Dramedy Nonnas is available for order on Netflix this weekend with Vince Vaughn as a new restauranteur attempting to honor the legacy of his mother. Susan Sarandon, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, and Brenda Vaccaro are the title characters cooking the food. Linda Cardellini, Drea de Matteo, Joe Manganiello, Michael Rispoli, and Campbell Scott are also part of the ensemble. Stephen Chbosky, known for The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Wonder, directs.
Several critics are being kind and complimenting the Nonnas’ heart. Rotten Tomatoes (which probably aren’t available for consumption in the pic’s venue) is at 79% with a more lukewarm 57 Metacritic rating. So despite some reviews saying this is likable enough, this shouldn’t be on the menu for awards prognosticators. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
When the predecessor to Jurassic World: Dominion was unveiled in the summer of 2018, it proved the franchise had indeed fallen to a new level of mediocrity. Fallen Kingdom was a huge disappointment. As much as I wanted to give it credit for trying some new things, the execution failed. Despite a couple of cool set pieces and the dinosaurs still looking cool, I found Kingdom to be the worst of the five in the series.
Dominion challenges that status. Colin Trevorrow made 2015’s Jurassic World. While many of the complaints about it were valid, I still found it to be satisfactory even if did lean hard on the nostalgia angle. After J.A. Bayona handled directorial duties for #2, Trevorrow is back behind the camera here and the nostalgic leanings are in full force. So much so that the three stars of 1993’s iconic Jurassic Park – Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm – are mixing it up with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and their sort of daughter who may or may not be a clone.
In case you forgot (and I wouldn’t blame you if you did), Fallen Kingdom thrust human cloning upon us as a plot point. Isabella Sermon’s Maisie was revealed to be the recipient of such experimentation and now she’s a young teen living with Pratt’s Owen and Howard’s Claire deep in the woods. She’s not allowed to go anywhere because many would like to continue experimenting on her. Her isolation is wearing on her as she seeks to break out of her small radius. As you may also recall, dinosaurs are now roaming freely across parts of the world (including Maisie’s backyard).
There’s one corporation who’d like to snatch Maisie and her Dino friends. Biosyn Genetics is run by Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott). Located in the Italian mountains, the futuristic company has its greedy hands in all kinds of pots. The main one involves locusts. Yes, a significant portion of Dominion‘s plot involves these crop eating creatures and Biosyn’s plans to control the world’s food supply. If that seems like an out of nowhere storyline that has little to do with dinosaurs, you’d be correct.
However, these CG locusts do give an excuse to bring back Neill and Dern’s characters when they travel to Italy to investigate (Goldblum is already working for the company). When Maisie is snatched up, Owen and Claire find themselves trekking overseas as well for what we know will eventually be a melding of the stars of both trilogies.
There’s some new characters including DeWanda Wise’s cocky Air Force pilot and Mamoudou Athie as Dodgson’s morally conflicted right hand man. The real thrill is meant to be the return of the OG players from three decades ago. Here’s the rub – despite Jurassic Park being amazing, its one minor flaw was its human characters (with the exception of Goldblum) being a bit dull. Seeing Neill and Dern reignite their unrequited passion isn’t exactly Han showing up on the Millennium Falcon with Chewie after 30 years. I’ve already discussed the lack of passion between Owen and Claire in my review of the predecessor.
Where Dominion manages to be a very slight improvement over Kingdom is a couple of expertly constructed action sequences. A car chase involving the prehistoric creatures in Malta is legitimately thrilling. These brief moments of excitement are too often interrupted by humdrum fan service, cloning, and attacks of the locusts. In other words, there’s a couple of cool set pieces and the dinosaurs still look cool. It’s not enough. The Jurassic series veered off course with Kingdom and it doesn’t regain much footing in Dominion.
When it comes to the nearly three decades old Jurassic franchise, only the first two (the ones directed by Steven Spielberg) have attracted Oscar attention. The 1993 classic received three nods for Sound Mixing, Sound Editing (those races have since combined), and Visual Effects. It won all three. The 1997 follow-up The Lost World: Jurassic Park managed a Visual Effects mention but lost to Titanic.
