Jurassic Park

On paper, this should not be my kind of film. It falls into the adventure category, it was made for the masses, it features dinosaurs and it is from the 1990's (read: dated, but not in a cool 1970's way). Yes, it took me until today to watch it...because I wasn't really interested before. But this is one of those films that everybody has to see at some point, I guess.

And...

It is awesome!

This seriously kept me on the edge of my seat and had me watch with open mouth, especially during the very first dinosaur attack, when the car with the kids inside gets pushed around.

Now, as this is a Steven Spielberg film, it is of course obvious that all the characters we care about will make it out alive. Even that knowledge that not let me become ambivalent about what I was watching. It is just exciting the entire time. I guess that is all one can ask from an adventure blockbuster.

With a big name director come some big name actors. Sam Neill (who was huge at the time), Jeff Goldblum (always a good choice), Laura Dern, the late Richard Attenborough and a chain smoking Samuel L. Jackson.

Why, oh why did I wait so long to watch this?

9/10

A Long Way Down

Turns out Pierce Brosnan doesn't always annoy the hell out of me after all. I actually quite liked him in this. He still got way too much screen time (compared to the others) and I would have preferred more Toni Collette and Aaron Paul and less of him and Imogen Poots (whoever she is).

I vaguely remembered the story, as I had read Nick Hornby's book and very much enjoyed it at the time. The translation to screen was pretty decent, I thought. Sure, the book is better. It almost always is. And, yes, Toni Collette played the same role she did in About a Boy (Nick Hornby again and still suicidal). But I enjoyed myself anyway.

It helps that I loved Breaking Bad and - consequently pretty much anyone that was on it - appreciate Aaron Paul. So much so that it actually outweighed my dislike for Brosnan. I'm not sure I would have watched A Long Way Down with only Toni Collette tipping the scale. Lucky I did.

Another shortish review here, but that is really all I got.

6/10

Escape Plan

I was entertained, but I do have some issues.

Who in their right minds would put the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vinnie Jones and, um, 50 Cent (?) in a film with Vincent D'Onofrio, Jim Caviezel, Amy Ryan and Sam Neill? Surely, those two groups should have been in entirely different films. Preferably, the first batch would have made Escape Plan and the second group could have been in some serious film that requires some actual acting?

Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Jones are doing what they do best, which is looking and sounding angry, getting tortured or torturing, respectively, and generally kicking ass all over the place. They are good at it.

Vincent D'Onofrio is stuck behind a desk in a role that never gets off the ground, Amy Ryan is doing a lot of frowning and is against everything (especially when suggested by a *ghasp!* other woman), Sam Neill is a sad-looking doctor who only seems to remember his Hippocratic oath when Stallone asks for his help (what did he think he was doing in this tightest of all maximum security prisons anyway before?). Jim Caviezel, at least, gets a bigger platform than the other wasted talents. He is the bad guy in nice suit (and doesn't remind us of his Person of Interest character, like, at all) and he is good at it. That's something, I guess.

And 50 Cent has nothing to do except drive a car and hit a few buttons on a keyboard, his role made more believable by putting spectacles on him.

That all said, let me return to my initial statement, I was entertained, but the action heroes would have done that trick by themselves.

5/10