Jude Wood

While I've seen all these other reviews and have just watched the movie, I disagree with both sides saying its a breath of fresh air or on the other end how bad the movie is. Most of the complaints are about the plot, which I get, it's simple, made to be easily digested, which if you're not looking for a futuristic Sci-Fi movie let alone the cameos of the dinosaurs, you're not getting an overly complicated plot anyways nor a realistic one at that. Adam Driver was absolutely exceptional in a role where he's essentially speaking to himself, as his co-star doesn't speak his own language, both of them rely on their body language and were great at conveying their emotions and/or communication. An argument I've seen quite a bit was how this made the plot even harder to digest enjoyably. I personally disagree, I enjoyed this aspect, it of course limited any conversational part of the entire screen time but was an interesting addition. Whilst I do enjoy some of the gimmicks that Sam Raimi and Co decided to use, it was admittedly too much. There were too many ideas and additions to digest, while being 65 Million years in the past is a good idea on its own, having different languages, one being American-English (which, let's be honest, people are expecting Adam Driver to speak in a made-up language as well to appease their need for unrealistic realism in a Sci-Fi movie?? I'll forgive that due to the absurd expectations some people have), learning that this "Unknown Planet" is earth, having his daughter's illness so lazily handled, again Koa's inability to communicate with Mills, and dinosaurs. I loved the concept, their journey to get to their shuttle to escape this foreign planet, being threatened by dinosaurs along the way, I'd only love it more if there were more scenes to really help with exposition, although something I appreciated was that most of that exposition was either done in a way where Mills realistically explained something to Koa, or a show don't tell kind of vibe. I again disagree that this is a failure of a movie, what it is, is a movie that albeit had a lot more potential than the finished project, had a decent storyline, cast and antagonist, and paying homage to Jurassic Park with certain plot points or clichés (which to be fair, there weren't many overdone clichés). What I wanted more, was the lore behind this planet Mills came from, maybe a scene where their rescue is complete, I know we know that they've survived and surely have been rescued but there needed to be closure, the runtime allowed more than enough for more story telling. I don't want to write an entire essay but I'd like to say, this is one of those occasions where you shouldn't read into the bad or good reviews too much as you might find it to be a waste of 90 minutes or pleasantly surprised, I know I was, where the plot has been overdone with the inspiration this movie takes from other franchises, it fails to explain many many many plot points that could be interesting to the audience. That being said, the concept is pretty eye-catching, the special effects were decent not bad but not brilliant, and as the movie stands, I enjoyed the action and emotional aspects of the film. 7/10