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Watch Watched Watching: The Rambunctious Cinema of Terrence Malick


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10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Taken seems like a bit of an odd comparison tbh.

Yeah, no argument there. The only thing that triggers the Taken comparison is that I assume that this was also made by a European studio given the German spoken in it.

5 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Like I said in my previous post, the final act was weak, as for me it turned an interesting horror-thriller into a typical shlock horror-thriller with the requisite gore. And the writers slightly cornered themselves into that final act, because of a key plot device.

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Vampiric transmittal. We see in the flashbacks that the protagonist becomes a vampire just because of a simple bite on her hand. Therefore, every time someone got bit on the plane, they were now becoming vampires. But unfortunately, they were inconsistent about time of transformation and difference between being transformed, and being just dead. Based on the little visuals clues throughout the movies, these vampires seemed to fall somewhere between 30 Days of Night and classical supernatural vampires, though much closer to the 30 days ones.

I don't think it's important what is the origin of the vampires. It's just a singular movie about a well known trope. This is even emphasized in the movie where characters automatically reach the conclusion that she is a vampire; unlike in other vampire movies where people don't know what they're faced with until they're told. I also don't think it's quite as important to know what drugs she was taking.

It's clear that there is a more SF element here about the vampires. Dr. Brown was going to give a her full bone marrow transplant, probably with the intent of completely changing her blood. Whether that would have worked or not we don't know. The movie chose to go bleak at the end, instead of hopeful.

Yeah, the bullet proof car was a crap device to use. And the guy not dying when burned inside it was also crap. At the very least his hair should have been ashes. What the hell? This leaves the end open, because who knows, maybe some vampires survived the explosion.

I have no idea how many air marshals a transatlantic flight has. Do you? The hijackers' plan was definitely convoluted and needed a bit more development. Crash the stock market to get rich, by creating a false flag terrorist attack? For a moment there, I was sure we were going into spy agency territory, but I guess not. I did appreciate the realism of the hijackers taking over the plane. With modern day security, it's much harder to achieve another 9/11, I should think, but not if you have one or two inside men.

I must say that this was the first frame story I've seen for a horror-thriller movie. Bold move, nearly paid off.

 

For me the

Spoiler

origin of the sickness definitely also covers the general rules about vampires. What kills them, how do you make them and why on earth are any humans' still alive when you have such an aggressive strain of vampires running rampant. If you let loose one of those things in a major city you'd have a vampire Apocalypse on your hand.

The spy angle would have been interesting indeed. 

I do think it makes sense that the guy didn't die right? She was too late to stop him from injecting vampire blood inside his veins so he was already turned. The fire would definitely have killed him if he had still been human.

I'm not entirely sure how many air marshals are on a transatlantic flight, but three seems excessive to me. Imagine having three police officers on every flight across the Atlantic? That's a staffing cost I would not want to pay.

 

 

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On 7/24/2021 at 10:24 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Just finished season three of The Man in the High Castle

The first season was really good. The characters were fleshed out, the story was compelling and the show gave you a real sense of danger. Some of that still existed in season two, but the show veered in all kinds of directions and didn't always make a ton of sense. Season three was much of the same, though it did have a bit more touch than the second season. I'm going to watch the forth season just to see it through, but I can't in good faith recommend this show unless you feel it calls out to you. 

We watched S1 and S2 as they came out and just forgot about S3 for ages. I do want to go back but we really need to finish off some other half-watched shows before that.

I recently watched the first season of Colony during a bout of killer insomnia. It's ok? Reminds me a bit of V (which made me remember that there was a remake of that which we downloaded ages ago) with the occupying aliens and the resistance. Although key difference is that all the action is on earth and you don't actually get to see any aliens really. I have started watching the second season on the train to work in a low key semi-interested way and I quite like what they have done with the prequel/what went before stuff. Apart from Josh Holloway's pre-occupation hair of course. It should always be wild, rather than slicked back and he just looks wrong in a suit, sorry. Might start another Lost re-watch. :wub:

Has anyone else been watching any panels from SDCC? We watched the TORn one last night and a couple of others. But my goodness, I cannot believe that 18 months into the virtual meeting/panel/everything life people STILL cannot sort out their background/lighting properly. It is so amateur and inconsiderate. One panelist had this background image of the earth from space (so, mostly dark blue) and he kept gesticulating and moving back and forth so he was flashing/disappearing, plus he must have been in a really poorly lit room as his screen was essentially dark except for when he leaned backwards out of shot and made the background image strobe. One of the six speakers is basically a dark and white flashing square? Sorry, but panel mods need to address that shit as it makes everyone look stupid and it is literally hard to watch. So because of stuff like that we didn't watch many panels as they gave me zoom fatigue.

