fox hunted down. Of course eventually this also goes to the dinosaurs as they attack each other and one gets stabbed. It’s inevitable that this would happen with so many dinosaurs around and that’s the real issue here with dinosaur films in general. They are cool to see but of course they won’t stand a chance against properly armed fighters or bigger dinosaurs so someone’s going to get hurt. Each time that happens, the film ends up losing some momentum.

The other biggest issue I’d say is just that the film feels very long. The pacing isn’t air tight and it actually does drag on a bit. The plot with the old main characters can almost get boring at times. There are a lot of chase scenes and everything but when the film slows down, man does it slow down. You don’t care too much about the conversations on the dinos because we’ve heard it all a million times before. You just want to get to the good stuff and the film peaks early in that regard.

The best part of the film is when Owen and Claire confront two of the villains. Owen has an excellent close quarters fight against the knife wielder and it’s the best action scene in the movie. It reminds me of how his fight in the last film was also the best scene. I think it’s time for these films to transition into being more about the hand to hand combat because that’s clearly the best part of these films. I did think Claire was not intense enough in the moment which felt out of character though.

Keep in mind that they are trying to save the kid and it’s a matter of life and death. Owen certainly acted like it with how he was going at the guy and not taking prisoners but Claire’s battle had a lot more comedy mixed in and she was still trying to ask questions and all. I would have liked her to have tackled her villain and got right into the action. It all works out in the end but the villainess really got off easy the whole time.

Owen and Claire do make for solid main characters though. They get the job done and get a lot of good scenes. I do think they made the wrong choice in isolating Maisie as much as they did though. Yeah you’ve got to be careful but wouldn’t it still be better to be in a city environment than in the middle of the woods? Seems to me like being isolated is a bad idea when everyone around the world wants to get you because eventually they would. Just get some fake IDs and a decent disguise and you should be good.

I do think they could have played up the fugitive angle for these two characters a bit more though. In general there’s also more the movie could have done with the whole dynamic of having the dinosaurs on the go too. Having them just randomly running around the world seems like it should have had more of an effect on the planet than what we’re shown. Only around 30 deaths due to dinosaurs?? I find that extremely hard to believe.

These two are joined by Kayla later on in the plot as she gets roped into the adventure. Initially she’s here just for the money but gradually gets a conscience about the whole thing. She’s a decent fighter and helps them out when they’re in a pinch. Without a plane the heroes definitely would not have gotten very far here. As for Maisie, she is quite the rebel in this film and gets everyone into trouble. I’ll give the parents more of the blame here though because she did try to talk things out first several times and it felt like they weren’t giving her any great options.

For the other plot, well Ian definitely steals the show from the 3. He’s just way more of an interesting character than the other two. Ian always tries to find the bright side of things and remains calm even under pressure. His character is always a blast and while he isn’t as much of a field agent as the others, he does come in clutch on many occasions. Without him getting into the company first the others would have had a much tougher time of it.

Ellie and Allen are held back a bit by the inevitable romance which feels like it’s way too late. You can see the romance a mile away but cmon now, they’ve only just gotten reunited after how long? There’s no time for all of that and these two feel like they’ve been out of the game for so long that they’re a bit out of their depth. Their plot just never comes close to being as interesting as the main one.

On their plot you’ve also got Ramsay who gets quite a lot to do. The guy ends up being rather helpful the whole time so that’s good. The B plot has its share of danger and everything but 9 times out of 10 you’re ready to go back to Owen and team. Finally there’s the main villain Lewis and I’m not sure exactly what they were going for with him. He can be rather serious at times and then almost incompetent at other moments. He’s always very hyper/manic so he doesn’t always have time to finish his sentences. He works well as a funny villain in that degree even if I’m not sure how intentional that was which is a bit of an issue.

If he was meant to be more of a serious villain then the film failed but if you’re supposed to laugh at him a bit then that works well enough. He had some of the funniest scenes in the film although I would say Ian was still the most humorous character in the grand scheme of things.

While the movie is fairly lighthearted the whole time, it does have some grim moments like when two kids are attacked by a bunch of locusts. I was actually a little shocked at that because it just comes out of the blue and man, they were not expecting that. Of course you could try to say that they escaped but it was probably all over for them. I would still not call the film particularly violent or anything compared to older ones though. It’s certainly not touching the original films in that regard. Even the dinosaur fights usually happen when it’s really dark so you can’t actually see too much of what’s going on. I like to think that was to hide the violence and not because they’re afraid of how the CG looks.

