Tag: Derek Connolly

REVIEW: Pokémon: Detective Pikachu [2019]

Jared Mobarak

I can feel it in my jellies. It’s almost shocking that nobody made a live-action Pokémon movie considering the card game’s heyday was back in the 1990s while the anime and video games still ruled kids’ televisions. That’s not to say the property ever disappeared. Nintendo couldn’t have turned “Pokémon GO” into an international smartphone phenomenon without strong brand recognition spanning multiple generations. But what was there to lean on narratively? The creatures themselves can’t say anything but their names and the human characters are kids trying to catch them…

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REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom [2018]

Jared Mobarak

They’re alive. Like me. Anyone who read/watched Jurassic Park in the 1990s should have known the product of John Hammond’s hubris: a marriage between mankind’s extinction and evolution into something more. This is what the themes of control and the lack thereof portend. To play God is to risk losing everything we have built in the past 300,000 years. Because whether we bring back that which nature destroyed (dinosaurs) or create something wholly new (through genetic manipulation and cloning), we breathe life into a being not meant for the present…

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REVIEW: Kong: Skull Island [2017]

Jared Mobarak

“Eating’s for the living” It’s amazing how a film’s success can create a tidal wave, but that’s exactly what Gareth Edwards‘ Godzilla did in 2014. We’re talking critical acclaim, half a billion dollars at the box office, and a rejuvenated plea for monster flicks. Well the first two are fact, the third merely hope on behalf of Legendary Pictures. Because their investment isn’t just sequels, it’s about a “MonsterVerse” so important to them that they got Universal Pictures to give Kong: Skull Island‘s rights to Warner Bros. so a single…

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REVIEW: Jurassic World [2015]

Jared Mobarak

“This will give parents nightmares” As all good sequels must learn, the key to success is delivering on the promise set forth by the original while also providing something fresh and improved. Just ask James Cameron, a master at the task, who injected action-packed life into both Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgment Day without negating or watering down the mythology still relevant beneath those newfound popcorn blockbuster sensibilities. Neither The Lost World nor Jurassic Park III did it. They decided to both reinvent the wheel and forget what the appeal…

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REVIEW: Safety Not Guaranteed [2012]

Jared Mobarak

“My calibrations are flipping pinpoint, okay?” Sweetly cute, subtly intelligent, and simply life affirming in the best possible way, Safety Not Guaranteed is the epitome of indie darling. Reminiscent to Chronicle from earlier this year, director Colin Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly have really taken care to use genre clichés in a way that somehow makes them appear fresh. We’ve seen the reporter lying for a story only to end up falling for her subject. We’ve seen the misunderstood weirdo toe the line between insanity and the impossible to give…

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