Jurassic World: Rebirth

Posted on July 1, 2025 at 5:43 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, bloody images, some suggestive references, language and a drug reference
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Brief reference to marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence with many jump scares and graphic and disturbing images, many characters killed including several eaten by dinosaurs
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 3, 2025
Date Released to DVD:	August 13, 2025

There’s a cheeky moment at the beginning of “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” the latest in the series about dinosaurs brought back to life, originally based on the book by Michael Crichton. (I think it is very funny that the screenwriting credits say “based on characters created by Michael Crichton,” when the only “characters” in the movie based on his book are the dinosaurs.) We think we know where it’s going when we hear a roar and see the tops of the high trees rustling, then shaking.

We sit back, expecting a dinosaur. But no, it’s just a helicopter. And then there’s another wink at the audience, a close-up harking back to the first film, one of the greatest shots in film history. But this time, it’s not a dinosaur in the rearview mirror. It’s just a traffic jam. Caused by a dinosaur. But at this point, the stuck driver we zero in on not wonderstruck or terrified. He’s just annoyed, as he might be if he was just being blocked by construction.

All these years after the dino DNA was extracted from the amber, humans have acclimated to, even bored with the idea that prehistoric creatures are a part of 21st century life.

Most of them have died off. The scary ones are pretty much located in the equator, closest to their habitat 66 million years ago, before they went extinct. That area is now off limits to all humans.

But one thing we’ve learned from the previous films and from ancient Greek tragedies about hubris and from pretty much all of human history is that the greatest adaptive and the greatest self-destructive quality of human beings is that we just don’t like being told what we can’t do. And so, screenwriter David Koepp, who has been writing these films since the first one, faces his greatest challenge in trying to give the human characters a new reason to put themselves in danger by going back to the dinosaurs again, what Alfred Hitchcock called the MacGuffin (or Maguffin), the simplest possible explanation of what it is the heroes need to get or accomplish.

In this case, it’s….dino DNA. Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), the representative of a pharma company, approaches adventurer/soldier of fortune Zora (always-game Scarlett Johansson), whose specialty is getting people and objects into and out of places they are not supposed to be. For money. He tells her his company can make a revolutionary new medication that can forestall heart disease, adding as much as 20 years to people’s lives, if they can get samples of DNA from three of the largest dinosaurs, found only in the forbidden equator territory. It has to be taken from no more than 10 meters from the three biggest and they have to be alive because blah blah biology blah blah we need a reason for our characters to get into risk getting eaten situations. See: MacGuffin

Martin brings along a paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey, as magnetic and charming as he was in “Wicked,” even with an American accent).

Zora brings Martin to her long-time friend and colleague, the dashing Duncan (Mahershala Ali). He is the boat captain who will transport them, with his crew. Meanwhile, Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is out on his sailboat with two daughters and one’s boyfriend. Once we have had a chance to get to know them (cute little girl played by Audrina Miranda, useless teenage boyfriend played by David Iacono, for quasi comic relief and something of a redemption arc). The sailboat is toppled by a gigantic swimming dinosaur. Will our group in search of dino DNA take a detour to rescue them? Yes.

And then, what we came for: dinosaurs chasing (and eating) people. And, just to mix it up a bit, some people chasing dinosaurs. A sprinkle of humor (useless boyfriend), a touch of warmth (useless boyfriend becomes useful), a very brief detour into morality and some might say politics only because everything seems to be political these days, but mostly the aforementioned chasing. The actors do as well as possible to hold their own on screen opposite leviathans, benefitted by Ali’s rakish charm and core of integrity, Johansson’s toughness-with-a-heart portrayal of Zora as someone who has seen the worst of humanity and perhaps done some, too, but never became cynical, and Garcia-Rulfo as a wholeheartedly devoted to his daughters.

The dinosaurs are (still) hugely (in all senses of the word) impressive. The way they move, the weight that digital effects often fails to get right, the scale/size, all spectacular. The movie seems to lose track of the set-up at the beginning about a lab experimenting with cross-breeding and mutating dinosaurs, but so much is happening it is understandable. Perhaps they’re saving that for the next one. We’ll be there.

