Two and a Half Elves

Onward

Director: Dan Scanlon

Voice Talent: Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer

Released: March 6, 2020

Oscar nominations:

Best Animated Picture (lost to Soul)

This movie is set in a parallel universe in a town called New Mushroomton and all the residents who live there are fairy tale creatures such as elves (like our main characters), ogres, fairies, goblins, wizards, and pretty much anything you would find in a Harry Potter novel/movie. In this world, magic was once used, but once electricity was invented, "over time, magic faded away." With magic, you have to learn spells and it takes a discipline to perform them correctly, while with electricity, you just flip a switch on and off, so it's much easier. A lot of these mythical creatures don't use their features anymore. We see a fairy board a plane and many other winged creatures just don't fly because they haven't "exercised their wings". Unicorns are treated as pests with matted, mangy fur who rummage in the trash or hide out in caves. 

The movie follows the two Lightfoot brothers, high-schooler Ian (voiced by Tom Holland) and his older brother, Barley (voiced by Chris Pratt). They are elves and their mother, Laurel (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), describes Ian as being afraid of everything and Barley as being afraid of nothing. This is a pretty apt description. Ian's and Barley's father died right before Ian was born, so he doesn't remember him at all and Barley only has about three vivid memories of him. Apparently, these elves don't share the immortality of the Rivendell elves because their father died of an undisclosed sickness. 

It is Ian's 16th birthday and he is wearing an old sweatshirt that his dad used to wear in college. This means a great deal to him since he never knew his dad and makes him feel closer to him. Unfortunately, Barley, who can be a bit of a clumsy oaf at times, ends up accidentally ripping the shoulder of the sweatshirt. Ian decides to skip breakfast at home and grab something at Burger Shire. One of my favorite jokes in the movie was the sign outside Burger Shire that read "Now serving 2nd breakfast." Okay, its been a minute since I've seen The Lord of the Rings trilogy and I can't remember which movie it was (the first one, I think), but I love it when Merry/Pippin asks, "What about second breakfast?" They eat second breakfast? That is hilarious! So, yes, I appreciated that joke. 

While Ian is waiting for his food, he meets an elf who knew Ian's father in college (his name was on his old sweatshirt that Ian was wearing) and he tells Ian his father was someone who people always noticed and was very bold, so basically the opposite of Ian. Ian is grateful that he's learned this new information about his dad and it inspires him to make a checklist titled "New Me." Earlier, his mother had told him that his birthday was a good start to try new things. On his list, he writes, "Speak up more", "Learn to drive", "Invite people to party", and "Be like Dad." 

We will see him attempt these as he attends his classes at New Mushroomton High School that day. In one of his classes, a huge ogre student (like, he's probably four times bigger than Ian) sits behind Ian, but he also putt his huge green sandal-wearing foot on Ian's chair which means Ian barely has any room to sit (good thing he's skinny!). Ian speaks up and asks the ogre if he would not put his foot on his seat, but the ogre just replies he needs to do so in order to keep the blood circulating to his brain. When Ian is taking his driver's lesson for the day, he gets too scared to merge and doesn't complete his driving task. I do love that the stop signs in this world say "Halt" in a fancy, Medieval-like font. 

So now he's zero for two on his list. At the end of the school day, he gets up the courage to invite a group of students (who seem to know him) to his party. It's super awkward the way he invites them because he's hemming and hawing and can't seem to spit the invitation out, but once they realize he's inviting them to a party, they agree to come. Ian suggests they take the bus to his house. It seems like Ian might actually get to check a box off his list, but here comes Barley driving erratically in his purple van he's named Guinevere with a unicorn painted on the side. In fact, the movie gets its name because Barley has covered the "D" on the gearshift and replaced it with a piece of tape that says "O", which he says is for Onward. When he sees that Ian has friend coming over, he tells his brother that he can take them all in his car. An embarrassed Ian quickly tells the others he just remembered his party was cancelled and scampers away, leaving them confused. 

Once he gets home, he strikes out all the things on the list. His mom can sense that he is blue, so she tells him she has a gift for him and Barley from their dad. She was told to give it to him once they were both over sixteen. Technically, Ian is not "over sixteen" as he just turned sixteen that day. That could be the reason things go a little haywire. But it's probably just a writer's mistake. 

Their gift looks to be rolled up, almost like a carpet. Once it's unrolled, they find a wooden staff. Barley think this means their dad was a wizard, but Laurel is quick to tell them he was an accountant, something I'm sure they both already knew. Ian finds a note where their dad tells them there was once magic, but it faded away and hopes there is magic still in them. He wrote down a Visitation Spell so his sons can perform it and he will be able to see who his sons grew up to be. The spell will bring their dad back "for one whole day." Along with the spell, he has also included the Phoenix Gem, which is very rare. (Makes you wonder where he found it, doesn't it? They never tell us). Barley places the gem in the staff and starts reciting the spell, but nothing happens. He keeps reciting it, but still nothing happens. 

 

A defeated and depressed Ian goes to his room. He has taken the staff with him and he decides to try the spell. This time the Phoenix Gem begins to light up. Barley hears the commotion and comes to is room. They both see feet and legs appear out of thin air, then the gem breaks and the spell is done and they're only left with the bottom half of their father. Yeah, it's super weird. The very top of the bottom half just has some glowing light emitting from it. And even though this pair of legs has no brain to tell it what to do, this half-body seems to be sentient. Sure, it can't see or hear, but it still seems to understand what's going on. For instance, in an earlier scene, we had learned that one of Barley's memories with his dad was playing the drums on his father's shoes. Sure, its' a bit odd, but, as you will see, it will come back in this scene when Barley does just that and his half-dad seems to understand it's him. So even though their dad doesn't have a brain, they do have a way of communicating with him. 

Barley tells Ian, "A person can only do magic if they have the gift" and he is thrilled that Ian "has the magic gift." My question is, why didn't thy have Ian try after all those failed attempts from Barley? I know, I know, it's for the plot of the movie. They need to get Laurel out of the house (she's picking up Ian's cake) for the next stage of the movie to happen. Ian may have the "magic gift", but he hasn't honed his skills. (Though to be fair, he is just a beginner. Like a literal beginner.) They need to perform the spell again before the twenty-four hour time limit is up to see all of their dad. They just need to find another Phoenix Gem, you know, that gem that is super rare and hard to find. No problem! (I still want to know where their dad found his Phoenix Gem.)

Barley is obsessed with this board game called Quest of Yore, which is like Dungeons and Dragons? I guess? IDK, I've never played D&D. It's a board game where you go on adventures and there are cards that correlate to actual things and people in the real world. (Well, their real world.) Barley's game has a card that gives stats about the Phoenix Gem which basically tells them to start at the place where all quests begin, The Manticore's Tavern, because the owner knows where to find anything they'll need. 

They leave a note for their mom which reads, "Be back with mind blowing surprise!!" and Ian creates a "top half" for their dad which includes a sweatshirt, puffer vest, gloves, and a "head" with sunglasses and a hat. They control him with a string wrapped around his waist and it's attached to a pulley thing where they can decide how much they need. (I don't know the right word, but you know what I'm talking about, hopefully.) It gave me Weekend at Bernie's vibes. 

While they drive to the Manticore's Tavern, Ian has created a new list of things he wants to do with his dad which includes "Play catch", "Take a walk", "Heart to Heart", "Laugh together," "Driving Lesson", and "Share my life with him." Even if he did have the allotted twenty-four hours with his dad, I still think he wouldn't have time to do all those things with him. It is a very sweet list, though. 

They reach the Manticore's Tavern which is one of those medieval-themed restaurants. The Manticore aka Corey (voiced by Octavia Spencer) is the manager. I have to admit, I had never heard of a Manticore before. It has a body of a lion, the (poisonous!) tail of a scorpion, and the head of a human. The drawings of this online looks super freaky....there's something uncanny about half-human, half-animal creatures. I don't like it! Luckily, for this character they give her a lion head (to match the rest of her body, except for the tail, of course) and they don't give her a weird elf or fairy head. This manticore also has wings and horns on her head (according to my research, a manticore can also have wings and/or be horned and she has both). When the brothers ask her about the Phoenix Gem, she just gives them a children's menu with puzzles and games on it. The main puzzle is a word scramble where you will uncover where the gem is. Barley asks if she has the real map and she points to it where it's hanging on a wall and he proceeds to take it down, but she tells him he can't take it. It just makes me laugh imagining someone walking into a restaurant and taking something off the wall...like, what are you doing? 

