Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ****

Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) is reluctantly recruited by ex-girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) to rescue as many species of dinosaurs as they can from Isla Nublar before the island’s volcano erupts. The enterprise is being bankrolled by a mysterious philanthropist (Rafe Spall) – but is his offer what it appears to be? Most importantly, can the unfossilized and feral creatures be contained after they are transported to safety? Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom delivers the mayhem fans are expecting and more, with the volcano’s explosion providing the perfect pretext to fill the screen with giant reptiles of every variety as they scurry and stomp for their lives.

4 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is:

[WARNING SPOILERS]

4. Feminist and pro-miscegenation. Representing the Coalition of the Fringes are a tattooed Latina man-hater (Daniella Pineda) and a nebbishy mulatto computer whiz (Justice Smith).

3. Anti-white, anti-gun, and animal-rights-militant. Ted Levine appears as a “great white [sic] hunter” whose hobby of assembling necklaces from the teeth of endangered species earns him a dinosaur jaw’s worth of trouble. Guns, in addition to being unreliable, are problematic in the possession of trigger-happy white men in particular.

2. Disingenuously antiwar but actually anti-Slav and neoconservative. The dinosaur rescue operation turns out to be a nefarious military-industrial plot – what? social justice hijacked for capitalist plunder? I’m shocked! – and the movie climaxes at an auction at which arms procurers from around the world bid on weaponizable reptiles. Present at the auction are representatives from Russia, Slovenia, and Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. “Too many red lines have been crossed,” as well – ostensibly with regard to Frankenstein genetic science, but probably also in reference to Syria.

1.Racist! Bookending the film are testimonies from learned elder of science Jeff Goldblum, who warns that humanity, by saving the dinosaurs, is risking its own extinction. Underlying the film is the West’s anxiety about the acceptance of “refugee” populations from the Third World. The dinosaurs, as savage, prehistoric animals – rather like Africans, the film seems to imply – are objects of both amazement and civilizational trepidation. Indicative of the mingled fear and excitement experienced by mentally ill social justice warriors in the presence of rapefugees is an unsettling scene in which a dark-colored dinosaur creeps into a little girl’s room and hovers over her in her bed, extending a claw to caress her. This same child’s decision at the end of the film to release the dinosaurs into the modern world can be read either as a parody or a celebration of naïve Europeans’ – and particularly women’s – childishness and erotic retardation in ushering in their own racial and cultural annihilation. She makes her momentous choice after discovering that she is a clone and not the person she thinks she is – which is to say, after having her sense of identity undermined.

Alternatively, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom can be read as an allegory about the danger inherent in providing succor to Jews. After rescuing the dinosaur-Jews from the volcano-Holocaust, western man is faced with the problem of how to survive with these troublesome creatures in his midst – an interpretation bolstered by an attempt to exterminate the dinosaurs with cyanide gas at the end of the film and which, furthermore, would put a somewhat different and perhaps self-revelatory spin on the aforementioned scene of the giant lizard in the little girl’s bedroom.

Rainer Chlodwig von K.

Rainer is the author of Protocols of the Elders of Zanuck: Psychological Warfare and Filth at the Movies – the DEFINITIVE Alt-Right statement on Hollywood!

Expendables 3 ****

Expendables 3 has hardly begun before the titular crew of mercenaries is massacring prison guards to liberate murderer Wesley Snipes. Typically for the series, the film simply expects the viewer to take for granted that the “good guys” would never shoot anyone undeserving of death. (Speaking of which, no Expendables review would be complete without the obligatory reference to how close to death some of these guys appear. “Relax. You’re gonna give yourself a stroke,” Stallone is warned before his upcoming adventure.)

This entry in the franchise does, however, evince more of something approximating a heart or emotional center in its plot involving renewed conflict between Stallone and treacherous ex-partner Mel Gibson, whose presence does much to enhance part 3. Gibson, now an arms dealer, has been deemed a war criminal, and CIA honcho Harrison Ford, in a role alluding to his turns as Jack Ryan in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), hires Stallone to retrieve him from Central Asia for trial at the Hague.

What ensues is tons of dumb fun, with better action scenes that dispense with the gallons of CGI gore on display in the previous outing. The viewer almost forgets what villains the heroes’ real-life counterparts are. A campy charm attaches itself, admittedly, to the wince-worthy scene in which Ford, providing air support for the beleaguered Expendables and obviously embarrassed by the unimaginative dialogue, half-heartedly mumbles, “Drummer’s in the house.” Expendables 3 is worth a rental for that moment alone.

4 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Expendables 3 is:

7. Disingenously anti-torture. In one of the movie’s biggest unintentional laughs, CIA creep Harrison Ford complains that Gibson is responsible for the torture and killing of two of his men. As Gibson later says of Stallone’s character, “He thinks he’s the good guy.”

6. Pro-drug. There is a lighthearted feel to a scene in which Kelsey Grammer’s flying is impaired by his drunkenness. The Expendables get together to drink in celebration of a successful mission, while Dolph Lundgren, whose combat readiness is unaffected, just likes to drink for the picturesque hell of it.

5. P.C. Snipes objects to Stallone using “spook” with reference to a CIA agent.

4. Feminist. Ronda Rousey plays a tough-as-nails bouncer-cum-soldier whose looks conceal deadly fighting prowess. “Men,” she huffs with contempt before fatally shooting a man.

3. Anti-family. “If you’re lookin’ to go the family route, it’s the wrong job for you,” Stallone admonishes Rousey. “There are different kinds of family,” she replies. “And when my life is on the line, that’s my family fighting with me.” In other words, a gaggle of ragtag cutthroats is no less valid a pillar of personal and national stability than some old-fashioned assemblage of the biologically related.

2. Multiculturalist. In addition to two black Expendables and an Asian one, this third installment adds a Latino as a nod to that group’s demographic ascent, with Antonio Banderas providing some odd comic relief as a lonely acrobatic weirdo desperate for an excuse to machine-gun people.

1. Neoconservative. Like the other Expendables films, this third entry continues the work of conditioning the American male to accept overseas hellraising and mass murder as an exciting career opportunity, or at least as something deserving of their patriotic admiration. “I am the Hague,” Stallone says in triumph, alluding to his famous line from Judge Dredd (1995). In other words, the United States as the indispensable superpower and global force for gay, is exceptional in that it constitutes in itself – and even through the acts of its lowliest mercenaries – the world’s judge, jury, and executioner. “Very tribal,” Gibson says of the Expendables’ penchant for ritual murder – leaving the viewer to determine which Tribe he has referenced in his remark. As usual with this sort of movie, too, there is a dig at nationalist Russia, with Gibson spending some time there and giving the impression that Putin’s New Nazi Germany Russia is some sort of haven for evildoers.

The CIA no longer even cares if Americans know it conducts dirty wars through mercenary proxies. “This one’s off the books. I’m not even here,” says Ford, clearly thinking himself very cute. Those incorrigible Central Intelligence scamps! Oh, well – boys will be boys. Maybe a couple of decades from now, Hollywood will be making action movies celebrating the “ISIS” scam and the takedown of the evil Assad regime. “We killed a lot, but we saved more lives than you can possibly imagine,” Gibson excuses his days as a hired assassin for the Company. Whatever.

Rainer Chlodwig von Kook