The movie uses the classic Park theme at one point but for the most part it feels rather quiet. There aren’t any standout tunes at all which is a shame. Good music can really help take you to the next level and it could also have been used to make some of the slower scenes a little more exciting. In fact, that really might be what the film was missing. Throwing in some more good music could have really helped take the film to the next level or at least get a 1 star boost or something.

There’s certainly more to dislike here than to like. There’s also virtually no replay value because of how long the film is and how it ends up dragging instead of really utilizing that length. There are quite a few portions of the film that it feels like you could almost cut out so that it goes along a bit quicker. Now this may not sound good for fans of the original trilogy, but I think a strong case could be made that Ellie and Allen should have been cut out. All you need is Ian for their plot and when Maisie shows up she can take care of the rest. The two characters are almost filler if you think about it.

In a way the biggest way I can tell that the film wasn’t super interesting is I’m already running out of stuff to talk about and usually reviews for films in theaters tend to be on the longer side. There’s usually a bunch more to talk about but I guess that’s it here. At least the T Rex does get to show up and I will give the film props for the dinosaur models. I still think they look cool at least. I liked the one with the claws, that was nice. The film definitely could have used more day-time scenes with the dinosaurs so we could really appreciate how they looked though. A dark climax makes sense for the scary vibes but c’mon, this film isn’t really scary like that.

Overall, Jurassic World ends on a bit of an eh note. I would say this beats Fallen Kingdom for me but it loses to the original Jurassic World. I’m inclined to say Jurassic Park III beats this one as well. This one probably beats the first two though so all in all…that means this one’s roughly in the middle or slightly above the middle. That’s not bad. It’s not a particularly high bar for me though but it’s a start. If you really like dinosaurs then you should still get a lot out of this movie but it really should have been more exciting than how it turned out to be.

Overall 3/10

Jurassic World Alive Review

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It’s time to look at a recent mobile game. After Pokemon Go came out and completely changed the way we all look at video games, it makes sense that another game would want to try and replicate that success. We had Draconius Go which got a lot of hype during its start but then it quickly faded away. I think that game may have still had a bigger life cycle than this one though. For starters, this game messes up the fact that you’re supposed to play it on the go which is a problem.

So, the overworld is just like Pokemon Go. You will see dinosaurs all around so you want to walk around the neighborhood and catch them. Catch all of the Dinosaurs that you can and then take them to the multiplayer place so fight others. So far so good. Adding PVP right away was certainly a shot at Pokemon Go. The gameplay is also more like the handheld Pokemon games which is no coincidence.

Where the game messes up is when it comes to catching the Dinosaurs. In Pokemon you just throw a ball which is nice and simple. This is perfect because it’s not too distracting and so you don’t have to worry about bumping into people or just stopping so you can make the catch. You barely even need to look at your phone as you know where to throw. This game is a little different as you have to hit the dinosaurs with a bunch of darts to capture them. The problem is that this takes a little while and the throws have to be precise as the dinosaur runs while you try to catch it. This means that you have to just stop for a bit while this is going on and you have to do that for every single Dino. This wouldn’t be a problem in a traditional app game but for one that you have to play outside it’s just no good.

The game also ramps up the corporate feel to it as you have actual advertisements everywhere. The game constantly tries to get you to spend money instead of being subtle like Pokemon. Every time the game wants you to spend money you just think that the game is too desperate to take your money and run. The developers know that this game isn’t going to last so that’s why they want to take your money and then split. It just feels a little underhanded. There is currently no reason to play this over Pokemon Go either. It’s just a far more watered down version of the game.

If Pokemon Go didn’t exist then this game would certainly look a lot better, but then it probably wouldn’t even exist anyway. There’s nothing wrong with the game and it’s reasonably fun, but that’s about all that I can say in its defense. The graphics aren’t bad, they’re basically standard issue. Not the worst looking app game that I’ve seen, but nothing to suggest that it is as new as it actually is.

