ACCION: Reviews (74)

It’s better in every possible way than the previous movie. A breath of fresh air in the franchise with a scent to the original film by Steven Spielberg, served with great elegance and know-how by our J.A. Bayona, a director who has managed to carve out a career within our cinema full of incontestable successes and that also had the scent of Hollywood cinema, but they were very much Spanish films, such as The Impossible or A Monster calls, and that also served to draw the attention of the American film industry, who first offered him the sequel to World War Z and he finally refused to do that one, and took the leadership on this sequel to Jurassic World that is already the fifth installment of the most famous dinosaur saga of the history of cinema. To be honest, the change could not have been better. You all know the problems I had with Jurassic World, an entertaining movie, correctly shot, but without personality, leaning more on the pure and hard visual spectacle than on telling a good story, with characters often unbearable (those children…) and with a script that had too many mistakes to not tell anything new ...

I do not know to what extent they have allowed Bayona to get into the script of Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connelly, the creators responsible for this return to Jurassic world, especially Trevorrow who also directed Jurassic World ... I repeat, I do not know to what extent they allowed Bayona retouch some things on the script, although surely it has not been easy if he has achieved it, but the script is better, without being amazing, and the failures, weaknesses and faults of the film, are almost all due to that very same script that sometimes tends to think that, by the fact of having dinosaurs, the public will accept absolutely everything that appears on the screen without protest. And it is not like that. The resolution of some plot points are not very credible at best, some characters are still unbearable, and logic is not always present in the story... But it improves a lot compared to the previous movie. The plot is more elaborate, the protagonists are more defined and have evolved, the character of the girl is better developed than the children in Jurassic World... And incorporates elements of, for example, horror movies, which in the hands of the director, become key elements to the film.

Elements that appeared for example in the first movie, but that were lost piece by piece in time and with the sequels. But it seems that Bayona is willing to recover them, with a first part of the film with a more adventurous tone and close to The Lost World, which also pays tribute, and a second part of The Lost World, but also, and about everything, from the moments of Jurassic Park terror, the use of shadows, darkness, scares and even a pinch of violence that here appears in a very direct way , and that leads me to wonder how they will have avoided the R rate and achieved the PG13, in addition to avoiding explicit bleeding (because we have some amputation and quite graphic deaths, with a tribute to Jurassic Park included). And in those elements of terror, Bayona moves like a fish in the water, with signs of author but also elements that remind of Frankenstein (even with Doctor Frankenstein included), Little Red Riding Hood (including the encounter with the Big Bad Wolf) or Nosferatu, which gives a cinephile flavor of first category, of real talent.

The film, in addition to having these references to horror films, does not shirk the visual spectacle, especially in its walk around the island, with scenes that are memorable (the aquatic scene, the lava moments, the "farewell on the dock" ... ) and that then lead us to a far more intimate world, if that can happen in the universe of Jurassic Park, with a couple of more than interesting twists. That space where darkness is greater and where those moments arrive that are going to be the most remembered ones of the movie, even though they do not have so many visual effects. They have them, of course, but not so many or so big as in the island. And also throughout the film the director puts a lot of tributes to the Jurassic saga but much less evident than in the previous installment, whether in a shot, in a death, in a scene ... he does not point continuously on the homage, he places it subtly and let the viewer discover if is known or not. It is more effective in that way, because it requires, first of all, the attention of the spectator, it allows it to be like a game in search of Easter eggs that the director has hidden, which are not few.

The film runs for over two hours and entertains a lot. It makes us forget those little script failures, which are less than in the previous movie, and we also have the two leads from Jurassic World, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, displaying charisma and improving their characters, which evolve and grow, without as much nonsense as they had before (notice how they laugh subtly at the topic of the high heels of the first film, and notice how they resolve romantic relationships ...) accompanied by names like James Cromwell, Toby Jones (a villain as topical as adorable ... because the real villains are the dinosaurs), Ted Levine (another tribute to previous films ...) or Rafe Spall. Not forgetting the return of Jeff Goldblum, the always interesting presence of BD Wong as usual, and Isabella Sermon, the great debutante that makes us forget the mediocre children of Jurassic World. The presence of Daniella Pineda and, above all, Justice Smith, does not contribute much ... not because of the actors, but because of how the script deals with the characters ... Minor problems. It is a fun, entertaining film and, finally, a worthy heir to the original, with its mixture of horror and adventure genres for the whole family, with its great narrative pulse and with those details that give it the personality that the others did not have ...

