Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we run through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be as excited for them as we are. This week: dinosaurs and David Cronenberg…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Hold onto your butts, there’s another Jurassic Park sequel roaring into cinemas. In Jurassic World: Rebirth, scientists think they’ve figured out a recipe for a miracle cure, but they’re missing a key ingredient – one that’s only present in three of the biggest dinosaurs walking the Earth. By this point, most dinosaurs have migrated to equatorial regions that more closely resemble the climate they were made for, including a Caribbean island which used to house the research facility for the original Jurassic Park. Unfortunately, the island is also home to some of the deadliest dino hybrids Hammond’s researchers ever cooked up. Enter Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), the mercenaries and paleontologist tasked with extracting the DNA and getting it home before they get stomped or chomped. Also along for the ride are the Delgado family, who find themselves stranded on the island after dinosaurs attack their boat.
The original Jurassic Park is a true classic and one of my all time favourite films. Its two sequels had their moments but never quite reached the same sense of wonder that Spielberg was able to conjure up for the first film. Then Jurassic World came along, which again wasn’t a patch on the original but its theme park setting made it feel like an attempt to bring the original up to date. Fallen Kingdom officially moved the adventure to the mainland, destroying Isla Nublar with a volcano eruption in the opening scenes and releasing herds of prehistoric critters into America. That set the stage for a whole new world in Dominion, but the result was a bit of a mess – the plot was sidelined in favour of fan-service, and the fact that dinosaurs were now everywhere somehow made it a lot less exciting. This new film appears to be resetting the setting to an exotic island jungle, which I think is a wise move. Having the humans intruding on dinosaur territory makes for a much more adventurous story than shoving a load of dinosaurs into ours. On the other hand, it also appears to be leaning into another element that I wasn’t a fan of in the other Jurassic World movies: the genetic hybrids. Jurassic Park proved that a giant lizard trying to eat you is quite threatening enough without needing to know that it’s partly made from a different giant lizard. Basically, put me on an island with some proper dinosaurs and I’ll be happy.
Fortunately it looks like there is plenty of that here too. There’s a T-rex chasing people down a river, several spinosaurs (the big beasties from Jurassic Park 3) helping a mosasaur (the big shark-whale beastie from Jurassic World) to hunt in the sea, and a quetzalcoatlus (a new big beastie to the franchise – the largest flying predator to have ever lived) trying to pick our heroes off a cliff edge. Director Gareth Edwards, who previously brought us Godzilla, Monsters and Rogue One, knows how to assemble a blockbuster set-piece. I’m looking forward to seeing Scarlett Johansson in full action hero mode, Mahershala Ali is always excellent, and the presence of the Delgados will introduce kids into the mix to help up the stakes. Plus it’ll be an excuse to listen to that incredible John Williams theme again, this time with the rest of the score fleshed out by Alexandre Desplat.
I am, of course, not expecting this to be anywhere near as good as Jurassic Park, but I am still very much looking forward to it.
- Jurassic World: Rebirth on IMDB
- Jurassic World: Rebirth on Rotten Tomatoes
The Shrouds
Inspired by director David Cronenberg’s own experience of grief following the death of his wife, The Shrouds follows Karsh (Vincent Cassell), a tech entrepreneur who deals with his own wife’s passing by developing a service that allows people to observe their late loved ones slowly decomposing in their graves. (If you’re thinking: “Why would anyone want that?”, just remember this is David Cronenberg – the master of body horror). When the graves start getting vandalised, including that of his wife Becca (Diane Kruger), he enlists the help of Becca’s sister Terry (also Diane Kruger) and her ex husband Maury (Guy Pearce) to figure out who is performing the acts of desecration.
By all accounts, this is one of the most personal and introspective films Cronenberg has made. It’s so autobiographical that Cassell has even been made up to look a little like the director. It’s a treatise on death, love, sex, and maybe a bit of politics thrown in for good measure, with a lot more pathos and emotion than we’ve seen from him previously. It’s had some great reviews, largely as a result of that cerebral and personal element, but also for the central performances and witty script. If you want something dark and surreal but don’t fancy it in the form of big angry lizards, this is the film for you this week.
- The Shrouds on IMDB
- The Shrouds on Rotten Tomatoes
Hot Milk
Rose (Fiona Shaw) has suffered for years from a mysterious illness and living under the care of her daughter Sofia (Emma Mackey). When they learn that a Spanish physician might have the cure, they take a trip to Almería for some treatment and sunshine. But, when a fellow traveller (Vicky Krieps) helps Sofia get a taste for freedom, her inhibitions start to drop away and years of resentment begin to bubble to the surface.
This looks quite interesting – although it’s by far the most grounded of the three films on the list this week, there’s a real sense that something’s not quite right. It also appears to build up to an explosive final act. Beyond that, it’s the sort of enigmatic film that doesn’t want to give too much away in its marketing so I don’t know too much about it. The reviews have been mixed – at time of writing it has 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, although some reviewers were very positive about the performances and tone.
- Hot Milk on IMDB
- Hot Milk on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Stomp your way back to the Jurassic period.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- F1: The Movie
- M3GAN 2.0 – I enjoyed this but I’m not really sure what it’s meant to be. The first movie was a horror comedy and had a decent balance of both genres, but this isn’t scary enough to be a horror or consistently funny enough to be a comedy (although it certainly had its funny moments). The creepiest bit is one character saying “I’ll have my people look into that”, which in the context of the scene gets worse the more you process it. M3GAN herself is much more of an anti-heroine than a villain this time around, and the film’s attempts to make you think she might be up to something more sinister are never wholly believable. There are points where it feels more like a Mission: Impossible film, but it stops short of anything nearly as cinematic as that. But whatever it is, there is a lot of daft campy fun to be had. Jemaine Clement is the highlight, as is so often the case in any film he’s in.
- How To Train Your Dragon
Trailer of the week
Edgar Wright is adapting Stephen King story The Running Man into a film starring Glen Powell. If that sentence hasn’t sold you, the trailer’s just come out and looks like a perfect meeting of director and plot.
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