Jurassic Park

This is the movie that made me love and fear dinosaurs as a kid. I loved it! It was one of those movies that you watch over and over and over and over until your parents are begging you to shut it off... that was Jurassic Park for me as a kid.
Infact, it made me always watch the bathtub... just incase a raptor was behind the curtain!

Fast forward X number of years and I still really like it. Mind you, I don't watch it over and over and over... I have more of a life than I did when I was 5.
The one drawback was never being able to see it in theaters. I was alive for the release, just didn't see it.... that changed this week.
To celebrate 20 years of dinosaurs having a field day on an island, it's been re-released in 3D. How could I pass that up?

I'm not normally a huge fan of 3D, but that was the only way to see it. I'm happy to say it works fairly well most of the time. MOST of the time. There was a bit of stuttering and blur at some points. Otherwise, it was good.

The true gem is the film itself. Seeing it on the big screen was amazing.
Even though I know what's going to happen next, I still jumped a bit and felt my heart race.

Not to mention the beauty of the films score is 100% better booming all around you.

If you're a huge fan of the film, I'd give 'er a look. Especially if you never saw it in theaters the first time.

If you HAVEN'T seen it before, I'd advise a visit here -
http://www.pluggedin.ca/videos/1990s/q1/jurassic-park.aspx.
It is a thriller with dinosaurs so expect some less that cheery scenes... involving teeth...

The Amazing Spider-Man - Review

Back in 1990 Michael Chichton wrote a book called Jurassic Park. It's a really good read (despite some language). In '93 the book became a really good movie (despite the language). The catch though, was that they were two very different beasts (pun intended). The characters, locations and story were basically the same, however there were a lot of huge differences in the plot. But, they both worked.
Sam Raimi did the same with the first 2 Spider-man films (as said in my last post, the third didn't really happen). The characters, locations and story were basically the same, but the plot and way things transpired were way different from the comics.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a re-boot of that series.
It's selling itself as a dark, gritty, untold tale, truer to the original.

It's gritty, and that's about it.

I really, really wanted to like this movie.
However, I just can't. There is no character arch to any character, and even the attempt at an arch messes up. It comes off being a little fake.
If you know the comics, you will suto be able to call the shots with the film. That said, it sorta messes it up just enough to get you mad, instead of becoming it's own thing (see Jurassic Park or Spider-Man).

The villian is also drab. You never really understand what his motivation is.... other then moving the plot along.

On the bright side -- Emma Stone is really good as Gwen Stacy. She was great in The Help and really proved her chops here. She even looks like comic book Gwen. Kinda creepy really... Andrew Garfield was good too, he pulled off the "Punky Parker" quite well.

The action choreography was good. It stayed fast while not getting too complex.

There are already two (yes, TWO) sequels in the works for this film, here's hoping for a winner in 2 years!