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Rebecca Billcliff (2409 KP) rated Jurassic World (2015) in Movies

Nov 11, 2019 (Updated Nov 12, 2019)

Jurassic World (2015)

2015 | Adventure, Sci-Fi

7.5

(103 Ratings)

Movie Rating

Captures some of the original wonder (0 more)

The ending, while cool, lacks realism (I know, it’s about dinosaurs) (0 more)

Bast-a-saurus from the Past

Contains spoilers, click to show

Jurassic Park was the first film I ever loved, and sparked my love of cinema. So this film had a lot to live up to for me, and you know what, it was not bad. A bit heavy on the CGI in places, but did bring back the practical effects to create that element of fear you just can’t get from CG. The way the suspense is built up around the Indominus is very good, and brought back that same filling of tension where you find you are actually holding you breath and seat, just a little.
Characters and plot did suffer a little from that repetitive remake syndrome, see also Star Wars the Force Awakens, where the film tries so hard to recreate the love of the original, it just repeats everything.
Two kids, one young and cute, the other a been of a moody teen. A large escaped Dino, which should have been the main attraction. A knowledgeable-about-Dixon’s man and his almost-a-not-sexist-but-still-a-steriorypical-woman love interest out to save the kids, and themselves as things emulate. An overly complacent billionaire, ignorant to the potential danger.
Which film am I talking about....

That said, if what you want is a trip back to your youth and the thrill of seeing dinosaurs on screen, or just some resurrected reptile based mayhem, it’s a great film, and well worth a watch.

Kudos

Eleanor (1463 KP) rated Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross, #2) in Books

Aug 7, 2019

Kiss the Girls (Alex Cross, #2)

James Patterson | 2012 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller

8.0

(29 Ratings)

Book Rating

Cliche Heavy Crime Drama

I listened to the audio version narrated by Michael Kramer and it was an OK narration some accents in particular Southern American were pretty laughable but some of the dialogue in this book really didn’t help.

It all starts off strongly (if very grimly - lots of nasty murder / rape descriptions I’d certainly avoid if your triggered by that sort of thing.) The tension builds nicely with Detective Alex Cross being drawn into the investigation of the disappearance and murder of women from East Cast college campuses. However about halfway it all seems to go off the boil and become very dragged out only to be topped off with a terrible and drawn out ending.

We are constantly told how smart the bad guys are but there's very little evidence of this. As evidenced when they take on Alex Cross on their own patch and somehow don’t seem to have a very good plan at all. This book is so very dated in terms of attitudes and descriptions of women and although I give a lot of lee-way to books from a different time I don’t think this was ever very well written in terms of the female characters. As an audio book I didn't mind it but I can imagine getting wound up reading some of the cliches throughout this book.

It suffers in terms of constantly telling us what to think of characters while not supporting this very well with the poor dialogue.