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Watched Pig, that new Nic Cage movie about 'I want my PIG!'

It's not really that movie, its a lovely, melancholic thoughtful piece about loss and repressed emotion and grief. 

Cage I think is getting a lot of plaudits for his performance, and its easy forget that he can be a great actor when he can be bothered and is controlled. Really though its Alex Wolff who is the big standout here. Wolff really captures a sense of unease in himself, and a real sadness. Couldn't stop watching him. Cage does pretty much enough here, I think the material is the key here, Cage doesn't do a great deal and part of me wonders what the movie would have been like had someone else played the role, Cage is maybe too recognisable, and its hard to not see him as himself.

Overall though I loved it.

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12 hours ago, dbunting said:

 

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I didn't like the twist at all. I was perfectly fine with the dad/cousin/uncle fucker whatever he was, being the killer, that made more sense than tossing in an 11 year old out of no where. I mean unless I missed some clues somewhere this made as much sense as the guy getting locked up but we know the gun he had wasn't the murder weapon so ballistics don't matter I guess.

 

There were clues from the very beginning, which a surprising number of viewers  picked up on by at least the second and third episodes, judging from the comments on various recap sites after the episodes went up on HBO. I noticed the clues they picked up on, but I wasn't among the perspicacious who had figured out the further meaning of those glimpses.

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On 7/24/2021 at 2:54 PM, RumHam said:

The weird geography of the T-Rex paddock is nothing compared to how it sneaks up on them at the end, indoors. 

Edit: also Hammod's helicopter lands, they rush over to tell the pilot to shut the rotors off, and hammond is somehow already in their trailer going through their fridge. 

Hammond's helicopter arrives while Grant and Saddler are up a 30 foot hill.  By the time they run down to yell at him to shut off the rotors, the pilot motions that Hammond already got out and went in the trailer.  That isn't hard to believe. 

On 7/24/2021 at 3:26 PM, RhaenysBee said:

The T Rex park is one thing. And Tim surviving the car, the fence and the skeleton is another. But they have a raptor compound between the control room and the electricity panel dungeon… :shocked:

The raptor compound is not part of the main vehicle tour, because they wanted the raptors to be in an enclosed area with viewing only from above (presumably for safety reasons).  Given that it needed to be within walking distance of the main area, it isn't surprising that it is quite near both the emergency bunker and the electrical maintenance shed. 

On 7/24/2021 at 5:34 PM, RumHam said:

I can also remember trying to figure out exactly what went on with Arnold's arm, and concluded that a raptor must have killed him, heard Sadler coming and ripped the arm off thinking "oh this is gonna be hilarious."

It is a bit of a Hollywood moment, but presumably Arnold's arm got ripped off and thrown through the air, and landed at an odd angle.  Why the raptor would throw someone's arm is an open question, but these are dinosaurs that are both smart and cruel, so not everything they do makes sense. 

On 7/24/2021 at 5:42 PM, Tywin et al. said:

How did the dilophosaurus get into Newman's Jeep?

The door to the jeep was clearly open the entire time.  A second dilophosaurus wandered into the jeep while he was out playing fetch with the first one.  That isn't particularly hard to believe.

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How did a kid hack a super complex system by playing a simple mid-90's videogame style mainframe?

You see how the system works, it isn't terribly complicated.  Odd that the system isn't password protected, but the system was just rebooted and Nedry was screwing around with it, so the computer doing something odd isn't too farfetched.  Perhaps Nedry disabled the password protection everywhere just so he could get the system back online faster when he came back after dropping off the embryoes (as was his original plan). 

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How could Grant not shoot something five feet in front of him?

Does Grant strike you as an experienced gunman?  A novice, picking up a gun he's never fired and rushing his shot in a moment of panic seems very believable.  Not to mention that bullets often go weird angles on impact, and this was a shot through glass. 

Of all the nitpicks, the only one I'll agree with is the T-Rex-machina at the end is hard to buy.  We never get a full 360 view of the visitor's center, so maybe they have a really big window or something that she could have come through a while ago, and then been sniffing around when the people and raptors arrive right at her feet.  The problem is that we do get several angles of the action on the dinosaur skeleton, and it's hard to believe that there's a T-Rex there that just never showed up onscreen and went completely unnoticed by the characters.  For example, Elly sees the second raptor coming through the sheet plastic at the end, wouldn't she also see a T-Rex standing within biting range of her?  It seems like either the T-Rex came crashing into the room (which makes a lot of noise) or the T-Rex was standing right there and would have been seen. 