Ian gets up the courage to talk to her and that's when she realizes she's been living a lie and that her life is boring and she needs adventure. We will learn later that she hasn't exercised her wings in a long time so she never flies and has come to live a mundane life. She ends up roaring and starts a fire (oh did I mention that she breathes fire?). The map ends up burning and they are unable to save it (guess they don't have a spell for reversing fire damage). In the car, Barley had told Ian that he was gonna have to practice his magic before he cast the spell again. Ian had been practicing a spell where he's supposed to levitate objects (no, not Wingardium Leviosa, but rather Aloft Elevar), but no matter how many times he tries, nothing happened. But now is he able to save his father's legs by being crushed by a falling burning beam by performing the spell and this time it works. I guess when you're under pressure and you're trying to save something, you have more agency in your magical capabilities. Just a guess. Makes sense to me. 

The Lightfoots (Lightfeet?) make it safely back to the van. Even though the real map has burned, Barley had grabbed a children's menu. As he tells his brother, "On a quest, you have to use what you've got And this is what we've got." Luckily he grabbed a menu where the word scramble had already been solved by a child patron and the answer to where to find the Phoenix Gem was "Raven's Point." They look at their road map and it shows that location in the mountains. They won't be able to get there until the next morning, but Barley tells Ian that they will still have plenty of time with their dad. Eh, I don't know about that. 

Looking at the map, Ian tells Batley that the expressway should take them right there, but Barley thinks that's a little too obvious. He tells his little bro, "On a quest, the clear path is never the right one." Obviously, he's quoting from his favorite game. He thinks they should take "an ancient trail called the Path of Peril." The 'Path of Peril'? Are you kidding me? No, thanks. I'm with Ian: taking the expressway will be faster. That's why they call it the expressway. It seems like Barley just wants to have an adventure like his game and it's pretty obvious that we're going to find out Barley was right all along, but in the end, he agrees with Ian and takes the expressway. 

Meanwhile, Laurel had found the Phoenix Gem card lying on a table next to the note Barley had scribbled so she heads to the Manticore's Tavern which is now ablaze. She talks to Corey who tells her she told her sons about the gem, the map, and the curse, but then realizes she forgot to tell them about the curse. When giving her statement to a police officer, she says, "Last name Manticore, first name, The." This joke has been used many times, but it never fails to make me laugh. Laurel sees the smallest scratch on the Manticore and tells the cop she needs to give her first aid and when the cop turns his back, they both get in Laurel's car and she drives away. 

Corey tells Laurel about the curse and that if her sons take the gem, "the curse will rise up and assume the form of a mighty beast and battle [them]." Her enchanted sword, The Curse Crusher, is the only weapon "forged with the rarest metal can destroy it." Unfortunately, she sold it to a pawn shop because she "got in a little tax trouble a few years back" (heh), but at least she knows where to find it. 

Later, they will arrive at a strip mall where the pawn shop is located. Other shops in this area also include "Mystic Donuts", "Master Froyo", "Sir Snipz a Lot", and "Sword and the Scone." I'm sure the writers had a lot of fun with these! The proprietor of the pawn shop is a small female goblin voice by Tracey Ullman. She finds the sword and is willing to sell it to them for ten bucks, but then Corey (in a very stupid move) exclaims that it's made of rare metals and the only sword of its kind in all the land, so of course she ups the price to ten thousand dollars (or whatever currency they use). When Corey asks the goblin store owner if she knows who she is, the goblin replies, "Some kind of winged bear-snake lady?" and Corey corrects her: "Winged lion-scorpion lady!" 

We get a hilarious scene where Laurel starts explaining and pleading to the goblin why she needs the sword, but Corey just stings her in the neck and she falls down, "only temporarily paralyzed" as she explains to Laurel. They grab the sword and Laurel still pays her the original price, plus a little extra "for her troubles." 

I should mention that Laurel is dating a police officer named Colt Bronco who is a centaur. It's a great name for someone who is half horse, but it makes me squeamish that this elf has a romantic relationship with a centaur. It makes me think of when I was reading Harry Potter and we discovered that Hagrid's dad was a human and his mom was a giant (or was it the other way around?). It's like...how did they, uh, create Hagrid? I assume there was some magic involved there, but still. Eww, I don't want to think about that. There is a scene later on in the movie where it makes sense why they made Colt a centaur. 

Back on the quest, Ian begins to strike things off his list because he sadly knows they're not going to have time to do everything he wants to with his dad. The van starts sputtering and breaks down, so they pull over. Barley says they need gas. Even though the fuel gauge says it's full, Bartley tells Ian that doesn't work. Uh, that's not good. If your fuel gauge is always on full, your brain is always going to assume it's full and you'll never know when to fill it up unless you just make yourself do it at least once a week. They get out of the van and Barley gets a gas can out. At least he's smart enough to carry gas around with him in times like this, except for the fact that there are only a few drops left. Ian asks if there's any way they can fix the car by magic and Barley thinks he should try the Growth Spell. He thinks if they grow the can, the gas inside will grow with it. I agree with Ian when he says, "That's kind of a weird idea." 

Barley tells him the Growth Spell is a bit more advanced and he has to follow a magic decree: "It's a special rule that keeps the spell working right." This means he can't let anything distract him while he's performing the spell. He does the spell (with some "helpful" tips from Barley, but they end up distracting him) and the can remains the same size. There is a hilarious reveal where we hear Barley, in a squeaky voice exclaim, "It worked! The can is huge!" Then we see that Barley himself is tiny. I honestly don't know how that happened since Ian never pointed his wand anywhere near Barley, but he must have gotten mixed up with the spell when he was interfering. It doesn't take long before Barley realizes what happens and tells Ian there are consequences if he messes up a spell, but luckily the side effects will wear off eventually. 

They are able to find gas and Barley eventually becomes his normal size. While they were at the gas station, they come across this gang of pixies who are driving motorcycles (each motorcycle needs about ten pixies to control it since someone needs to push the gas pedal and someone needs to steer). These pixies may be little, but they are tough! If you look at them the wrong way, watch out! Little Barley gets in a fight with them (unintentional on his part, but they got super offended when he asked them why they just didn't use their wings and fly) and end up chasing the elves on the expressway. Of course, Barley is too small to drive, so Ian has to. With some help from Barley, he manages to merge onto the expressway and fight off the pesky pixies. During all this, Barley changes back to his regular self. They are pulled over for speeding and while their dad (their half dad?) stumbles out, looking like he's intoxicated, Barley confers with Ian and tells him to do a disguise spell and that he can disguise himself to be anyone he wants: "Disguising yourself is a lie, so you must tell the truth to get by." As long as he doesn't tell a lie, the spell will be fine. 

While the two police officers (voiced by Ali Wong and Lena Waithe) are about to take their dad to the station, Ian disguised as Colt Bronco comes out. Remember when I said there was a reason for Colt being a centaur? Well, this is it. While Ian is disguising as the front of Colt, Barley is behind him, crouched down, disguised as the back. I guess centaurs need two people to disguise them, like they're a Halloween costume or something? :::Shrug::: Okay, whatever. He starts out telling a lie when the other two officers told him they thought he was working the other end of town and he tells them he changed his mind. This makes "Colt's" ear change into Ian's elf ear. He tries to hide it by moving is neck and tells them he has a neck cramp which further complicates things by changing "Colt's" hand into Ian's original elf hand. Barley tells him he has to stop lying and to "answer every question with a question." I guess the cops can't hear Barley. Ian takes his advice and things start going more smoothly. That is, until one of the cops tells Colt that Laurel's eldest son is a screwup. "Colt" says he does't agree with her, but then one of his horse legs changes to Ian's skinny denim-clad leg, and of course Barley sees this so he knows his brother is lying and agrees with this harsh statement. This makes Ian become flustered and he starts lying more and rapidly starts changing back to his elf self. One cop just laughs it off, but the other is suspicious and calls dispatch to have her put through to Officer Bronco. 

There is awkward silence in the van as they continue their journey. Ian tells his brother he doesn't think he's a screwup and perhaps the magic got it wrong. Barley pulls over and tells Ian that he (Ian) doesn't think he (Barley) has any good ideas. Ian tries to deny this and when Barley tells him he thinks they should take the Path of Peril, Ian replies, "I think that would be good, normally..but this isn't a game. All that matters today is Dad." It's at that moment they notice their father's legs dancing in the back of the van to the music on the radio that was still turned on. Even though he can't hear the music, he "can feel the vibrations of the music." After some fun dancing with their dad, Ian finally agrees to take the Path of Peril. When Barley takes the turn onto a bumpy gravely road though a bunch of scary trees, the rear bumper with the license plate that says "Gwniver" falls off. Gee, I wonder if this will help somebody who's looking for them? Oh, yep, I was right. Here come Colt and he sees and recognizes the license plate so he follows the path. 