The dinosaurs have failed to make Academy ballots for 2001’s Jurassic Park III and the initial entries in the current trilogy – 2015’s Jurassic World and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Dominion is the closing chapter that reunites prominent cast members from both trilogies. It’s out Friday and the review embargo is extinct. The result? Only a 40% Rotten Tomatoes which serves as a series worst (predecessor Kingdom previously had the low point at 47%).
So while those creatures might still look cool, I don’t see any chance of a Visual Effects nomination or any others. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
Blogger’s Note (06/08): My prediction for Dominion has fallen… from $165.3M to $155.3M
Two generations of Jurassic actors team up for the release of Dominion on June 10th. I’m also told there are dinosaurs involved. Closing out the trilogy that began with the record breaking Jurassic World seven summers ago, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard join forces with familiar faces that populated some of the original trilogy – Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Other costars include BD Wong, Omar Sy, Isabella Sermon, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Campbell Scott, Scott Haze, and Dichen Lachman. Colin Trevorrow, who made the 2015 entry but not the 2018 sequel, is back in the director’s seat.
As mentioned, when the dinos came back in 2015, it set the all-time ; the domestic opening with $208 million (that held for six months until Star Wars: The Force Awakens dropped). It eventually made $652 million. Three years later, the lesser regarded Fallen Kingdom started with lesser numbers. The premiere was $148 million with an overall gross of $417 million.
My hunch is that the mixing of stars from nearly three decades ago with Pratt and Howard could push this to better earnings than its predecessor. On the flip side, I don’t see it hitting over $200 million like Jurassic World. This might debut in the middle range of its trilogy counterparts and perhaps closer to Kingdom.
Jurassic World: Dominion opening weekend prediction: $155.3 million
It’s a feeling that I simply couldn’t shake when I watched 2012’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man: this movie isn’t necessary. Yet it was. If Sony Pictures wanted to keep the rights to the Spidey brand (and did they ever), a new pic had to be produced. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst weren’t interested in a fourth entry so the franchise was started over just ten years after it began.
However, that didn’t mean it felt necessary… Sony’s financial consideration aside. Too often The Amazing Spider-Man felt like a remake of 2002’s original and there was no reason to have one. There were silver linings. The chemistry between Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spidey and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy was stronger than the Maguire/Dunst dynamic. Come to think of it… that was about the only silver lining in director Andrew Webb’s playbook. The rest of the pic was reasonably entertaining but familiar… way too familiar.
This brings us to the inevitable sequel in which the filmmakers (Webb returns behind the camera) inexplicably make the same errors that sunk the original trilogy by the time the mediocre Spider-Man 3 entered multiplexes in 2007. Too many villains. Too many subplots you don’t care about. It’s the same problems that have hindered Batman and Iron Man flicks in their weakest entries, too.
New characters include Jamie Foxx as Electro/Max Dillon, an Oscorp employees who worships Spider-Man and then finds himself as his nemesis when an electrical accident turns him into a super villain. His character is not terribly interesting and Foxx’s performance is not among his strongest.
Dane Dehaan is Harry Osborn, who takes over his Dad’s corporation following his death. Harry finds out he’s terminally ill and believes he needs Spidey’s blood to keep him alive. He doesn’t know his best childhood friend Peter Parker is also… well, you know. Complications ensue and an iconic baddie from Spidey lore enters the picture. Dehaan gives the role his all, but by the time his metamorphosis occurs, you’re checking your watch.
There’s also Paul Giamatti in a curiously small role as a Russian mobster who you won’t care about and where the character’s incredibly talented and Oscar nominated actor hams it up pretty embarrassingly.
And Sally Field is back as Aunt May with Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz returning in flashback sequences as Peter’s parents. Denis Leary as Gwen’s late father is also seen, but not heard.
The picture’s only strength lies in the genuine chemistry of Garfield and Stone, just like in the first. It’s not enough. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has that unmistakable whiff of needlessness that plagued its predecessor. There’s a sequence in the beginning when Gwen and Peter are having a quarrel and she sadly says, “You have done this again and again, Peter Parker! I can’t live like this.” We’ve seen that scene between Spidey and his girl again and again… and again… and again. We’ve seen the breakup of Peter and Gwen… and Peter and Mary Jane. And we’ve seen it too much in the past 12 years. Sony Pictures needs to keep the gravy train rolling, but I can live without this fading franchise.
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