There isn’t much of a soundtrack unfortunately. Currently there are 100 Dinosaurs in the game and I caught 9 unique ones. That’s not bad, but it isn’t great. Still, any time spent playing this game is time that I could have put into Pokemon Go instead so I knew that this was enough for me. If you would really rather play this than Pokemon Go then by all means go right ahead. Still, I just can’t see the appeal in this one winning out. I suppose if you really love dinosaurs then that could be enough.

Overall, Jurassic World Alive just feels like a total cash grab. There’s nothing subtle about it as the game feels slapped together to earn some money. There is no polish to the game and not a lot of depth either. Still, you can certainly end up playing this game for a long time because I’m suire they will make it very difficult to acquire the 100 Dinosaurs before spending some cash. Just think about whether you want to pay the price or not.

Overall 6/10

Capcom Fighting Evolution Review

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Capcom Fighting Evolution is definitely an obscure Capcom crossover. I may have seen the cover once or twice back in the day, but only briefly and I instantly forgot about it. Some of the roster decisions for this game were very odd, but I’m still surprised that it is not more popular. It’s a fun enough game although there is nothing really unique about this title. It just fills the bill as a fighting game and doesn’t try to do anything more with itself.

There is no story mode of course although every character does have an ending which is great. That’s something I used to take for granted in a fighting game, but with some titles not bothering with it anymore, it is fun to see. There are no openings for the characters, but I’ll settle for the endings. This game uses a tag team system so the beauty of this is that you unlock both endings for every time you do Arcade Mode. It allows you to see all of the endings a lot quicker than you would have otherwise.

Normally this is the part where I’d say that there is pretty much no replay value, but Arcade Mode is typically the only thing you expect from a fighting game. That’s still not a great excuse, but multiplayer mode is where you’ll find the replay value at. Find someone to play this with and you’ll have a blast picking from the various characters. The series that are represented here are Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter III, Red Earth, and Darkstalkers. I have to say that it is a little iffy to have Street Fighter represented three times. Especially when there is one big Capcom franchise left out here. Need I mention which one? The Mega Man franchise!

Capcom has a very bad track record of leaving this franchise out to dry whenever they come out with a big crossover. Mega Man’s absence in Marvel vs Capcom 3 speaks volumes and the fact that Mega Man Volnutt/Trigger made it into Tatsunoko vs Capcom over the other Megamen is also odd. It’s a shame because a Mega Man rep being in the game would have guaranteed 3 more since each franchise got a full block of fighters. Yes, this is definitely a pretty big missed opportunity if you ask me. Another odd character exclusion is Morrigan from Darkstalkers. She’s the face of the franchise and yet she was skipped over. It’s very strange to say the least. I can’t say that I’m a fan of hers at all, but she still beats Felicia, who somehow got to be playable in this one. Also, what about Ken from Street Fighter? Surely he deserved a spot here given his iconic status.

There is also an original character for this game. The mysterious Ingrid, whose abilities are quite lethal. She seems to be a cosmic being who may be above all of these street level fighters, but we’ll need some more appearances to prove that she’s not just all talk. This character does have a lot of potential though and her powers are a lot of fun. We can always use more magical fighters even if they can be a little hard to control at times.

This is a retro fighting game that uses sprites so it is hard to really say how the graphics are. The character models are essentially ripped straight from the respective titles. The models all look pretty good, but they aren’t exactly new either. You won’t really be looking at the sprites much while you’re fighting either since you’ll need your full concentration. Regardless, the graphics definitely aren’t bad. I’d say that they’re totally standard and are up to snuff for this fighting game.

As for the soundtrack, it is good. It’s always fun to hear the Street Fighter themes although the Darktalker/Red Earth ones were very forgettable. In a way, it’s probably good that Street Fighter counted as three different series since it meant that we got more themes from those series although, once again…Mega Man themes would have been beyond hype. Those are the themes that we deserved. Still, the music works for the fighting.

I totally skipped over the actual gameplay angle, but I assume that everyone knows how this plays when I mention the words “Street Fighter” This is a 2D fighting game that is very bread and butter. You can kick, punch, and mix those attacks for various combos and super attacks. Yeah, that’s really all there is too it. This game uses the 2 vs 2 system, which is a blast since I always liked that way to play. My personal favorite is when you don’t die until both of your fighters are gone like Marvel vs Capcom, but any kind of tag team play is still pretty neat. I’m waiting for Super Smash Bros to implement something like that. Now that would be really awesome! Seriously, Super Smash needs to get on that!