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We’ve started watching Get Shorty on Amazon, which is based on the same story as the John Travolta movie of the same name (an Elmore Leonard book originally) but this TV series version is better so far.  Chris O’Dowd is an odd choice for the main character, but it’s working so far.

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2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Hammond's helicopter arrives while Grant and Saddler are up a 30 foot hill.  By the time they run down to yell at him to shut off the rotors, the pilot motions that Hammond already got out and went in the trailer.  That isn't hard to believe. 

I dunno, maybe the editing makes it seem werider. But I do find it hard to believe that an old man who walks with a cane made it to their trailer before the pilot shut the engines off. 

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Masters of the Universe: Revelation.

I honestly had no interest in watching this.  Then a bunch of YouTube and Twitter misanthropes went apeshit because Kevin Smith ate their balls or something. Apparently it's an insult to "fans" that many of the early episodes (the first half of the first season) focus on supporting characters and those characters have "bewbs". This is problematic because "woke" or something. So I gave it a look.

The show is surprisingly good. The animation is up to the usual Netflix standard, the story is interesting, and the voice cast is impressive and delivers good performances. I made sure to give it a thumbs up. 

I'm looking forward to the remainder of the series. 

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2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The door to the jeep was clearly open the entire time.  A second dilophosaurus wandered into the jeep while he was out playing fetch with the first one.  That isn't particularly hard to believe.

Let me rephrase that. How could it get into the Jeep and reposition itself? It's too big, and that's before you consider the tail.

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You see how the system works, it isn't terribly complicated.  Odd that the system isn't password protected, but the system was just rebooted and Nedry was screwing around with it, so the computer doing something odd isn't too farfetched.  Perhaps Nedry disabled the password protection everywhere just so he could get the system back online faster when he came back after dropping off the embryoes (as was his original plan). 

I doubt Arnold could have cracked it that quickly. It's unrealistic that all the security measures vanished and Lex knew exactly what to do. 

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Does Grant strike you as an experienced gunman?  A novice, picking up a gun he's never fired and rushing his shot in a moment of panic seems very believable.  Not to mention that bullets often go weird angles on impact, and this was a shot through glass. 

No, but it's a shotgun at point blank range. To completely miss is pretty bad. It's why shotguns are the best home protection option, because even a novice should be able to use it so long as they know how to operate it.

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Of all the nitpicks, the only one I'll agree with is the T-Rex-machina at the end is hard to buy.  We never get a full 360 view of the visitor's center, so maybe they have a really big window or something that she could have come through a while ago, and then been sniffing around when the people and raptors arrive right at her feet.  The problem is that we do get several angles of the action on the dinosaur skeleton, and it's hard to believe that there's a T-Rex there that just never showed up onscreen and went completely unnoticed by the characters.  For example, Elly sees the second raptor coming through the sheet plastic at the end, wouldn't she also see a T-Rex standing within biting range of her?  It seems like either the T-Rex came crashing into the room (which makes a lot of noise) or the T-Rex was standing right there and would have been seen. 

There is a section which looks like a T-Rex may have been able to get into that area, but we have no idea how it physically got into the center. Also, like you said, the movie went out of its way to establish that you can here the Rex coming from a long ways away. There's no way it snuck up on them.

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17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I doubt Arnold could have cracked it that quickly. It's unrealistic that all the security measures vanished and Lex knew exactly what to do. 

It doesn't seem like there were any security measures, just what Nedry did, which they undid by rebooting the system. 

I forget, the movie doesn't do the bit where things seem to be getting under control but they forgot that the system reboots onto aux power and then the generators die, right? 

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39 minutes ago, RumHam said:

It doesn't seem like there were any security measures, just what Nedry did, which they undid by rebooting the system. 

I forget, the movie doesn't do the bit where things seem to be getting under control but they forgot that the system reboots onto aux power and then the generators die, right? 

That is correct, they don't include any of those things in the movie version.  Instead, Nedry turned off all the fences (except raptor fences), phones and door locks and left.  When Arnold rebooted the system to get rid of what Nedry did, it also turned off the raptor fences, which is why things went to shit in the vistor's center only after the reboot. 

58 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Let me rephrase that. How could it get into the Jeep and reposition itself? It's too big, and that's before you consider the tail.