It's now the next morning and Barley and Ian have come to "the bottomless pit", this huge gap in the middle of nowhere. Barley almost drove right into it because he had turned to talk to Ian. It's like, look where you're going! Luckily Ian screamed at him to stop. As Ian is standing very, very close to the edge, Barley tells him, "Whatever falls in there, falls forever." Hmm, I'd be telling him to "back it up!" Their father's legs, who they don't have the leash around, starts walking and actually walks off the edge of the cliff and his sons catch him. Yikes! A bunch of pebbles fall instead. 

An ancient drawbridge is on the other side as well as the lever. I laughed when Barley says to look for a lever and Ian goes, "Found it!" and points to the other side of the gap. He tries to lift it with magic, but the magic doesn't reach it. Barley tells him he can't cast a levitation spell on something that far away because it only has a "15-meter enchanting radius." He suggests a "Trust Bridge" which will create a magical bridge he can walk on. The only catch is, the bridge is invisible! Barley informs him he won't know if the bridge if there util he steps on it! And if he "believes the bridge is there, then it's there." There's a lot of psychological persuasion going on here. You basically have to psych yourself up to believe you are walking on a bridge when there is nothing literally there! Ian does not feel confident about this plan and I don't blame him. Barley ties a rope around Ian's waist and the other end around a big rock, but tells Ian he doesn't need the rope because he believes he can use the magic without it. The first try, Ian steps off the ledge and immediately falls. Thank God he had the rope! I don't know if I'd want to try that again after experiencing that! After Barley pulls him back up, he points out that since Ian now knows the worst that can happen, there's nothing to be scared of. Although I would argue that the worst that could happen is if the rope untied and he kept falling indefinitely. I wonder if there's a spell to course correct that? 

Ian takes a deep breath and tries the spell again. This time he steps out onto nothing and the spell works. However, on his second step, he begins to fall, but Barley pulls him back up with the rope and reminds him to "believe with every step." Ian does this and he is able to make it halfway across...and that's when the rope unties from his back. All I could think was thank God the rope didn't untie when he first fell! I'm honestly surprised Ian didn't notice the rope wasn't still tied around him, but perhaps he was concentrating so hard on making himself believe he was walking on a bridge that he didn't even notice. Barley has this horrified expression on his face and he tells his brother to just keep going and look straight ahead, and not to look back. I think this would be good advice even if the rope was still tied to him. Ian exclaims, "This is amazing!" He asks Barley if he still has the rope and Barley says he does. Yes, good answer. And this is a perfect example of when it's alright to lie! 

Ian is so overconfident because he thinks he has the rope and the magic is working perfectly. He says how alive and amazing he feels and that he could stay out there all day and starts dancing. Not surprisingly, this is making Barley anxious and he reminds his little brother to keep moving and to remember they're there for their dad (did I just use they're, there, and their all in one fell swoop?) and to get as much time with him as possible. By this time, Ian is one step away from reaching the other side of the huge gap and says he's taking his last step for their dad. When he says that, he looks back and sees Barley holding the rope. This causes the magic to break and he starts falling. Very luckily, he is able to catch a protruding stone and pull himself up. Thank goodness he didn't look back earlier! His confidence drained, he lowers the drawbridge and Barley drives his van across. He notices a large stone raven atop the bridge and thinks that's significant since the clue said "Raven's Point." The raven is literally pointing with its beak towards the side of the gap where they just came from. From there, they can see another raven statue that's also pointing in that direction. Bailey thinks this will lead them to their gem. If I were Ian, I would be a little irked that I walked across that gap for nothing.

But before they can continue on, here comes Colt in his police car. (Yeah, he found the license plate hours after the brothers took the Path of Peril.) Barley explains to him what's going on and Colt tells them he's not going to let them upset their mother anymore and tells them to get in their car and he'll escort them home. Ian readily agrees and takes the keys from Barley and gets in the driver's seat with Barley in the passenger seat. I guess Colt didn't know about Ian's trepidation of driving because he doesn't question it. Once the brothers are in the van, Ian guns it before Colt is even back in his car. Colt immediately calls for backup. 

He keeps driving before they find themselves trapped on the side of a cliff. On one side, there's a steep drop and they're barricaded from the other side because cop cars are driving towards them. The backup Colt called for sure showed up quick! Barley tells Ian to do the "Arcane Lighting" spell, which is one of the harder spells but he thinks Ian is ready. He wants Ian to use his magic to dislodge two huge boulders that are up in the mountain and have them block the road. Ian tries this a couple times, but he is unsuccessful. The cops are getting closer, so Barley goes to another plan. He takes a big rock and puts it on the gas pedal and puts Guinevere in "O" and lets her drive towards the cop. What happens next seems a little too precise; like there's no way he would know that his plan would work: the van drives up a slanted rock and flies towards the big boulder and crashes into it, thus breaking the boulder an it falls to the ground to block the path like they had originally planned. Like, WTF? That is the luckiest thing to have happened. 

Now they are able to continue without any cop interference and they keep following the raven statues. They do this for awhile until they come to a raven statue where the beak is pointing towards the ground. Ian takes a little stone tablet that is inserted in the bird and it has a symbol etched into it that indicates water as well as an "X". They go into a cave where they follow a river. Barley thinks the gem will be where the river ends. Ian is (rightfully so) worried that the river could go on for miles. (I guess they don't have a map for where they are so they can't determine long long the river is). He checks his watch and we see they have a little over five hours before their dad will be completely gone forever. 

Barley suggests that Ian use a Velocity Spell to make them speed down the river really fast. There's not much to float on, but he's been eating Cheeto-like snacks, so Ian makes one of them bigger and they float on that. (Barley also occasionally munches on it, and, not gonna lie, I would probably do the same thing.) At one point, the boat doesn't seem to be going that fast, but this is when Ian and Barley are having a heart to heart when Barley is telling him about a memory with their dad he's never shared with Ian: when their dad was sick and hooked up to a bunch of tubes, Barley was supposed to say goodbye, but he was too scared to go in the room because their dad didn't look like himself. He tells Ian, "That's when I decided I was never gonna be scared ever again." 

They reach the point where the water stops and it's almost like they're in a video game where they have to dodge a bunch of traps. After all that, they come out out a manhole and are in their own town, right across the street from Ian's school. They're right back where they started. Ian is irate. He thinks the gem was in the mountains the whole time and points out they could have had it hours ago if they had just stayed on the expressway. Ian calls Barley a screwup and tells him he's screwed up his chance of meeting their dad. He walks away with their dad and tells Barley he's gonna "spend what little time [they] have left with [him]." Barley tells him they can still find the Phoenix Gem if they keep looking, but Ian is having none of it. He takes his dad to some rocks overlooking the water and takes out his checklist and crosses out "heart to heart" and "laugh together." He's about to cross out "driving lesson", but pauses and realizes he did have a driving lesson, only it was with Barley. He checks the box next to it. He then has an epiphany that he has shared many, if not all, of these items on his checklist with Barley. We see a flashback of them growing up together and Ian checks the box next to "share my life with him." Damnit, movie, stop making me cry! 

Meanwhile, Barley is at a fountain/statue across the street from the school. He has climbed on top of it and notices there's an insert that perfectly fits the stone tablet. He puts it in and the Phoenix Gem is revealed. He takes it and red smoke starts to appear and soon covers everything around the vicinity. The smoke goes into the school and starts ripping away the stones and bricks and other material that makes up the building. A dragon is formed, made out of all these materials. It uses the face of the dragon mascot painted on the side of the school. It's a little unsettling because the face of the dragon is smiling and looks like a friendly kids' show TV character, but it's also kinda funny. By this time, Ian and their dad have walked back towards Barley and he sees what's going on. The dragon starts chasing Barley as he runs and he throws the gem because he knows that's what the dragon wants, only it was a decoy - it was the headlight from his car.