Overall, Capcom Fighting Evolution is a fun fighting game. If I was a more dedicated Street Fighter fan then I may be upset at the wasted potential that is here. The character roster is very small and there wasn’t a whole lot of effort put behind the gameplay. The American cover is also pretty sketchy, but that’s more of a nitpick than anything else. It’s really just your standard Street Fighter game with a few broken guest stars. The big dinosaur feels so out of place, but I suppose that’s part of the appeal. It’s like having Sentinel in Marvel vs Capcom 3. It’s hilarious just how big he is. If you like Capcom then I definitely recommend getting it. It may not be fancy, but this is still a crossover. You’re bound to have some fun with it.

Overall 7/10

Jurassic Park III Review

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The Dinosaurs are back and my revisit to the original trilogy is now complete. Just in time for the upcoming Jurassic World right? So far, each film has gotten better for me as the series went on so that could be a good thing for the newest film. It certainly looks more upbeat than the last three, but there’s clearly still going to be animal violence. Also, Raptors work for no one! Back on topic, let’s look at what Jurassic Park III did right.

Alan has vowed that he would never go back to Jurassic Park. The island is too deadly and he doesn’t even like dinosaurs anymore. The experience changed him and now he’s back to working with fossils. That’s when a rich couple appear and offer Alan a large sum of money and a contribution if he would be their guide on a trip to Jurassic Park. They wouldn’t actually go onto the island of course, but just a flight above it through the rich guy’s connections. Alan reluctantly agrees because he wants the money (Deja Vu from the first film eh?) but soon realizes that he has been tricked. These people are not rich and they are actually looking for their son. He was lost in the island weeks ago and they aim to get him off of the island in one piece. Their plane is quickly taken down though so the heroes will have to try and survive in this habitat. Is the kid still alive (This is a summer blockbuster right?) and can the heroes find a way to leave? The stakes have never been this high or the situation so personal.

This film is definitely much different from the second film. While the second title was the most violent and had the cast dying off left and right, this one is more of a survival mission. Naturally, you should expect that most of the expendables won’t be making it far, but there aren’t nearly as many deaths and the dinosaurs aren’t overpowered by humans this time. That was certainly not very fun to see and dinosaurs should always have the upper hand. Isn’t that the whole point on why you’re watching as film with dinosaurs? Now, there still is some animal violence so it’s not all gone. The T Rex vs Spinosaurus fight is very epic, but also a little brutal as both creatures go for neck blows so that they can win the fight in a single blow. This was a point of outrage for many people and I have to agree that the T Rex should have won. He came out swinging and bit the Spinosaurus’s neck first. I don’t think that there is any way that the Spinosaurus should have gotten out of that. Once a T Rex bites your neck, it’s game over. There’s not a single creature that can escape. Of course, the Spino did escape and quickly beat the T Rex, but that was definitely not cool. I simply can’t believe that something like this could happen.

As for the characters, Alan is a good lead. The friend zone twist between him and the heroine from the first film was definitely unexpected, but appreciated. After such a dangerous situation in Jurassic Park, I could see why he would want to be by his lonesome and just read books all day. He has now seen some of the scariest sights on Earth and he just wants to enjoy some calm years for now. Of course, he is unable to resist the allure of money, which traps him once again. While he may not care for dinosaurs all that much anymore, he is still knowledgeable about them and the group wouldn’t have lasted long without him. The rich couple has had some issues over the years and they don’t always get along, but their search for their missing son starts to bring them back together. They did a good job of conning Alan and they did come pretty well prepared with their gunmen and bull horns. They certainly aren’t well versed in the ways of the dinosaur, but they mean well and were decently good characters for the most part. The one that I didn’t really care for was Alan’s apprentice. The student, Billy, really crossed the line when he decided to steal an egg. There is a living dinosaur in that egg so he was essentially kidnapping one of them for money. Definitely not an okay move and that’s where I definitely didn’t like the character. His personality was decent and he was definitely not afraid of taking risks, but it was still a bad call.