Jesús Usero

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Kong: Skull Island review

The best King Kong movie since the original. A character that since its premiere in cinemas in 1933 has become an icon for the cinema, an icon with two remakes, the last of them, directed by Peter Jackson. It is very difficult to revisit that character without repeating previous schemes and themes, and that is something that Jordan Vogt-Roberts film fully achieves. A trip to Skull Island in which we will not see New York, nor a Beauty and the Beast love story, but a display of adventure, action and great visual effects that on one hand brilliantly honors King Kong and on the other is a homage to the war movies of the 70s, with Apocalypse Now at the top.

No, I'm not comparing Kong with Coppola's masterpiece, much less. Neither in subjects, nor in depth ... Nothing has to do with it. But this film does offer various visual tributes to that and the Vietnam War in movies in general. To the cinema of the 70 in particular visually, to offer a visual spectacle of first order, pure entertainment that also keeps a couple of pleasant surprises. From the design of the island, Kong itself, the locations or the creatures that inhabit it (moving away from the typical dinosaurs to give us a new series of monsters ... like that terrifying giant spider), passing through the action of the movie, the tone of the film itself, more focused on Kong than in humans.

Brilliant reflection on faith and religion in the hands of Scorsese. A brave movie, very brave, in these times when faith and religion are not exactly well considered, Martin Scorsese leads a story to honestly reflect on what makes men of faith, what faith generates around the catholic religion, and how to surpass the tests to which it is submitted over time, of very diverse nature, but above all, always, undoubtedly on the part of those who practice it. Do not be confused, Scorsese does not pose a criticism of religion or Christianity, quite the contrary. Praise those who believe and sacrifice, those who suffer and those who live the religion with honesty.

Two young Portuguese priests travel to Japan in the 17th century to investigate the disappearance of a priest who evangelized the area, at a time when Christianity was completely forbidden, forcing practitioners to abandon their new faith or be severely punished, even with death. In that amazing journey narrated as always with a brilliant pulse by Scorsese, we meet two young men whose mission ends up being a personal journey to analyze their own motives, their moments of weakness and strength. And not only theirs, but those of those humble people, who secretly seek the light of religion in which they believe, and who find no greater purpose than sacrifice for it. Become silent martyrs.

One of the best videogame adaptations to cinema. Or probably the best. Yes, it is possible that from this moment the tomatoes begin to rain in this direction and some will attack my opinion, although it does not really matter too much. My job is to be honest with myself and the readers, and tell them what I think. And in this case also from the point of view of the followers of one of the most important video game sagas of the last fifteen years, loved by some, hated by others, but a reference in industry and, with some really brilliant games, especially in the second installment and its aftermath, when we took charge of the story of Ezio Auditore in Renaissance Italy, with a history full of nuances, betrayals, revenge and conspiracies, in the eternal fight between Assassins And Templars. And you have to take into account all that because Justin Kurzel, the director, has made the adaptation of a video game more different, risky and brave than I remember. What's more, it's one of the most risky blockbusters that comes to mind and so it's worth taking a look, even though it's not perfect.

Justin Kurzel is a strange director, capable of directing a film as different as his Macbeth, where he also had Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as protagonists, and where he did not have the budget he handles in this film, but he provided us with a film very different from what everyone expected. Here he does something similar. Assassin's Creed is cryptic, is different, complex in many ways, although its plot is simple, and it is in part because it assumes that the viewer is a regular player of the saga and they will understand all the references and hidden messages that he has prepared for us during the movie. And as a fan, that is very enjoyable, although the character of Callum Lynch and Aguilar de Nerja, his ancestor, both played by Michael Fassbender, are new in this franchise. It does not matter. Either Kurzel is a player or he has been very well informed about the game (yes, it has changed the Animus, but that's the least important thing), and to understand it, you just have to see the macguffin in the movie, The Apple of Eden, something that will surely mislead many casual viewers, but the fans are going to thank him a lot. Or they should.