By this time, Laurel shows up, wielding the sword and riding on the back of Corey, who's flying. (They got into a bit of a car accident and that's why they flew). She tells her sons that she'll take care of the dragon and they should go see their dad. And that's exactly what they do as Laurel and Corey try to weaken the dragon, which includes cutting off its wings. Ian starts to apologize to Barley, but he tells him there's no time and we see that the sun is about to set. The only problem is, while Laurel was trying to stab the core of the dragon (aka the heart), she got tossed off the dragon and it's now heading towards her sons. She yells to warn them and Barley tells Ian that he'll go distract it. When Ian tells him he'll miss seeing their Dad, he replies, "It's okay. Say hi to Dad for me." And this is what you think is going to happen. After all, it makes sense for Ian to be the one to meet their father since he never got that chance. But then Ian tells him he (Barley) should be the one to stay because he himself "had someone who looked out for [him]. Someone who pushed [him] to be more than [he] ever thought [he] could be. [He] never had a dad, but [he] always had [Barley]." Seriously, movie, STOP making me cry! Before Barley can even rely, he takes his staff and runs off towards the dragon. He pretty much uses all the spells he's learned and used in the past twenty-four hours to try to defeat the dragon. Unfortunately, he gets thrown back and his magical staff is thrown in the water. 

Meanwhile, their dad is still manifesting. This seems to be taking very long time. No wonder people didn't like using magic once electricity was discovered. It reminds me of when I used AOL back in the day and it took forever to log on. Ian is able to create a new wand from a splinter in his hand that he got from the old one. This time he is able to defeat the dragon and rocks fly everywhere and Ian is covered in a pile of rocks. He's okay, but he's a bit trapped so there's no time for him to get to his dad. All he can do is watch from a small crevice where he can see Barley and the back of his fully formed father. He is also able to see the sun is getting very close to setting. We are seeing this happen all through Ian's perspective. We can't hear what Barley and his dad saying, we just can tell that they're talking, then laughing, then his dad gives him a hug, and yep, once again, I'm crying. Thanks, Pixar. 

A moment later, Barley helps Ian up from the rocks and when Ian asks him what their dad said, he replies, "He said he's very proud of the person you grew up to. be" and Ian tells him he owes that to him (Barley). Barley also adds that their dad told hive to "give [him] this" and proceeds to hug Ian. My question is, did their father know why Ian couldn't be there? Did he know what was going on? I know he was there the entire time, but at the same time, he wasn't because he couldn't hear or see anything. But did he realize what the entire journey was about with just his legs? We see them talking a little, but I doubt Barley had enough time to explain and probably wanted to spend the precise time he did have with his dad not explaining things. Also, can't they just do this spell again or does it only one work once you use it on someone? OMG, does anyone remember remember that episode of Buffy where Dawn used a spell to bring Joyce back, but Buffy stops her right before Joyce comes to the door? You see her silhouette and it is the creepiest thing. Also, after I read Pet Semetary years ago, I could not let my cat sleep in my bed for a week because I was so freaked out by the cat that came back from the dead in that book. Yeah, not a fan of bringing things back from the dead! But at least in this movie, it wasn't creepy. 

So the brothers became closer than they ever were before and everyone is happy. It makes me wonder if this is the brother version of Frozen? Barley now has a new van he's fixed up and Ian can make it fly and the movie ends with the two of them flying down the neighborhood. I was half expecting for one of them to say, "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!" I mean, this was literally the same ending to Back to the Future! 

Jurassic Finale

Jurassic World Dominion

Director: Colin Trevorrow 

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Isabella Sermon, BD Wong, Campbell Scott

Released: June 10, 2022

Disclaimer: I apologize if I've misspelled any dinosaur names in this review; why do they have to have the most difficult, hard to spell names? 

This  movie has a feeling of finality to it, but I have a feeling that this won't be the last Jurassic Park/World movie we'll see. 

Boy, there are sure a lot of characters in this movie. There's characters from the first two Jurassic World movies, characters from the original Jurassic Park, new characters that make their debut in this movie, and I'm not even counting the dinosaurs! And pretty much nobody dies except for the bad guys. It's almost like the dinosaurs know who not to attack and eat. 

This movie has its fun moments and cool new dinosaurs, but overall, it just felt a little disappointing. I think nothing will ever capture the magic that was the original 1993 Jurassic Park, but I will admit to having fun watching Jurassic World, too. Dominion takes place in real time, four years after the events of Fallen Kingdom, which I barely remembered anything that happened. Luckily I could read my review of it to refresh my memory. 

Basically, after the events of that movie, all the dinosaurs are pretty much roaming the Earth freely, living among all of us. Never have I been so glad that this movie is fiction! We get a fictional news show that starts the movie by telling the audience, "To combat the growing threat of illegal poachers, the U.S. Congress awarded sole collection rights to the global giant Biosyn Genetics." This will be our evil cooperation and the CEO is our "bad guy". The CEO just so happens to be Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), the character that was in the first movie. Honestly, I never would have even realized that if it wasn't pointed out to me on a couple movie review podcasts I listened to. He says they are dedicated to the idea that "dinosaurs can teach us more about ourselves" and hopes to study the dinosaurs' "ancient immune systems for unique pharmaceutical properties." He has created a sanctuary for the dinosaurs in the Dolomite Mountains, located in northeast Italy. The decision to put the dinosaurs in this location is baffling. Wouldn't it make more sense to put them on an island? Who's to say they're not just going to cross over into Switzerland or Austria or other European countries? Hell, I'm surprised a pterodactyl didn't fly all the way to Paris and knock over the Eiffel Tower with its massive wing span. Why not just relocate the five million people that reside in New Zealand to Australia (or wherever they want to go) and put the dinosaurs there? No chance of dinosaurs relocating to neighboring countries (well, the flying ones might be able to...). 

Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are still a couple, living together in a shack in the middle of the Sierra Nevada mountains where they are the "parents" of Maisie (Isabella Sermon), the clone girl from the previous movie. I put parents in quotes cuz I'm quite sure they never legally adopted her. She's been living with them for the past four years and they're protecting her because they know there are bad people out there looking for her. This poor girl; having to go from that mansion to this little shack. I bet her room in the mansion was twice as big as the shack she's living in now! No wonder she's so resentful towards them. They have a very strict rule about her not crossing the bridge, but of course she does. 

Blue, the not-quite-domesitcated velociraptor has a baby. (And yes, it is actually quite cute seeing the two of them frolicking in the mountain wood together. We see Blue teaching her offspring how to hunt and you think Baby Blue is going to pounce on a rabbit, but then a wolf hunts down the rabbit and then Baby Blue ambushes the wolf, which is much bigger than her, mind you). I was super confused because Blue and Baby Blue (Maisie names the baby "Beta", but Baby Blue is so much better, plus it makes me think of Breaking Bad, heh) are literally living in Owen's back/front yard and he, Claire, and Maisie seemed to have no idea that she was even there. 

It's Maisie who comes across the baby raptor first when she's outside, eating a piece of toast. She holds out the piece of toast, thinking this meat-eating animal wants some carbs and the little raptor snatches it out of her hands. I was seriously worried Maisie was going to lose a hand there. Then Mama Blue shows up, and boy, she's not happy. Luckily Owen shows up (he always seems to show up at the right time; I'm guessing he was viewing this through the windows of his cabin) and puts his hand up to Blue and that seems to be some universal sign to dinosaurs so they don't eat you. Oh, if only Gennaro, Muldoon, Arnold, and Nedry had known about that in Jurassic Park! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know - Owen trained Blue and is able to "control" her, but he will do this same tactic with two other (much larger) carnivores he comes across and while they don't run off like Blue and her baby do, they do pause so he's able to escape before they have him as an afternoon snack. Owen tells Maisie to go inside because he wants to go searching for Blue's nest. I know he's the Raptor Whisperer, but is that really a good idea? 

Minions working for the movie's bad guy have tracked down Maisie and they kidnap both her and Baby Blue. Owen and Claire are able to get intel that they're being taken to Malta, and we'll come back to them later.

Meanwhile, in West Texas, a huge swarm of ginormous locusts (seriously, they're the size of my cat ::::shudder:::) take out a huge field. One is captured under a bucket and everybody's favorite paleobotonist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is there to inspect it. She brings the caged locust to Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and I thought this was the first time we see them in a scene together since Jurassic Park, but they actually had a scene together in JP3. Now, I remember them both being in that movie, but I forgot they actually have a scene together. Also, I had thought both The Lost World and JP3 was erased from the Jurassic World storyline, but this storyline has me rethinking that. I'm not sure if I read somewhere that the second and third JP movies were erased from the canon or I just made that up myself. But here, in this movie, Ellie tells Alan she got divorced and mentions her kids are now in college. Of course, it's in JP3 where we find out she got married and had two kids. I kinda forgot that her and Dr. Grant were romantically involved in the first movie; they acted more like colleagues than a couple. 