Parents should know that this is a very intense and scary movie with constant peril and some graphic and disturbing images. Characters, including a little girl, are in danger and many characters are eaten by dinosaurs. There are brief sexual references and a reference to weed.

Family discussion: If you knew you could cure a disease by taking a risk like this, would you do it? Do you agree with the decision made by Henry and Zora? What are the upsides and downsides?

If you like this, try: the previous “Jurassic” movies and Crichton’s book

Elio

Posted on June 19, 2025 at 2:35 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements and some action/peril
Profanity:	Mild schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril and references to violence and sad deaths of parents
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters and lessons about appreciating differences
Date Released to Theaters:	June 20, 2025
Date Released to DVD:	August 13, 2025

Pixar’s latest, “Elio,” has everything we love about Pixar, a heartwarming story with endless imagination, charm, and wisdom, about an endearing character and the fears and joys of being human. And yes, you will cry.

The title character is a young boy whose parents were killed in an accident, so he now lives with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña). She once dreamed of being an astronaut, but because of her responsibilities as Elio’s guardian she stays in her job tracking space debris for the military.

Characters from the Pixar movie Elio — Copyright 2025 Disney Pixar

We first see Elio (Yonas Kibreab) hiding under the table in a restaurant, traumatized by the loss of his parents, with a worried Olga trying to adjust to a child she refers to as her “new roommate.” A few years later, he is in middle school, awkward and lonely. He does not pay much attention to his classmates because he feels unwanted by anyone. Elio is convinced that he can do better somewhere else, so he wants to get as far from Earth as possible. So, he offers himself up to be abducted by aliens, first “communicating” by writing a message on the beach, but then taking a classmate’s ham radio, which leads to a scuffle. Elio’s eye is damaged and he has to wear a patch for a few weeks while it heals.

Olga sends him to camp, where the kids he got into trouble try to scare him. Trying to escape them, he ends up getting transported to space, a sort of floating intergalactic UN, with the leaders of many galaxies meeting in a heavenly “Communi-verse,” with translation disks and temperature and gravity adjustments for every possible kind of living being, a liquid version of Alexa/Siri to provide support, and a computer containing all of the knowledge of the universe that looks like a constant Anaconda card shuffle.

Elio, who has always felt out of place, instantly feels at home, even though the group is not seeing him for who he really is; they think he is the leader of Earth.

This is where the fabulous imaginations of the Pixar artists really get to have fun, with a dazzling array of creatures from a sort of floating cross between an undersea ray and a butterfly and the elegant but warm-hearted voice of Jemeela Jalil, to something apparently made out of stone to a professorial-looking insect to an entity with a screen for a face and shifting blobs to express its feelings. They are a kind and loving group, committed to open-mindedness and tolerance. Tolerance does not mean tolerating the intolerant, however.

Keeping out the intolerant has its risks. The angry Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett, just scary enough) is a warlord who attacks other civilizations. He is so angry at not being made a member of the Communi-verse that he plans to attack them and their planets.

Elio befriends Lord Grigon’s larvae/tardigrade looking son, another young creature who feels different. His names is Glordon (Remy Edgerly, with one of the best kid voices ever, up there with Flower in “Bambi” and Linus in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”). They agree to pretend that Glordon has been taken hostage to get Lord Grigon to back down. And then they send clones of themselves back “home” so they can stay together with the Communi-verse.

The clone versions of the two friends (voiced by the same two actors) give the film a chance to show that it is not easy to fool the people who know us well, and that even those who get frustrated trying to understand us and may push us to be different prefer us to be ourselves.

Elio and Glordon, like, I suspect, many of Pixar’s fabulously creative people, do not fit into the world easily. While Elio devotes himself to getting abducted, he never considers making friends on Earth. He is thoughtless in grabbing the ham radio from the boy who wants to join a club that Elio just made up to get the equipment. He lies to the Communi-verse. He develops a conlang (constructed language) instead of trying to communicate with his aunt.