The missing son who essentially becomes Tarzan was better than he could have been, but I still find it hard to believe that he lasted 5 weeks in Jurassic Park. There’s really no way that this could have happened and his hideout was decently secure, but not enough so that it could protect him from dinosaurs. He’d be T Rex chow in no time. The film tried to show that he was super experienced, but it’s hard to swallow. I also don’t get how his partner died on the parachute. Did he really just stay there until he died of hunger or was he attacked and the dinosaurs just left his bones so neatly? Either way, the death really did not make any sense in the way that it happened.

The film’s sense of timing is not that good at times. After a character just seemingly died, the heroes get ready to leave the island and board a raft. That’s when the film’s happy theme plays and the heroes look at the dinosaurs. They quickly note that the dinosaurs are amazing and start to see how great the island is. You’ll wince and quickly realize how inconsiderate the heroes can be. They just had a man down and yet they can enjoy the view now? That was just horribly misplaced.

The Raptors were fun to see as always. They’re still the best dinosaurs of all time and by far. This film gives them a lot of credit for their intelligence and we get to see the Raptors make plans and really terrorize the humans. In the end, the Raptors spare the main characters as the heroes would have certainly been finished otherwise. The Raptors definitely deserve the praise and there is a reason why they have gotten a good role in all four films. They are simply that good. The Spinosaurus is also a fun dinosaur to watch. His snout is definitely iconic and he does look like a powerful dinosaur. While I would take the T Rex in a fight, the Spino is certainly a cool dinosaur and all of his scenes were a lot of fun. When the heroes first mention that he is bigger than the T Rex, you knew that we were going to be in for quite the fight.

I can’t say much for the soundtrack as it just reuses the main theme from the other two films and it’s hard to think of many other pieces of music. I suppose that it was decent, but the classic theme really wasn’t necessary at all in this title. The scene could have just been kept out. Most of the movie is really just about the heroes trying to escape from the dinosaurs. I like a good chase scene although the island is still not my ideal setting. The film never really drags on, which is good.

Overall, Jurassic Park III was certainly the best of the Jurassic Park films. It worked on some of the issues from the first two films like the animal violence and the normal violence in general. There are still some moments that fall into these holes like watching a T Rex snack on another animal, but at least they are few and far between. You can still see that the film did improve on these areas. It’s still not my kind of film and there are enough scenes to keep me from giving it a positive rating. If you liked the first two films, then you should like this one. I wouldn’t recommend it myself and if you don’t like animal violence then you should skip it as well. I will definitely be checking out the new one though so it’ll be interesting to see how good that one is. At least the Raptors are large and in charge once again, which is always good.

Overall 4/10

The Lost World: Jurassic Park Review

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It is time to look at the sequel to Jurassic Park! It’s no secret that I wasn’t a fan of the first one and I was hoping that this title would be an improvement. The sequel was certainly better than the first one, but I can’t say that it was a significant difference either. It falls into the animal violence issue as expected and the characters are not quite as cool as they could have been. Third time’s the charm, or so they say, but let’s take a deeper look at this film.

Ian has tried to forget about the Jurassic Park incident, but that proves to be impossible very quickly. Everyone knows that he has been there and he can’t find any peace. While he was paid a decent sum of money to stay quiet about what happened, his reputation is still in ruin. Making matters worse is the fact that his girlfriend decided to venture off to a dinosaur island on her own. John Hammond effectively used her as bait since he knows that Ian will have to go after her. Ian leads a small strike squad there, but a bigger group is also on the island to enslave the dinosaurs. It will be a race against time and money as Ian tries to get everyone back home in one peace.

For starters, let’s look at what the film did wrong so that we can end the review off with some positives. First of all, the animal violence is certainly back. A dog is eaten in one of the final scenes of the film and it’s the kind of moment that makes you want to go and get a hoagie from 711 to help douse the pain. There’s no point for this scene to be there and it’s just animal violence for the sake of violence. It’s not cool and it wrecked any chance that the film had of actually being decent. Without this scene, I think that a 4 may have sufficed although I suppose that it still could have gotten a 3.

Another point against the film is the fact that the humans start to enslave them all. I came to watch Dinosaurs be the kings, not to watch them get defeated by the humans. I never like to watch the humans fight these creatures because the humans will always win and it is sad to watch the dinosaurs be defeated. One of them fractures his foot and other dinosaurs are quickly thrown into captivity. I could have done without that plot altogether and the film would have been better off without them.