Ellie tells him swarms of the locusts are "decimating crops" and they "started as a few hundred, but could be millions by the end of the summer." Um, from I saw on screen, it looks like they're already in the millions! At the rate the locusts are going, there will be no grain to feed chickens or cattle and "the entire food chain would collapse." None of the crops they're eating are Biosyn seed and Ellie is not shocked that they would "want to control the world's food supply." She wants to go to their facility and get DNA from one of their locust and needs Alan to come with her as a witness. She tells him she got an invite from their "in-house philosopher", Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and he told Ellie there are things there she'd want to see. 

Okay, now back to Owen and Claire. Maisie and Baby Blue have been kidnapped and Blue, who was knocked down an incline, is snarling at Owen who stands her down and tells her they're going to get her baby back, like the dinosaur can understand English. She snaps at him a few more times, then turns and runs back in the woods. 

Like I mentioned, Owen and Claire get intel from the dude who was in Fallen Kingdom that there's going to be a "cash for cargo" exchange in Malta the next day. Apparently there's a black market for dinosaurs in this tiny island country. Who knew. They have people who were recruited by the CIA after the park closed down and Barry (who was in Jurassic World) will be able to help them. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well enough, but honestly, it doesn't really matter. The scene in Malta is just a fun thrill ride, but doesn't really add anything to the plot, besides the fact they find out they're taking Maisie to the Biosyn lab near the Dolomites in Italy. Also, I'm guessing they chose this particular location to house the dinosaurs because they got filming rights in Malta and that was too cool of a place to pass up to film (and it IS cool), so they just made Italy as the permanent home for the dinosaurs. Still think New Zealand would have made much more sense! 

A cargo pilot, Kayla, who is paid to transport dinosaurs to Biosyn, sees Maisie who is transported over to some evil, sophisticated  European woman named Santos. Kayla just so happens to be in the bathroom of some seedy underground lair where dino fights and illegal sales of dinos occur as the same time as Claire who shows her a picture of Maisie and asks if she's seen her. Kayla just replies she can't get involved and walks away. 

Santos finds out that Maisie's "parents" are in town, so she unleashes these atrociraptors (pretty much the same thing as a velociraptor) who are trained to kill people when they see a laser point at them. Um, do raptors really need to be told who to kill? Owen and Claire are separately being chased by these raptors and this is when Owen finds himself between these two big dinosaurs (they were bigger than a raptor, but smaller than a T-rex) and is able to hold his hands up long enough to give them pause, so he can keep running without getting eaten. The fact that both Claire are Owen are outrunning these super fast dinosaurs is a bit absurd. But soon, Owen gets on a motorbike and Claire, after jumping out a window, lands in a truck that just so happens to be driven by Kayla, so she drives Claire to her cargo plane to take her to Biosyn (Claire found out that's where Maisie is being taken). 

Kayla is about to start the plane, but here comes Owen, on his motorbike, being chased by a raptor. He manages to steer into the back of the plane, with the raptor right on his tail. The bike slides back, knocking the raptor into the water below them. Claire manages to hang onto a strap and grabs Owen before he can also slide down to the open door.  

They are not given clearance to land because the bad guys know Maisie's "parents" are on board. Their ADS (aerial deterrent system) is shut off. Otherwise, when it's turned on, it keeps the airborne life away. Which is a good thing considering there are some giant-ass prehistoric birds flying around like the quetzalocatus. (I swear, where do they come up with these names? Why not just call it what it is - big ass flying dinosaur bird.) It's the same length as the plane which we see as it soars over them, then uses it beak to scrape the top of the plane and smash the front window and take out a couple engines. I did laugh when Kayla tells them what it is and adds, "Late Cretaceous, should have stayed there." 

Kayla only has one ejection seat and it's the one Claire is sitting in, seated behind the pilot's seat. (You would think the pilot seat would have the capacity to be ejected....duh.) Claire is given instructions by Owen to eject and to use the lever if the parachute doesn't come out automatically. He thinks Claire will have the best chance to find Maisie. Claire ejects her seat and a parachute comes out, but is immediately attacked by all the pterodactyls, so she pulls the lever for the extra parachute and lands in a tree. Owen and Kayla crash into a frozen lake. Gee, I wondered if they survived? Well, come back later and find out, but let's see what Alan and Ellie are up to. 

They're on a plane flying to the Biosyn lab with Ramsay Cole who is head of communications. We get some exposition as he tells them that Biosyn bought this land in the '90s for the amber deposits (we all know amber is important to the Jurassic storyline!) and have managed to turn it into a "safe haven for about twenty displaced species". They have the first generation dinos from Isla Sorna, but also have most of the ones from Isla Nublar. He also mentions it took them three years to capture the T-rex. Their laboratory is built completely underfund and if they need to herd the dinosaurs to a specific location, they can send "electric signals" with neuro-implants to their brains. Alan and Ellie think this is cruel, that it sounds like they are shocking them. Ramsay asks them, "Do you know how much voltage was in the electric fences at Jurassic Park?" and Grant looks at him like, Duh, yes, of course I do. Nice little callback to the original movie there (and we'll get a few more of those instances). 

I think this is the first movie since the original where we see Grant, Saddler, and Malcolm all together. While Alan and Ellie are ordering coffee, Ian takes Ellie aside and whispers to her that locusts are part of a project called Hexapod Allies and that she is correct about their intent. He tells her where they keep the giant bugs downstairs and hands her an electronic bracelet that will get them through the secured doors. 

Ramsay asks Alan and Ellie if they would like to tour the facilities by themselves, which seems odd that they would just let the two of them wander off on their own, but it will make sense a little later. He tells them he'll meet them at a certain location in 30 minutes and makes a big show of telling them which elevators NOT to use and if they do, where it will lead them. Why not just say, "Don't use those elevators, they go to a restricted area?" But again, we'll learn later why he's telling them all this. Oh, alright, I might as well just tell you now: Ramsay is on their side and wants them to steal the DNA of the locust so he's pretty much letting them do it and how to do it, but at this point Ellie and Alan (or the audience) don't know this yet. 

So while they're sneaking into the locust area, we see Maisie and a caged Baby Blue are in a room with Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong). Henry tells her they needed Baby Blue to help them study her. I was so confused how Blue had a baby, but Henry explains it by saying when they created her, they gave her monitor lizard DNA and they can produce without a mate. Blue and Baby Blue are genetically identical, which is what they have in common with Maisie and Charlotte. If you remember, Charlotte was the daughter of Charles Lockwood, the guy who was Hammond's partner....they're pretty much characters they retconned into this franchise. Maisie is the clone of Charlotte, who died 13 years ago. They mention she had a genetic disease, which I assumed was why she died, but reading over my Fallen Kingdom review, I mentioned she died in a car crash. Oh, hell, I don't know. 

Maisie (and the audience) are given a bombshell when she (and we) learn that it was not her grandfather who created her, but rather Charlotte herself. In a video Maisie watches from 2007, she sees that Charlotte is pregnant with her. Okay, it seems very narcissitic to have a baby who is an exact replica of yourself (not to mention, super boring and very weird...who wants a carbon copy of themselves?) But Charlotte is touted as some super intelligent scientist who's the first person to ever do this (well, duh) and people act like she's the most brilliant being to walk this earth. I swear they said she died of the genetic disease she had, which is why she changed every cell in Maisie's body so she wouldn't have it. (God, that must have been a bitch to change every single cell in a human body!) 

Henry tells Maisie that he wants to study her and Baby Blue's DNA; that he could "fix a terrible mistake he's made" (meaning the locust). While Henry is chatting with Dodgson (who is not happy that Henry was showing Maisie videos of Charlotte), Maisie gets up and lets Baby Blue out of her cage. How was she able to do that? Because Henry just left his security bracelet lying on a table in plain sight. Great job, Henry. Unless he did that on purpose because he wanted her to release the baby dino! Dodgson sees them escaping and sounds the alarm. This causes the locusts to go crazy and fly all over the place just as Ellie has extracted the DNA. She and Alan are trying to get out, but their security bracelet has fallen. Maisie has sauntered over to the area where they're in and hears them screaming. They manage to get out and Maisie sees them and knows who they are and that they can be trusted because they do not work for Biosyn. While they're all trying to escape, Ramsay finds them. Remember, I already told you that he's on their side and wanted them to get the DNA sample. He's the one who told Ian about Hexagon Allies. He also tells them something we already know: that Biosyn's responsible for the locust epidemic. I thought for sure he was lying and was only trying to pretend he was on their side and we were going to find out he was with Dodgson all along, but nope, he's actually a good guy and does help them along the way. That's why I already told you he was on their side earlier. He tells them to get on a pod that will take them straight to an airfield where there will be a plane ready to fly. 