The film shows us that fitting in with and feeling appreciated by the Communi-verse helps Elio think about who and what he overlooked at home, including his own feelings. Unique can sometimes feel lonely until we understand that everyone, even those who seem to have boundless confidence and fit in easily, experiences moments of loneliness, imposter syndrome, and despair. But like Elio and Glordon, we can find those who appreciate us for who we are as we learn to appreciate the vast array of difference around us.

Parents should know that this film includes a child whose parents were killed and feels their loss very deeply. There is peril and there are references to violence and some mild schoolyard language.

Family discussion: How do Olga and Lord Grigon know that the clones are not Elio and Glordon? Why is it easier for Elio to make friends in space than on Earth? How is the ending of this film like the recent “Lilo & Stitch?” Maybe try communicating by ham radio.

If you like this, try: “Inside Out” and “Turning Red”

Thunderbolts*

Posted on May 1, 2025 at 2:06 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for strong violence, language, thematic elements, and some suggestive and drug references
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug references
Violence/ Scariness:	Non-stop action-style peril and violence, child is killed, automatic weapons, military weapons, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, mental illness sympathetically portrayed
Date Released to Theaters:	May 2, 2025

I liked “Thunderbolts* (note the asterisk) a lot, but it will be divisive. Some people don’t want to delve into the mental health struggles of anyone, including a superhero or supervillain. They’re just there for the punches, powers, explosions, and special effects. But as I watched the film, I thought about how many superheroes experienced devastating trauma before gaining their powers and/or dedication to saving the world. Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed by a mugger when he was a child. Superman lost his family and his whole planet. Spidey was living with his aunt and uncle, so had already lost his parents before Uncle Ben was killed. Tony Stark had dad issues. Black Widow was trained to be a child assassin.

“Thunderbolts*” is a “Suicide Squad”/”Guardians of the Galaxy”-style superhero story about a group of damaged, distrustful loners with superpowers who have to do more than just band together for all the punching and explosions. They have to begin to heal themselves. And I am completely here for it, plus for finding out the meaning of the asterisk, which I enjoyed very much. And yes, you do need to stay all the way through the credits for a final scene that teases what’s coming next.

Before I get to the superheroes, I want to talk about the villain(s). I always say that it is the villains more than the heroes that matter most in a comic book movie (and in some other places as well, as Milton showed us in Paradise Lost). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is one of the all-time great villains as Valentina, the ultra-wealthy corporate CEO turned Director of the CIA (though with current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s streak of silver hair, just a coincidence, I’m sure). Some villains have great evil smiles. Louis-Dreyfus has a great social smile exuding the supreme confidence and power of the .001% while all-but-hiding the voracious all-consuming drive for power and utter disregard of the rights or value of anyone in her way.

We first see Yelena (Florence Pugh), still in mourning for her sister, Natasha (The Black Widow) and almost by rote working as an operative for Valentina. She is numb and lonely and lacks purpose. She tells Valentina she wants out, but agrees to one last job, in a remote lab where Valentina’s company once performed experiments, trying to find a formula to give superpowers to her subjects.

She ends up fighting Captain America (Wyatt Russell as John Walker), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and another super-character who doesn’t last long, before they figure out that they are all there for the same reason, to die, because they have become problems for Valentina. At this point, a guy who seems to be the opposite of super in any way wanders in wearing pajamas, with no memory of pretty much anything except his name. He is Bob (Lewis Pullman, in his second “just Bob” role after “Top Gun: Maverick”).

Yelena, John, and Ava do not trust each other, but the only way to stay alive is to work together. The escape works well in moving the plot and character development forward as well as being fun to watch. And that’s pretty much the vibe for the rest of the film.

Valentina thought her program to turn humans into supers failed, meaning they all died. But somehow Bob survived and that changes her plan. And the people she describes as “defective losers, anti-social tragedy in human form” may not have the cool powers and (mostly) good manners of the Avengers, but they are all struggling toward being something better. That means dealing with sad and scary feelings like loss and trauma, with the characters catapulted into immersive re-creations of their most painful moments. Will they finally find a way to become, a, what’s the word, team? The good news is that by the end of the film, we hope so.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for a mid-credit scene and a teaser at the end for what’s coming next.