You keep talking about how big dilophosaurus is, but in the movie it's much smaller than the book or real life, more akin to a large dog.  That's why when Nedry sees one he says "I thought you were one of your big brothers.  You're not so bad."  While he could see the claws and fangs of the dilophosaurus, he was hoping that it wouldn't mess with a larger animal (namely, him). 

 

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No, but it's a shotgun at point blank range. To completely miss is pretty bad. It's why shotguns are the best home protection option, because even a novice should be able to use it so long as they know how to operate it.

We don't know if Grant has ever fired a gun before in his life, and given his screen depiction my guess would be no.  He could have shot from the hip for all we know.  Missing a rushed shot is very plausible, I don't know why you'd object to that. 

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1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

That is correct, they don't include any of those things in the movie version.  Instead, Nedry turned off all the fences (except raptor fences), phones and door locks and left.  When Arnold rebooted the system to get rid of what Nedry did, it also turned off the raptor fences, which is why things went to shit in the vistor's center only after the reboot. 

You keep talking about how big dilophosaurus is, but in the movie it's much smaller than the book or real life, more akin to a large dog.  That's why when Nedry sees one he says "I thought you were one of your big brothers.  You're not so bad."  While he could see the claws and fangs of the dilophosaurus, he was hoping that it wouldn't mess with a larger animal (namely, him). 

 

We don't know if Grant has ever fired a gun before in his life, and given his screen depiction my guess would be no.  He could have shot from the hip for all we know.  Missing a rushed shot is very plausible, I don't know why you'd object to that. 

Didn't Grant kill that raptor? I thought he did but the one we saw unlock the door it was locked behind, was the 3rd raptor that showed up with the other one to be killed by the t rex at the end.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, but it's a shotgun at point blank range. To completely miss is pretty bad. It's why shotguns are the best home protection option, because even a novice should be able to use it so long as they know how to operate it.

Idk if that shotgun was intended for use against the dinosaurs in the case of emergency, or was just for security purposes in general, but if it was the former that thing would not be loaded with bird or buck shot (the type of shells that have a spread pattern). If it had slugs in it (to take down something much bigger and more powerful) you could easily miss with it. Especially under duress. It’s just a single projectile. 

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13 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Didn't Grant kill that raptor? I thought he did but the one we saw unlock the door it was locked behind, was the 3rd raptor that showed up with the other one to be killed by the t rex at the end.

I don't think so, there's no indication that Grant killed or injured one of the raptors.  The timing seems a little strange as there's one raptor after them trying to push on the door.  That raptor gets locked out.  Elly says "gonna come through the glass!" and then Grant raises the gun and it cuts to Hammond on the phone, where we hear three shots and then nothing.  Considering there is a raptor chasing them immediately after this scene, it seems like a leap to assume that one raptor was killed offscreen and then the other raptor arrived (although I suppose it is possible, since we never see more than 2 raptors beyond this point). 

4 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Idk if that shotgun was intended for use against the dinosaurs in the case of emergency, or was just for security purposes in general, but if it was the former that thing would not be loaded with bird or buck shot (the type of shells that have a spread pattern). If it had slugs in it (to take down something much bigger and more powerful) you could easily miss with it. Especially under duress. It’s just a single projectile. 

We see the bullet holes in the glass and they are pretty small (ping pong ball sized), so there wasn't much spread. 

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2 hours ago, RumHam said:

It doesn't seem like there were any security measures, just what Nedry did, which they undid by rebooting the system. 

I forget, the movie doesn't do the bit where things seem to be getting under control but they forgot that the system reboots onto aux power and then the generators die, right? 

I don't know much about early 90's tech, but wouldn't she have still had to login in the first place? There was literally no security whatsoever and Lex knew exactly where to look without much if any information before she cracks it in like under a minute. We can't forget that Lex and Tim have very little information as they've been in the park the entire time.

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

You keep talking about how big dilophosaurus is, but in the movie it's much smaller than the book or real life, more akin to a large dog.  That's why when Nedry sees one he says "I thought you were one of your big brothers.  You're not so bad."  While he could see the claws and fangs of the dilophosaurus, he was hoping that it wouldn't mess with a larger animal (namely, him). 

A large dog is a bit much. I've found several different sizes listed for it in the movie and the smallest one still has it being over nine feet long snout to tail. Given that and the way it's legs look, I just think it's next to impossible for it to have the dexterity to get into the car and reposition itself in the passenger's seat so it would be facing Nedry. Cool scene, but not practical imo.