Okay, let's get back to our other characters and see what's going on with them. Are they all still alive? Of course they are! For now...(no, just kidding...they'll remain alive through the entire movie. None of our heroes will die in this movie). 

Claire is still strapped in her airplane chair, dangling in a high tree. A big-ass dinosaurs that looks like a bird  is right next to her. I had to look this up and it's a Therizinosaurus. It has these long talons and appear to be blind. Even though it's a herbivore (what? with those sharp talons?), even the herbivore dinosaurs are dangerous in this movie, so when Claire removes her seatbelt and falls to the ground, she crawls to the water and stays underwater for as long as she can so I guess the dino can't smell her? But if it's a herbivore, why would it want to eat her? I guess it would still want to kill her if it felt threatened in its territory. When she was underwater, I was hoping there weren't any other dinos or crocs living in that swamp! When she emerges from the water, she goes to a spot where she can see the smoke from the crashed plane. She doesn't know it yet, but Owen and Kayla have (somehow) survived. They hop out of a panel that's on top of the plane and start their trek across the frozen pond, being careful as the ice isn't exactly solid. They do start to run when they see some "weird chicken feather thing" (heh, that's what I wrote in my notes) coming after them. This is a pyroraptor. I know there's scientific proof that dinosaurs had feathers, but it just makes them look so silly! Why couldn't they have just explained they left the feather DNA out of the dinosaurs. So this guy comes after them and it jumps into the water, gliding under the ice and pops up in front of them where the ice has cracked. This is when Owen and Kayla start running. I'm super impressed she can run in her wedge boots on ice. Though I guess when a scary feathered dinosaur is chasing you... Owen falls into the water and the pyroraptor dives after him and this is a super fast swimming dinosaur, but yet Kayla manages to pull Owen out of the water in time. They are still laying on the ice when the dino pops out and he still can't get one of them when the humans are just laying there, vulnerable on the ice. Owen and Kayla get up on a bridge/platform and run towards a pulley/elevator system that they just manage to close as the pyroraptor is just about to get them. This is a clear call back to the first movie when Lex is in the kitchen cabinet and pulls the door shut on the veliceoprator. (And re-reading my Fallen Kingdom, Maisie gets away from the Indoraptor in a similar situation). 

In the elevator, Kayla mentions she has the tracker so they can find Claire and asks Owen, "You really love her, huh?" to which Owen replies, "Yeah." It gave me a chuckle when Kayla replies with, "I get it. I like redheads, too." This reminded me of when I first saw the previews for Jurassic World and just assumed the redhead was Jessica Chastain, not Bryce Dallas Howard. 

As they are in the forest (which looks more like a jungle), looking for the chair (do they really think Claire would still be in it?), we meet another new dinosaur. After they hide from a T-rex who comes across a dead deer, another big dino comes along. Owen thinks it's an Allosaurus, but Kayla tells him it's a Giganotasaurus, which, according to her, is the "largest known terrestrial carnivore." Thank God I'm not a paleontologist cuz I don't know how I would remember all these ridiculous names! (I also suspect I wouldn't enjoy the Jurassic movies if I were one!)

It seems like with each Jurassic movie, they need to have a dinosaur that's bigger and badder than the T-rex, who was pretty prominent in the first two movies, but then after that, it sort of fades into the background. We had the Spinosaurus in JP3, then the manmade Indominus Rex and Indoraptor in the first two Jurassic World movies, and now the Giganotasaurus, which, I have to say, doesn't really make that much of an impact in the movie, which is a bit disappointing. It doesn't even kill anyone, good or bad. The T-Rex and Giga fight, for like, ten seconds, before the T-Rex goes away. One of the humans comments, "You put two apex predators in one valley, pretty soon there's only gonna be one." Foreshadowing, perhaps? Yes, yes it is.  

When Dodgson discovers that Grant and Saddler have take the locust DNA, he stops the pod and they find themselves in the middle of the old amber mines where they discover that many medium size carnivores called Dimetrodons reside. They run to an exit, but it's caged off and they need a passcode to get out. At this point, Malcolm is there, on the other side of the cage and doesn't seem to be fazed or worried. You see, Ramsay had shown Malcolm (who was fired by Dodgson who suspected him of letting his friends steal locust DNA..not exactly sure what his "job" there was) how to get the cave to where his friends are. You would think Ramsay would know about the passcode and perhaps have told Malcolm what the code is, but no, he did not. WTF? So why is Malcolm so calm while cracking jokes and randomly putting in any four digit code? (He tries Miles Davis's birthday). I have no idea. I guess he knows he's in a movie where none of the good guys will die. He doesn't know the code and there's only so much time that his two friends and a fourteen-year-old girl can hold off the hungry prehistoric carnivores. Luckily, Ramsay is seeing this on the video screen and he is able to access the code from where he is so he types the right one in just as Malcolm types in a random one and Malcolm thinks he got it which is kinda funny. 

Now we've met a bunch of new dinosaurs that we haven't seen before, but now it's time to get reacquainted with an old friend. This is a dinosaur that we haven't seen (correct me if I'm wrong here) since the first movie. In my notes, I called it the "Newman dinosaur" because I couldn't remember its real name. This is the dinosaur that kills Newman (Nedry, if you never watched Seinfeld), you know the one that has the neck frill and shoots poison at him. It's called a dilophosorous (apparently its real-life counterpart did not have a neck frill, nor shoot poison) and while a hologram of one is seen in Jurassic World, I'm pretty sure we haven't seen one since the very first movie. Claire comes upon about three of them in a separate facility that's built in the trees and you need to take an elevator to get to. While she is waiting for the elevator, she hears a rustle and soon about three dilophosourouses (I know I totally butchered that spelling!) are surrounding her. One even comes inches from her face and shows its frill. She's literally seconds from having poison spat on her, but out of nowhere, we see a hand grab it around its neck and its Owen, come to the rescue, saving someone from being attacked by a dinosaur for the second time in the film. Kayla tasers it and it and its friends whimper away.   

Maisie and the adults are driving in a Jeep when they see that all the locust have escaped the facility and they have been lit on fire. They realize that Dodgson is burning the evidence. Yeah, he's not doing a very good job, because those massive things don't appear to disintegrate; they just fall to the ground with a thud. The locust starts falling on the Jeep, making them tumble down the hill and, of course, they land right in front of Owen, Claire, and Kayla, so Maisie is reunited with her "parents." But uh-oh, here comes the Giga. We do get a funny moment where both Grant and Owen say, "Don't move." (I thought that was only for the T-rex and I thought that theory got debunked!) Of course, they do move and they start climbing a ladder to the facility up high. There's a steel scaffold between the ladder and as Maisie is climbing the ladder, the Giga puts his jaws right over that scaffolding so she's literally between his jaws. She freezes at first, but Kayla, who is already at the top, encourages her that she can do it and while the Giga rips away the scaffolding, Maisie scurries up the rest of the way. 

So now everyone -except Malcolm- is in the treetop facility, but the Giga its still trying to get to them. I mean, he is tall enough to see them! So in a callback to the first movie, Malcolm uses a stick and one of the fiery (dead) locust as a torch to distract the dino. He throws the torch into the Giga's mouth, and after he's shot with a tranquilizer and tasered in the eye by the people in the treetop, he goes away. 

At this point, the alarms have been sounded and all the dinosaurs are en route to the emergency containment because they have been "signaled" to go there. 

Kayla tells the others there's a helicopter on the main complex. All they need to do is turn the ADS back and and they can fly home. They just need to go to the control room on the third floor, which they do, and Claire recognizes the system as the same one they used at the theme park. 

 

We get a small scene of Malcolm asking Owen about training raptors and he seems pretty skeptical about it, much like everybody else, I'm sure. 

As if we didn't already have enough characters with Owen, Claire, Grant, Ellie, Malcolm, Maisie, and Kayla, here comes Ramsay (and in a few more minutes, Henry will join them) who hears Claire say that she's getting something called "Error 99" and he tells her that means there's not enough power and they need to shut down the primary system, which Claire and Ellie go to do. While they're doing that, Kayla goes to get the helicopter and Maisie tells Owen she knows where Baby Blue is so they and Grant go get her. I'm not exactly sure how Maisie knew where Baby Blue was since the little dinosaur could be anywhere, but they find her and Owen shoots her with a tranq, then straps her to his back so it looks like he's wearing a dinosaur backpack. Before this all happens, the original JP characters (rightfully) are skeptical about this and Owen tells then he made a promise he would bring her home and Ian says the exact thing the audience is thinking, "You made a promise to a dinosaur?" I guess even the script knows this is ridiculous. 

