Subjectivity! We all have our personal tastes. Every technical complaint about the movie is completely valid; meaning if you can go into this objectively, there are certainly flaws. In that respect, the critics are right. However, it is up to the standards of the viewers for them to decide if these flaws negatively effect the opinion of the movie quality. For myself, and evidently my theater of over 160 people, this wasn’t the case.
I’ll start with the complaints.
Characters - I think everyone did a fine job. There were a few lines from a few actors that made me think “acting”, but not enough to pull me from the scene. There were many different stereotypes, a bit too strong sometimes. Deconstructing these characters was the evident goal of the filmmakers, as stated by them. The script didn’t allow that as well as they seemed to intended it to. Bryce Dallas Howard did a fine job, in her deconstruction, there stereotype never really left the character. Chris Pratt’s character was pretty different than anything he’s played before. His humor was reduced to maybe 2 or 3 jokes, mild ones at that, through out the movie. The character wasn’t super interesting, but Pratt made him exciting to watch.
CGI!! The big polarizing aspect of it. Some shots were clearly cgi. The dinosaurs looked real enough though, very organic. However, the overall special effects came up JUST short of the original, but made up for it in it’s own way. The film was unique in itself. Now the biggest complaint for CGI was the T Rex. There were about two shots where it was clear CGI. Perhaps some aren’t as hyper observant, however she is clearly different than in the original film. She does look a bit different.
However, I think that’s the point. Her feet look bigger, I’ll say that’s due to a lessening of muscle mass in the legs. Her skin is lighter, looks harder and more dry. She doesn’t look as massive as in the first movie. If we are going to keep continuity, I would say the animal itself lost about a ton or so in weight. Again, she’s old, so I think this was intentional. A young, but full grown adult Rex in this movie probably would have looked different than this Rex, she’s old. Ill let that slide personally.
Now for some things that I liked. It felt like a Jurassic Park sequel. It was fun. I wasn’t overly fond of the whole super adaptive created monster predator that the I Rex was, but I get the point. The whole monstrosity of that animal starts to become more believable when it becomes apparent what Ingen wants to do with dinosaurs. It seems pretty implied that Indominus almost was a test in secret of weaponizing a dinosaur. It wasn’t created to be an animal to gawk at. Also, being raised in captivity was a valid reason to explain the psychopathy.
Let me add, I didn’t like how lots of the dinosaurs were fodder. It was heart breaking to see the 6 dead sauropods, as well as the Ankylosaur. Indominus’ jaw should have broke. Also, the man on the helicopter shooting down the pterosaur, warranting a laugh.
Owen’s relationship with the raptors was peculiar. They were also raised in captivity and seemed to not really know what to do when it’s time for them to be wild animals. I found that to be very interesting, there’s quite a tone of animal psychology in this movie.
The Indominus itself. Terrifying, monstrous. The thing was down right scary, and tore through ALMOST everything in its path. When it tossed the raptor into the pit, and the raptor essentially blew up, I winced. That wasn’t necessary.
Now for the final fight. Man. The last 25 minutes my heart was pounding out of my chest. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how the Rex did against Indominus.
Now here come my heavy spoilers.
The start of their fight consisted of the T Rex going for the neck, unable to fully grab, as it continued to bite indominus. At one point, indominus clawed the Rex in the face, which caused her to lower her head, giving Indominus leverage. She then started to bite and claw and use her weight to push Rexy to the ground. The way the scene was built up, Rex was up against the wall. She didn’t look physically “defeated”, (since she evidently ends up getting up and attacking), it just seemed that because of her anatomy, she didn’t have the time to struggle and roll to her feet before the Indominus got to her.
However, once the raptor came back, and jumped on Indominus distracting it, the T Rex is able to get up and able to continue to fight. Indominus isn’t able to use her arms apparently, and the t rex then basically fits her jaw around the entire neck of the Indominus and rams her into a building. The next minute of the fight essentially consists of the T Rex dragging, biting and more or less tossing around the indominus by the neck before eventually tossing and flipping it about 20 feet with a flick of her head while bull rushing. Aside from weapons, I think they made it clear which animal was physically stronger.