Also, Nedry's comment came when it was still laying low in the grass. You can see it stands up afterwards and gets a lot bigger.

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We don't know if Grant has ever fired a gun before in his life, and given his screen depiction my guess would be no.  He could have shot from the hip for all we know.  Missing a rushed shot is very plausible, I don't know why you'd object to that. 

We also can't assume he doesn't know how to. He wasn't holding the gun like he was completely unfamiliar with it, and I believe that was a pump action shotgun, so getting off three rounds would require a little knowledge I believe.

1 hour ago, Nictarion said:

Idk if that shotgun was intended for use against the dinosaurs in the case of emergency, or was just for security purposes in general, but if it was the former that thing would not be loaded with bird or buck shot (the type of shells that have a spread pattern). If it had slugs in it (to take down something much bigger and more powerful) you could easily miss with it. Especially under duress. It’s just a single projectile. 

I'm no firearms expert, but in the opening scene it looked like had much heavier artillery, though some of those weapons also looked like they had been designed to stun the animal, not kill it. In the end we just don't know. In the book Muldoon had access to some kind or rocket launcher.

 

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

We see the bullet holes in the glass and they are pretty small (ping pong ball sized), so there wasn't much spread. 

We also see no other damage despite Elly saying it was coming through the glass, then it easily breaks in moments later. I've always found that part to be a bit odd. 

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I’ve discovered that there’s more of this thing! I just watched Jurassic World. It was… interesting. Not terrible, but definitely interesting. 

There’s a conversation in the lab about capitalist consumerism asking for the bigger, scarier and cooler “assets” because the regular dinosaurs are boring now and the cost of that economic success is the disastrous abomination of the actual science. I’m only half convinced that the film realizes it’s talking about itself and its own industry. But if it does, then hats off that was certainly a nice and much needed bit of self-irony. It also made me gloat so much that ye old 90s Ellie was about fifty times the strong empowered female character Bryce Dallas Howard tried to be in the age of sTroNGfEmAlEcHaRacTeRs. The woman spent the film in high heels for crying out loud…

Anyway, I suppose I might as well keep the hype going and watch Jurassic Something 2018 that hasn’t yet made it onto Netflix. And there’s going to be a Jurassic Something Else in 2022! 

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I can't believe we're sat here nitpicking Jurassic Park. Like yeah you can pick holes in the logic all day but it's not a mystery thriller, it's a spectacle film with almost no equal. Even the ninja-Rex at the end is worth it for the epic pose.  

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3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Masters of the Universe: Revelation.

I honestly had no interest in watching this.  Then a bunch of YouTube and Twitter misanthropes went apeshit because Kevin Smith ate their balls or something. Apparently it's an insult to "fans" that many of the early episodes (the first half of the first season) focus on supporting characters and those characters have "bewbs". This is problematic because "woke" or something. So I gave it a look.

The show is surprisingly good. The animation is up to the usual Netflix standard, the story is interesting, and the voice cast is impressive and delivers good performances. I made sure to give it a thumbs up. 

I'm looking forward to the remainder of the series. 

I mean, I didn't like it but feel free to stereotype people who don't like a piece of art as misanthropes.  I didn't like it because the protagonist is unlikeable in episode 2 (where her arc starts, it has nothing to do with being a her, it has to do with how the character acts after a tragedy.) and doesn't get any better.  I didn't like it because all men in the show have no agency and are wallpaper.  (I also don't like it in things when all female characters are treated like that, its bullshit for both sexes I guess that is fine for you though as it is apparently fine for you here?). 

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I've reached the fourth season of Le bureau des légendes. I almost never watch French stuff, but this is supposed to be one of the best  shows ever. It focuses on the DGSE, i.e. the French secret service, with John-Le-Carré-style stories.
And... It's a letdown. It's very well made in every respect: good acting, good filming, decent plots and excellent atmosphere. There's even tension and a few plot twists. But you can feel that this is the wordview of the Defense Ministry (that works with the writers). Though to its credit it's not simplistic, and the "others" are not monolithic. For example at some point an agent ends up infiltrating Iran's golden youth ; one character explains (and perhaps even, embodies) the complexities of the Syrian conflict. But the patriotism prevents the show from ever rising to something truly interesting, and not all plots are equally entertaining.

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30 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I can't believe we're sat here nitpicking Jurassic Park. Like yeah you can pick holes in the logic all day but it's not a mystery thriller, it's a spectacle film with almost no equal. Even the ninja-Rex at the end is worth it for the epic pose.  

I don't think any of us pointing these things out don't adore the movie. 

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