In a predictable play, Dodgson is on a pod, getting ready to escape, when it stops after Claire and Ellie have turned off he power and he gets attacked and killed by a pack of dilophosorouses. 

All our heroes are about ready to get on the chopper ("Get on the chopper!"), but here comes Henry. Seriously, there are way too many characters in this movie! Grant sees him and says, "I remember you" and at first, I'm like, How does he remember this man he met once (I believe they only have one scene together) nearly thirty years ago? But then, the more I thought about it, it does make sense that Grant would remember details about that day. You don't forget a day like that! Henry tells them he can fix the "ecological disaster" he caused and if he can understand how Charlotte rewrote Maisie's DNA, he can spread change from one locust to the entire swarm before it's too late. Maisie agrees to this because it's what Charlotte would have wanted. And that's exactly what happens. 

But first, we need to have one last dino fight between the Giga and the T-Rex! We do get an amusing one-second moment where the T-Rex is clomping along and stops in front of a large circular window so we're getting the Jurassic Park logo for a couple of seconds. The dinos start fighting and it looks like the Giga has gotten the T-Rex as she is knocked down. Kayla shoots the flare to distract the Giga away, but it causes the attention of the Therizinosaurous (or, as I wrote, the "weird chicken dino"). Surprise! The T-rex isn't really dead (we know this because we get a close up of her dilated eye, another callback to the first movie) and she gets up, attacking the Giga and pushes it right into the sharp talons of the ugly chicken dino. 

When they get safely back, Alan and Ellie kiss and now they are officially together. They've been trying to make them a thing for the entire movie, but honestly, I don't really care. Like I said, I totally forget they were even a couple in the first movie. 

We find out that Wu has fixed the locust problem and that Biosyn Valley has been "designated a global sanctuary" where the dinosaurs will "live safe from outside world." I hope they have border patrol! 

We do get a cute moment when Owen lets Baby Blue out of her cage and moments later, Blue comes running up and they go scurrying off together, then Blue comes back and give a slight nod to Owen, as though she's thanking him for bringing back her baby and for keeping his promise. It's so ridiculous that it makes me laugh and cry at the same time, just like that scene in The Goonies when Chunk tells Sloth he's going to live with him now.  

While this movie had its fun and exciting moments, I was mostly disappointed with this final (for now)
movie in the Jurassic franchise. There are dinosaurs out in the world living with the rest of the world and while we get a very small portion of that, it's mostly about...locust? What the huh? And it seemed very convenient only bad guys were killed by the dinosaurs. I don't know what the total death count is, but it seems very small. 

My Pet Raptor

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Director: J.A. Bayonne
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard Howard, James Cromwell, Rafe Spall, Toby Jones, BD Wong, Jeff Goldblum

Spoilers ahoy!

I know the new Jurassic World movies get a lot of flack, but I still enjoy them. I think they are much better than Jurassic Park's two awful sequels, but that isn't a very high bar to cross! Look, there are a lot of stupid things in this movie that don't make any sense at all, but we'll cover all of those. As you may remember, in the previous Jurassic World, which only took place three years prior, many people were killed after everything went to hell at the dino theme park. The park is gone, but the dinosaurs still roam the island where there's a volcano that's expected to erupt "at any moment." Hang on one second. Nobody checked with a geologist first to see if opening this park (that was only open three years before the volcano would erupt!) on this island would be a good idea? (Obviously, it was NOT a good idea with or without a volcano!) So even if dinosaurs hadn't gotten loose and killed a bunch of visitors, both people and animals would have died in the inevitable volcano eruption. That's really reassuring.

There's a global debate over what should be done about the dinosaurs. Do they deserve the same recognition as other endangered species? Should they be protected from the volcano or left to die on the island, as Ian Malcom (in a cameo reprised by Jeff Goldblum) suggests because they should have never been cloned in the first place. Of course Ian Malcolm is going to be against the rights of the dinosaurs. He's had two harrowing experiences with them. (Though I don't believe that The Lost World or JPIII are canon in this rebooted Jurassic universe, but correct me if I'm wrong).

Our two heroes from the previous movie, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) go to the island to help an operation get the dinosaurs safely off of it. I understand why Owen is there because he has a relationship with Blue, one of the raptor he raised and trained in the previous movie. By the way, while I remember one raptor (there were four total) being killed in that movie, I don't remember two more also being killed, but apparently Blue is the only living raptor left. (Hmmm, I went back and read my review for that movie and I do mention only one raptor remains alive). It's a good thing Blue was the one who lived because she seems to have the best relationship with Owen. We see training videos of Owen working with the raptors when they were babies and Blue is the only one to show any sign of empathy. When Owen sees what would happen if he was vulnerable the other raptors try to attack him, but Blue tries to comfort him. And, yes, it is very cute. It doesn't make much sense for Claire to go, but ironically she is the one who has to persuade Owen to help her rescue the animals, namely Blue. When did Claire become such a bleeding heart for these animals? She never seemed to care much about them in the first movie; she only cared about the profit they brought in. But in this movie she is all about their rights and saving them. I will say she does seem more soft-hearted towards the herbivores, though!

Hey, that staff looks familiar!

She is recruited by Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), who is - get this - the partner of John Hammond. Uh...why were we never told this in Jurassic Park? Because they just made him up for this movie, that's why! He and his assistant, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) have a plan to move as many species as they can to another island. However, while Lockwood's intentions are pure, Eli's are not and right when we met him I knew he was going to be a bad guy. In fact, a lot of the predictions I made about this movie came true, that's how transparent it was. He wants Claire and Owen to help him because Owen is the only one who can get Blue. Eli has plans to create a new dinosaur using Blue's DNA and the DNA from the Indominus Rex, which, you may remember, was the genetically created dinosaur from Jurassic World who was the one who started all the havoc and was eventually done in by the T-rex. The movie starts with two guys locating and collecting the remains of the I-Rex underwater. They and the little bubble contraption they're in are swallowed whole by the mosasaur, the huge aquatic dinosaur that makes a great white look like a guppy. When one of the men is trying to communicate with them, telling them he is going to shut the underwater gate, he (obviously) gets no reply. This guy has to be the stupidest person in this movie (although he has some contenders!) because when the other men on the truck are waving and screaming at him, he shouts, "What is going on? I can't hear you!" Uh...what do you THINK is going on? Let's see, you're on an abandoned island where dinosaurs are roaming freely and people are frantically shouting at you and telling you to get on the truck. Seriously, you would have to be a moron to not understand that there is probably a big dinosaur with big teeth somewhere in the area, and sure enough, the T-rex is right behind him. The other men make it to a helicopter and are able to fly away and they send down a rope to the man who manages to climb on it, just barely missing the chomping jaws of the T-rex. As they were flying over the water, I knew right away that the mosasaur was going to jump up and grab him, but I also thought he was also going to take the helicopter down with him, but it manages to fly away. I did re-watch the trailer and that scene is in it, so maybe subconsciously I must have remembered that, but I honestly didn't know it was in the trailer. There is another scene from the trailer that I remember vividly and I'll talk about that when I get there.

What is it with the new Jurassic movies creating new species of dinosaurs? Are the dinosaurs that actually

roamed the earth not scary enough? Do we need something more ferocious than the T-rex? It used to be that the velociraptor used to be the true villains of these movies, at least the first movie. I remember them in TLW, but don't think they were as prevalent and I'm sure they're in the third movie, but I don't remember anything about that movie (which is probably for the best!) But in these new movies, they have decided to make raptors friendly and cuddly pets. Okay, maybe not quite, but they have strangely become dinosaurs we're rooting for. They're still dangerous, but if you're Chris Pratt or a friend of Chris Pratt's, then they will not try to kill you. I guess this is why we need new dinosaurs to be the Big Bad.

This new dinosaur is to be called the Indoraptor and Mills has plans to create it to be trained and used as a weapon for military combat. This was brought up in Jurassic World by that movie's bad guy played by Vincent D'Onofrio and I was thinking to myself, Wait, where is he? before I realized, that duh, he was the bad guy in that movie, so of course he had a vicious death! Let it be known that if you are a bad guy in the Jurassic movies, you will get a horrible, gruesome death, although still not as  horrible and gruesome as the woman who worked for Claire and watched her nephews when they came to visit the park.

