Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. This week sees the return of dinos to the theaters, setting up a Jurassic Word vs. Incredibles battle that should last until the next MCU installment arrives.
No one wants to open against dinosaurs. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the only wide release of the week. The fifth film in the Jurassic franchise arrives to less-than-stellar reviews. It’s currently sitting at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes, which puts it level with The Lost World and Jurassic Park III in terms of critical reception. Will that hurt the film’s box office? I seriously doubt that it will have much impact on its opening weekend, but it may forecast a serious drop in future weeks. With The Incredibles 2 battling for repeat business, once it stops being new, we’ll have to see which film will ultimately emerge with a larger gross. There’s not a blockbuster arriving until July 6th’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, so these two films are going to do battle for a while.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, PG-13, 2hr 9min)
How Did We Do Last Week? KT picked The Incredibles 2 to win last weekend and the Pixar sequel did a lot more than that. The Incredibles 2 broke Finding Dory’s record for the largest animated release ever and Beauty and the Beast’s record for the largest PG release ever. When all was said and done, The Incredibles 2 made $183.1 million last weekend. Ocean’s Eight finished a very distant second with $19.1 million.
(2018 Prediction Record: 24-0; Lifetime prediction record 109 – 10).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
Dinosaurs = money. With the exception of Jurassic Park III, every film in the franchise has opened in a manner commensurate with the thunder lizards they contain. Big. They open BIG. I don’t think Fallen Kingdom is going to break records, but it should post a big opening weekend. Dino-sized enough to topple The Incredibles 2 from its perch (for this week, at least).
I had forgotten that the Lost World had been received so poorly by the critics. What an amorphous film that was. I remember Ian Malcom and a few of his one-liners. I remember a hunter character who was there to chase the most dangerous game of all: a T-Rex. I remember Malcom’s adopted daughter doing gymnastics and bopping a dinosaur on the nose, and I remember a T-Rex being taken to LA to be in a Kong-type exhibition, only to get loose. I remember what appeared to be a horrid continuity error on the boat as the T-Rex was transported. If I remember correctly, that was kind of the movie. I enjoyed it at the time because Spielberg brought an intensity to it that he should have brought to the first film. At least I remember thinking that at the time. I was probably wrong.
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has now dipped below both and become the lowest rated film in the franchise on RT. I think it’s at 47% currently.
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Ever seen the film Lion? I recently did. It was overlong, and the second half got too melodramatic for my taste, but a wonderful first half, an ultra-satisfying finale, and a spotlight on the virtues of modern technology (instead of the usual vitriol) left me in an excellent mood indeed. This was the perfect antidote to InGen’s dinosaurs: a story that really happened, cinematography spotlighting places that actually exist, gut wrenching emotion, a character you latch onto and become invested in, whose eyes you see the world through (as if you’ve never seen the world before), and to top it all off the movie actually makes you think. Perhaps the issues it raises are not that deep or complicated, but they’re more immediate and important than the ones raised by the JP franchise, I’ll tell you that.
Maybe if I thought the JP franchise were barreling towards a resolution I would go see JW2, but I think I’ll just skip them all until the last one. That is the fatal flaw in the franchise model. The MCU got around it with thier phases. Soon audiences are going to catch on that there will never be a resolution to anything. And that will take “art imitating life” a bridge too far.
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I saw Lion when it was nominated for Best Picture a few years back. I thought it was really good, not Best Picture-level, but really good. It’s rare Nicole Kidman does anything that doesn’t make me wince these days, so it was nice to see her. I don’t know if audiences are going to get over franchises and blockbusters. I know we’ve both been down about movies lately. It’s gotten so depressing for me that I’ve had trouble keeping this place up. I don’t really find much inspiration in film these days. I have a Movie Pass so I could have gone to see Ocean’s Eight or Jurassic World 2 by now, but going to the movies more often than not isn’t that fun any more. I hope it changes. I feel like I’m running out of patience with the art form though, sigh.
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I think the big plot twist towards the end of Jurassic World 2 might have just made film not an art form anymore. I’m going to put a SPOILER warning before this, so feel free not to read, but…
Apparently human cloning has been introduced into the Jurassic Park franchise. One of the characters, a child, is revealed to be a clone. And at a key moment, this character LETS A BUNCH OF DINOSAURS FREE, because of frigging KINSHIP, and the dinosaurs escape out into the world. Hence, Jurassic WORLD.
I want to believe this will all be resolved in one more movie. I really, really do.
Thank GOD Colin Trevorrow is out over at Lucasfilm, because the first JW did not give me a full picture of his evil.
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