This film also decided that the first one wasn’t edgy enough as this becomes a pseudo slasher at one point. You will possibly be surprised at just how violent the title can get as blood runs rampant here. It’s an unnecessary change and we didn’t come to Jurassic Park to watch a slasher film. Another scene that’s just painful to watch is the one where the mini raptors attack the villain. He’s a villain who is used for animal violence so the film has him brutally murdered, but it’s just not a good cycle. Essentially, we’re supposed to feel good since the bad character was killed off for doing something mean, but instead we’re just given two bad scenes that hurt the film even more. If we didn’t get the scene of the human antagonizing the dinosaurs, then we wouldn’t have needed the scene where he dies so violently. It’s a case of bad character development.

As you can see, the film was in pretty hot water throughout and it couldn’t recover. A raptor is even stabbed as it falls to help a “hero” moment turn into a fail. Now, let’s gather our bearings and look at what the film did right. Well, I actually like Ian as the main character. I think that he was more impressive in the first film and his dialogue was certainly a lot better, but he can hold his own film. He’s always ready and Ian warned the people that this was a bad idea from the start. You really can’t blame him for what happens and he actually gets the short end of the stick when you consider his reputation.

Ian’s daughter is less likable. She’s an improvement from the kids in the last film, but she still panics and holds the team back at times. If she had not told Ian to take her up to the trees where they would be a bigger target, Ian could have potentially stopped the falling tractor scene from ever taking place. Making a fire in a dinosaur land is also not a great move and she made a pretty big mess in the portable home. She means well, but this is why kids should not be main or supporting characters in most films.

The final big character is Sarah, but I can’t say that I was very impressed with her either. She left Ian without saying anything, which I found to be very irresponsible. She also acts as if Ian is not around because she takes many big risks when she doesn’t need too. Petting a dinosaur and messing with a cub is practically asking to be eaten. I don’t see how she would have survived the adventure and I couldn’t take her side in the disagreements. She placed everyone in danger by coming to the island and she’s not remorseful in the slightest. Ian’s got his faults as well of course, but at least he only puts himself in danger.

As this is the sequel, Lost World certainly feels a lot lower budget than the first film. The soundtrack and effects are not nearly as good as the first film and this one could have easily been a straight to DVD film. It definitely doesn’t have that theatrical feel that the first one had. You can say that for many theater films so it’s not unique to this title, but you could never say that the first film did not feel theatrical without grabbing some Air Head candies to keep you from making a straight face. The slasher elements and constant 3D (In your face) techniques also keep it from feeling quite as grand and real. I’m still not a 3D fan and I probably won’t be for another 40-60 years, when we will have finally learned how to make true 3D.

Some parts of the film do test your imagination a little bit like the actual premise. I don’t believe that the government would not have made a move at this point. People died in the Dinosaur adventures so they would not allow dinosaurs to quickly be brought into the cities and zoos. That’s simply not going to happen and with the amount of red tape that we have in the US, it would be years before any real traction would be made at that front. At most, They’d just let people visit the dinosaur land at their own peril, but there would likely be a huge fee and I could see them just keeping the island as a testing facility.

The Raptors still remind me of good ole Yoshi whenever they appear. They are my favorite dinosaurs although the good ole T Rex is in second. The Raptors mean business and there are not many animals who can defeat them while the Raptors are in a group. The climax may have had the dog scene, but I liked it a lot otherwise. It’s played out like a Kaiju film as everyone is running away from the Dino and many yells can be heard. The stakes have simply never been this high before and it was a decent reaction of how people would respond to such a creature. I think that some people wouldn’t be frightened as there are people of all sorts of personalities, but having everyone run away does make for more enjoyable scenes of terror.

Overall, The Lost World is a decent follow up to the second one. It greatly reduces the animal violence, which is certainly a good thing although it is weaker than the first film in all technical aspects. It simply doesn’t command your attention the same way that the first did although you will still be interested in seeing what happens anyway. The landscapes simply aren’t as interesting, but there is less mud and gross scenes, which is great. If you liked the first film, then you’ll like this one. Otherwise, you should skip this one and just wait until a really good dinosaur film arrives on your TV.

Overall 3/10