A paleo-vet working on her very first patient

Claire and Owen join a team led by a man named Wheatley (Ted Levine). He is a terrible character, pulling the teeth out of sedated dinosaurs to make a necklace and just treating the animals inhumanly all around, so you know he's going to get a horrible death. (Spoiler alert: he does!) There are two new characters who are brought in to help Claire and Owen. They are really there to serve a purpose: when the movie needs them, they show up, when they aren't needed they conveniently find a way to get a rid of them (and no, I don't mean they get eaten by dinosaurs...since they are on the good guy's team, they don't die). They are tech nerd Franklin (Justice Smith) who is there to help them with anything computer related and Zia (Daniella Pineda) is a paleo-veterinarian  who has never seen a dinosaur in her life...huh? She is there to help Blue who gets shot by one of the men who is there to aid in the capture the animal.

The volcano erupts and our heroes manage to make it on a boat that has secured many, but not all of the dinosaurs. (I actually have no idea how many dinosaurs were on the boat and how many were left on the island to perish). There is a really sad scene of a brachiosaurus bellowing and crying as she is being swallowed up by smoke and fire. Wasn't that how Little Foot's mother died in The Land Before Time?  If a baby brachiosaurus had come up to her, I surely would have lost it! (Although, technically, Little Foot and his mother were apatosauruses, which are (I think?) the same thing as a brontosaurus? IDK. It's a good thing I'm not a paleontologist! We do see a mother and baby triceratops which share a very tender Dumbo-esque moment which is very cute.

The boat is sailing back to the California coast where Lockwood's massive mansion is located. This house makes the house in Home Alone look like a shack. It's a residence, museum, and laboratory all combined in one huge building. There's also an underground system of cages where they keep the dinosaurs in. They have come to the building to be auctioned off.

A man named Eversol (Toby Jones) is heading the auction and he has brought a bunch of his wealthy clients from all over the world to the mansion to bid on the dinos. What exactly do they plan to do with these dinosaurs? We do hear that one man wants to buy a baby triceratops for his kid. (And major points to that kid if he names his new pet Cera). What happens when that baby grows up? I suppose a lot of these people are going to exploit these animals and have people pay to see them. We know the theme park in Jurassic World was open for ten years, but I always imagined that not even one percent of the world's population ever got to see it because the tickets had to be astronomical, not to mention the flight to Costa Rica. So there's probably a huge mass of people who have never even seen a dinosaur (like the veterinarian who has specialized in dinosaurs!) I do wonder about the one man who wanted to buy TWO carnivores. There's something shady with him. Also, how do these people plan to take their new pets home? How does the man from Indonesia plan to take his ankylosaurus home? (The one he got for a great deal for only ten million dollars. Seriously, does that seem pretty cheap to you for paying for a dinosaur? I know the ankylosaurus might not be as well known as the T-rex or a stegosaurus, but it was still an extinct creature brought back to life! Even the 21 million that was paid for another dinosaur (was it the allosaurus?) still seems quite low.) I would love to know who would have bidded on the T-rex and what they planned to do with that monstrosity. However, before we get a chance for her to be put up on the bidding block, all hell breaks loose.

As a "special treat", they bring in a prototype of the Indoraptor to show prospective buyers. It is not for sale as it still needs to be tweaked by the geneticist, Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong). The Indoraptor looks similar to a raptor, but is bigger, as we will later see the two fighting each other. It is supposed to follow human command, which I find laughable because this thing does not look like it's very obedient! All the dinosaurs are brought out in cages and this one is snarling and snapping at the bars. Eversol demonstrates the effects of the new species by pointing a laser at some poor guy sitting in the front row (and he looks a little nervous!) The dinosaur locks on to him and when a trigger sound goes off, that is his signal to attack. I really thought he was somehow going to get out and kill the guy (not to mention everyone else in the vicinity), but that doesn't happen...yet. He does try his darnedest to get out! Even though this is only a prototype and not ready to be put on the market ( I don't think it will ever be ready!), it goes to an Eastern European guy for almost $30 million. I want to know what this guy plans to do with that creature!

This is around the time Owen makes a distraction by unleashing a

stygimoloch, a human-sized dinosaur that starts butting into people. Everyone runs out and the Indoraptor is left alone in its cage where Wheatley sees it and decides to sedate it and get one of its teeth for his necklace. In one of the stupidest scenes in the movie, as Wheatley is attempting to pull one of the teeth, we see the dinosaur open its eye, then close it again and almost smile in a cartoony way. It literally made me groan out loud. Why do we need that scene? Of course we know the dinosaur is still awake and is pretending to be out. Of course we know that this character, who has already been established to be a villain is going to get a horrible and gruesome death at the hands (or should I say teeth, haha) of this evil and terrible creature. We don't need the cute hints that this Big Bad is about to strike. It's so dumb. Well, of course Wheatley realizes the dinosaur is not out and gets his arm bitten off before being killed. The Indoraptor gets out of his cage where he kills and attacks Eversol in an elevator. There were about four other people in there as well and I assume they probably got it as well. I feel bad for them because they really didn't do anything wrong...

So now we have this creature (said to be the scariest in the Jurassic franchise...don't they say that with every new creature they create?) loose in the mansion. The only bad guy still alive is Eli and he has smothered Lockwood with a pillow. As with every movie that preceded this one, a child comes into play. This time, it's a young girl named Maisy who is the granddaughter to Lockwood. She spends most of the movie whispering, "Grandpa, Grandpa!" We assume she's the daughter of Lockwood's daughter who was killed in a car accident. But then we soon learn that she is not his granddaughter, but rather a CLONE of his daughter and Hammond cut his ties with him because he thought what he did was "unholy". Yeah, cloning humans...probably not a good idea. I mean, look how it worked out for Michael Keaton in Multiplicity.

Claire and Owen join up with the girl and they all get chased by the Indoraptor around the mansion. Supposedly this thing has a keen sense of smell, but somehow can’t sniff its prey out when they’re all literally right below its nose. I know she’s just a scared little kid, but Maisy does something really stupid that puts her as another contender for the stupidest person in the movie (though, she is a clone, so at least she has that excuse!): she runs away from Claire and Owen (who has a gun) and hides under the covers in her bed. Like that’s really going to help you. Also, her room is easily three times the size of my apartment. The shot of the claws reaching towards her in the bed is the one I remember from the trailer and I remember thinking, How is she going to get out of this one? I knew she was going to be okay because while the kids in Jurassic movies come very close to their demises, they never get killed off. At the very last second, Owen comes in with his gun and shoots the Indoraptor, but it doesn’t seem to affect it and when he runs out of bullets and is about to be cornered, who should come in and save him? Blue, his trusty pet velociraptor. I saw this coming a mile away. The two dinosaurs fight and the Indoraptor ends up falling into a glass ceiling and impaling itself on the horns of a triceratops model. 

Meanwhile, the other animals are dying from a poisonous gas that has been let lose and Claire wants to free them, but doesn't  know if she should, but Maisy steps in since they’re clones like her and they also are alive. Mmm, I don’t know if that was such a good idea, but I did feel bad for the dinos, so I may have done the same thing. We see them all running out of the building and of course Eli gets his comeuppance when he gets eaten by the T-rex. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen the T-rex eat anyone: I don’t think she had any human snacks in Jurassic World. It looks like the next movie is going to be about all these dinosaurs running amok on the West Coast and I’m sure plenty havoc is to be had. It also looks like the T-rex made her way to a zoo because she is shown roaring at a lion who roars back at her. Please…that lion would be shaking in its fur! 

Throughout the film I noticed some callbacks to the first movie. When they return to the island and are looking at the brachiosaurus in awe (the first dinosaur that dinosaur vet Zia has ever seen) is very similar to when Alan and Ellie see the brachiosaurus (in fact, it might even be the same one). The scene where they’re running away from the erupting volcanos and all the other dinosaurs join them reminds me of the scene where Grant, Lex, and Tim are running away from the flock of Gallimimus. The scene in this movie is a little more alarming because not only are they trying to not get struck by hot spewing lava rocks, but every type of dinosaurs is running in their direction: not just ostrich-sized ones. It’s really a wonder nobody got trampled on. And the scene that gave m a real flashback to Jurassic Park was when Maisy, who is running away from the Indoraptor, gets into a dumbweighter and is desperately trying to shut the door and manages to pull it down a second before it reaches her. This obviously reminds me of the scene from the original movie when Lex gets into a pantry with the same kind of door and wants the raptor to come to her to get it away form Tim, but she can’t shut the door and it ends up attacking her reflection. 

I did learn some new things from this movie: I learned about dinosaurs I’ve never heard of before like the aforementioned ankylosaurus, and stygimoloch, the baryonyx, and the carnotaurus.