Timeline

I was excited that this movie was made, because I really enjoyed the book. When my husband told me there had been a movie made of it, I didn't know how I had managed to miss it. I was excited to watch.

This movie started out poorly, with a man running through the forest, and winding up in the dessert, dying, accompanied by scary music. We come to find out that he's a time traveller, but we never get an explanation for why he wound up in the dessert when our other time travellers all wind up back in the lab.

It is really over-acted. They also start out by killing a whole bunch of characters right at the beginning. I guess this is a good time to do it because it saved me from starting to care about the dead characters. However, it did seem over done, and by the time the movie was halfway over, I couldn't care about any of the characters because they'd killed too many of them.

Some of the actors looked too much alike and it was hard to tell them apart. It was also, therefore, hard to care about them. By the time the movie was halfway over, I was looking at my watch waiting for it to end, and looking online for someone to chat with through the rest of it.

Michael Crichton, the author of Timeline, wrote in Jurassic Park, "just because scientists can, does that mean they should," or something along those lines. I feel like this movie was another excuse to say the same line, and that really all of Crichton's work falls along these lines. Just because scientists can invent time travel doesn't mean that they should. As a part of the larger body of works, this fails because it becomes cliche.

The movie did do a semi-good job explaining itself if you hadn't read the book, which is good because I think most people didn't read this book. However, it failed to give plausible explanations for anything that happened. I think that may have been a flaw in the book, too.

I'm trying hard to find a redeeming quality about the movie, but I really can't. I give it an F.

Inside Out

Circumstances behind seeing this movie
I was very excited to see the latest Pixar film, because I generally love everything they've done. My husband and I went to see it together at Studio Movie Grill, where we watched our movie with macaroni and cheese, brownies, and pretzel bites at 2 for $25. I find the food somewhat distracting when we don't get to finish it during the previews, but it's also good to have a dinner and movie experience.
The movie
The movie starts being narrated by one of the characters inside Riley's head, Joy. Joy has her work cut out for her because all of the other emotions in the head are negative: Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness. We learn throughout the movie that other characters aren't run by Joy. The mother's central emotion is Sadness, and the father's is Anger. To begin, Joy dominates in Riley's brain, but she's 11 years old, and that means puberty is coming. To simulate this, Joy and Sadness get lost in Riley's long term memory, and have an adventure trying to get back to Headquarters before it is too late.
Overall, I thought this movie was really cute. It serves as a coming of age story that is not over done, and can help children understand what is happening to them when everything goes from happy to mixed emotions. We can see, for example, that hockey goes from being just a pleasant experience to one Anger helps control in order to get aggressive with the puck. We also come to understand the usefulness of some of the unpleasant emotions. Sadness gets Riley help when she needs it. Fear keeps her safe. Anger gives her aggression. Disgust also keeps her safe, and helps her to find friends.
I admit I teared up a few times during the movie, especially at the death of the imaginary friend. This came from really caring about Riley, and all of the characters inside her head. I knew that something had to happen to the imaginary friend as soon as they found him, because 11 years old is too old for an imaginary friend and Joy promised to make Riley remember him when they got back to Headquarters. I was still surprised how much I cared.
My favorite scene was the one where they sent a song to get stuck in Riley's head. Anger's reaction to seeing this memory for the 3rd time was hilarious, and they kept playing with it for the remainder of the movie, including the end credits scene, which was also funny for its explanation of cats.
I give the movie an A-.

Jurassic World

Circumstances behind seeing this movie
My husband and I went to the theater on opening night to see this movie. We both knew it wasn't going to be great going in, but it was going to be an excuse to watch dinosaurs, and I have always loved dinosaurs. I watched the original 22 years ago when I was 11, and loved the first one so much that I read and re-read the book several times. So basically I was excited even though I knew it wasn't going to be a great movie
The movie
I went in thinking this movie wasn't going to be great, and I got what I expected. There were blatant attempts to shoe-horn in a reason to care about the characters, such as a conversation between the two kids (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) about their parents getting a divorce. I guess they wanted to make it a little tragic or something. It really didn't work, and at no point during the movie did I really care the two kids got eaten by dinosaurs. With regard to other characters, including the aunt, (Bryce Dallas Howard) I was actively cheering the dinosaurs to eat the corporate whore. There was really only one character I didn't want to get eaten, and that was the character, Owen, played by Chris Pratt.
The masterful suspense from the original movie's raptor chase was sadly lacking in this one. It tried to scare you with jump scenes and a chase scene, but it wasn't done nearly as well as the 1993 version. Partially this might have to do with my lack of caring about the characters, but it also had to do with the pacing of the movie, and the fact that the actors were trying too hard to put suspense where there just wasn't any.
The redeeming value in this movie comes from the entertainment of a giant lizard smackdown when a velociraptor and t-rex team up against the genetic mutant that should be more powerful than both of them. The end was predictable as soon as you saw where it was - up against the water with the ledge broken. They attempted to make you jump here, but really it was so predictable that, well, I didn't even jump. As predictable as the end was, it was worth it to see giant dinosaurs beating on each other.
Overall, dinosaurs are cool, and they really made the movie - which is fortunate because the human actors weren't carrying it themselves. But you know what? When they make a sequel, we'll be there on opening night to watch it.
I give it a solid B.
Also, check out this image by Georgia Aquarium having fun with one of the scenes from the movie