Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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JULY 1-7, 2015 UCW 19 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM It's hard not to like Jurassic World (124 minutes) even if the entire plot hinges on believing that scien- tists smart enough to genetically engineer dinosaurs and corpora- tions smart enough to earn billions of dollars on a dinosaur zoo/theme park are nonetheless dumb enough to create dinosaurs that will, as illustrated over the course of no less than three previous films, devour screaming humans like so many pink peel'n'eat shrimp. In order to prepare myself for the mouthwatering buffet of human hors d'oeuvres, I took the time to watch both The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III: Still Too Stupid to Avoid Dinosaur Island. Jurassic World is infinitely superior to both sequels, while still manag- ing to perpetuate gender stereo- t ypes that were too cliché to make into the first film. Example: In the B plot, ex-Nav y guy Manly McMuscles (Chris Prat t) lectures Loveless Corporate Stereot ype (Bryce Dallas Howard) on how impractical her at tire is for running through the jungle. In response, she throws back her head, ties her suddenly tighter but ton-down shirt around her mid- drif t, and pretends that running through the jungle in, I kid you not, stripper heels and a pencil skirt, is totally going to work out. Now, we know Manly McMuscles is a nature boy because of his 5 o'clock shadow, leather jacket and sweati- ness. We know Loveless Corporate Stereot ype is completely repressed and out of touch with her feminin- it y because she would rather spend her day negotiating billion dollars deals than babysit ting t wo irritat- ing children (and they are quite irritating). Clearly, the only suc- cessful resolution is for McMuscles to show Stereot ype how to be a real woman through the power of his alpha-maleness. That is not even a metaphor. It is an explicit part of the plot that McMuscles allowed baby raptors to imprint upon him as their alpha male so he could us a dog-training clicker to con- trol which pigs they get to eat. Or something. I wasn't really clear on why trained raptors were involved, beyond somebody thinking it would look cool. The set-up for the A plot is that Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), the geneticist from the first film, cre- ated a designer dinosaur through the miracle of recombinant DNA. The exact DNA that was used to create the Indominus Rex is a close- ly guarded corporate secret, as we are told about a million times over the course of the film. Any way, rather than insert code to make the dinosaur less scary, the whole goal when making the designer dino was to make it the scariest dino- saur on earth. They really should have called it Murdersaurus or Kill Rex, because the moment it gets out of its escape-proof pen it eats any thing that moves. Not because it's hungry; apparently it just has a case of the Mondays. Overall, this is a good popcorn movie. It's fun, it's full of action, and the themes of militarization and commodification are very timely. For extra fun, every time McMuscles tries to make the raptor named Blue do something, imagine an emotional Will Ferrell scream- ing "You're my boy, Blue!" ala Old School. Now playing at Patriot 14 + IMA X HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. You're My Boy, Blue! Jurassic World (Rated PG-13) . by HEATHER GRIFFITHS The department is accredited by the National Association for Schools of Art and Design and the National Association for Schools of Music respectively. Each new degree will have a teaching and non-teaching concentration so students will still have the option to pursue a career in art or music education. The new degrees will give students more flexibility in choosing a curriculum that meets their career aspirations while being more efficient with resources. Winners will be announced in September 16th Edition Who will be crowned? UP & COM ING W EEKLY 'S UP & COMING WEEKLY'S