Saturday, June 13, 2015

Jurassic World (2015)

Rated: PG-13 - Runtime: 124 min
tesg's Rating: Two stars (out of four)

I didn't see any of the sequels ("The Lost World", "Jurassic Park III", "Jurassic Vegas Vacation", "Jurassic Dick: A Porn Parody", "War Games", "The Birds", "Godzilla", and "Sea World") and I'm told that's okay because the producers pretended like none of those ever existed.

Yeah, well, this one may as well never have either. This is a parts bin sequel that just borrows scenes from all of those and patches them together. Even, and especially, the movies I noted that weren't really Jurassic Park sequels.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Spy (2015)

Rated: R - Runtime: 115 min
tesg's Rating: Two and one half stars (out of four)

McCarthy kind of plods along for the first part of the movie as a dopey analyst who everybody has pigeonholed as a cat lady ("I don't have a cat!" she repeatedly notes.) She ends up in the field dressed up like Shelly Winters in "The Poseidon Adventure" and frumps her way through until she saves Rose Byrne's character, at which point she suddenly turns into a kick-ass foul-mouthed field agent. There's no subtle evolution...it just happens.

Which is to say it gets better as it goes. Jason Statham is hilarious in this. Jude Law and Allison Janney are also standouts.

Not a great flick, but it's campy fun, probably the best that could be expected.