Nathan's Insights

 Released: June 2015
Seen: July 2015
Cinema: Hoyts Lux (similar to Gold / Luxury Class – food service during the movie)
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried
Gene: Comedy
Rating: 6.5 / 10

Synopsis
Life has changed drastically for thunder buddies John (Mark Wahlberg), now a bachelor, and best pal Ted (Seth MacFarlane), now married to the woman (Jessica Barth) of his dreams. Problems arise when the couple decide to adopt a child, but the law declares Ted to be property and not a person. Angry and dejected, the lovably foulmouthed teddy bear must now seek legal help from a young lawyer (Amanda Seyfried) and a legendary, civil-rights attorney (Morgan Freeman) to get the justice he deserves.

Review (warning spoilers)
A Seth MacFarlane comedy is always going to be more base comedy with a lot of references to geek culture with body humour.  Basically any movie he makes is a guys movie.  So when my work’s Social Club offered discount tickets to Ted 2 I was in and taking my nephew Andrew who loves anthing Seth creates or voices.

The first Ted was a breakout success, low brow humour but also touching at times.  Mila Kunis was a major reason the first movie work for me, she has great comedic acting chops and bought the heart of the movie at the end making it seems her relationship with John (Wahlberg) was something special.  So it as a great shame Mila wasn’t back this time.  It did open up a new story but I like sequels to keep the movie logic.

Ted 2 is still funny, especially in the second half, and there is a lot of call back to the original movie reversing scenes to great effect.  I found Ted 2 a passable film, my nephew loved it so mabe it is aimed more at 20 year old male population.

The storyline is crazy but hey we started with a ‘live’ teddy bear so you just go with it.  Amanda Seyfried as a pot smoking lawyer makes the most of her screen time, she is almost a male version of John but obviously way smarter to become a lawyer.  Morgan Freeman has a small but very important part saving the day and getting Ted ‘human’ rights.  The journey is definitely entertaining but some of the secondary characters from the first movie should have been dropped, lightning for these characters didn’t strike twice.

Recommendation:  See this movie with 15-30 year old males and enjoy.

Released: June 2015
Seen: 12 July 2015
Cinema: Hoyts Normal Screen
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, B. D. Wong, and Irrfan Khan
Gene: Sci-fi / Action
Rating: 6.5 / 10

Synopsis
Located off the coast of Costa Rica, the Jurassic World luxury resort provides a habitat for an array of genetically engineered dinosaurs, including the vicious and intelligent Indominus rex. When the massive creature escapes, it sets off a chain reaction that causes the other dinos to run amok. Now, it’s up to a former military man and animal expert (Chris Pratt) to use his special skills to save two young brothers and the rest of tourists from an all-out, prehistoric assault.

Review (warning spoilers)
The first Jurassic film was released in 1993 and was an amazing experience, terrifying real dinosaurs on the loose on a yet to be opened theme park just of Costa Rica.  The movie explored whether humans should play God bringing back extinct animals, this also covered common grounds like greed and over reliance on automation in our life.  But really it was the T-Rex and the other dinosaurs, the wonder at first and the terror later of predators on the loose.

Jurassic World is the fourth movie and the first since 2001.  In many ways this is a reboot but also a sequel.  There are many references to the first movie in particular as this movie is again set on the island of Costa Rica.  This time they have the theme park up and running and apparently it has been safely working for close to a decade.  But customers are growing bored with the attractions (not that you can tell from the park visitors in the movie who seemed to love the shows) so it’s time to create a super dinosaur based on T-Rex but with Velociraptors and other animals mixed into the DNA.  So you have a super killer, with super strength, the ability to camouflage its self and even hide from heat senses.  And it was made super smart.  This makes for a great mix, and is hard to understand in the Jurassic Movie universe that this is set in.   I mean they talk about all the people who died previously!

Chris Pratt plays the sensible dinosaur specialist, an ex-marine who has been training Velociraptors and keeps saying you need to treat this animals with extreme caution.  Bryce Dallas Howard plays the executive running the park who becomes Chris Pratts love interest as she learns that the dinosaurs are creatures and not just assets and that playing God is extremely risky.  In the background we have a shadow group trying to militarise these creatures, which obviously is going to work… Not!

The movie is a fun escape, and at times I was definitely drawn into the action but there wasn’t too much here unexpected.  I figured out how the Indominus Rex was going to escape and which actors were going to die.  There was some unexpected humour and I’m a big fan of Chris Pratt who I hope will one day be the new Indiana Jones so it hit a lot of good notes.  There wasn’t the awe factor of the original however, at least not for me but maybe that’s before I’m 20 years older 😀

id recommend this movie for people who like action and Chris Pratt and a chance to have fun without questioning the logic of the movie.