Parents should know that this is a superhero movie with non-stop peril and action-style violence including automatic weapons and fantasy powers. Characters are injured and killed, including a child. Mental health and trauma are themes of the film. Characters use some strong language and there are drug references and alcohol.

Family discussion: What is the best way to discover your purpose? How did the childhood experiences of Yelena and Bob affect the way they saw themselves? How is Valentina different from other villains in superhero movies?

If you like this, try: “Guardians of the Galaxy” and the Avengers movies

Mickey 17

Posted on March 5, 2025 at 5:16 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violent content, language throughout, sexual content and drug material
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence with graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 7, 2025

You know how finicky printers are. Sometimes the printed paper comes out part way and then goes back a bit to do some more printing and comes out again. Sometimes you forget to put on the tray the paper lands on, and so it drops to the floor. It turns out that in the future, when someone develops a 3D printer that uses organic waste to print out people, actual human beings, those finicky printers do the same thing.

Mickey (an outstanding performance by Robert Pattinson) needed to leave the planet because a vicious loan shark who loves to watch the gruesome murders of those who haven’t paid on time was after him. The only way to jump to to head of a very long waiting list was to agree to be an “expendable.” He’s not very bright (see: in trouble with a vicious loan shark), so when he is repeatedly asked if he has read the contract he is signing, he says yes. That gets him a four-year-long trip to a new planet, where is job will be, basically, lab rat crossed with a crash test dummy. He is continually put in mortal danger until he dies, and then they print a new one of him out of that finicky printer. And sometimes they forget the paper tray, or I guess person tray, and he falls out onto the floor.

The new planet’s colony is run by an officious former politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo with some large teeth) and his wife, Yifa (Toni Collette). Kenneth is obsessed with the “purity” of the civilization on his new planet, and Yifa is obsessed with superficial indicators of elegance and grace. She constantly drapes herself over her husband and coos into his ears, except when she is creating exotic sauces for their luxurious meals, while the rest of the people they brought with them to build their new community are fed with slop and live in bare, dorm-like cells.

Even in this miserable situation, there are levels of status, and Mickey is at the bottom. With one exception, he is considered less than human because he keeps dying and getting re-printed. The exception is not his Earth friend Timo (Steven Yeun), the one who got him into all the trouble he had to leave the planet to escape. The exception is the beautiful and intelligent Nasha (Naomie Ackie), who is, somewhat improbably, devoted to him.

As the movie begins, before a flashback telling us how he got there, Mickey has died and been reprinted 17 times, thus the title. He is stuck in an icy crevasse and certain he is about to die again, from exposure or from being eaten by the planet’s indigenous inhabitants, who look. like giant combination tardigrades and caterpillars. But somehow he survives. Only everyone else assumed he had died again and the most severely punished crime has been committed: another Mickey has been printed while the last one is still alive. There are multiples.

Some of the resulting complications work better than others, but the movie comes together in a tight climax as the Marshalls go over the top and the Mickeys and Nasha have to save the day.

Director Bong Joon Ho continues the sly, dark humor and provocative commentary on class hierarchies, hypocrisy, and pervasive societal inequities he featured in “Parasite,” “Snowpiercer,” and “Okja.” More heightened than the Oscar-winning “Parasite,” this imagines the future consequences of arrogance, exceptionalism, and careless exploitation. The Marshalls are so caricatured they undermine the more nuanced elements of the story. The other characters’ understated, matter-of-fact acceptance of the outrageous abuse is far more powerful.

Parents should know that this film includes peril and graphic violence, with some disturbing images including a severed hand and bloody barfing, injuries and deaths. A character is repeatedly killed. There are sexual situations and explicit sexual references and drawings. Characters use very strong language.

Family discussion: What would make someone agree to be expendable? What did the Marshalls want their new world to be like? Why were they so affectionate to each other and so cruel to everyone else?

If you like this, try: “Snowpiercer,” “Okja,” “The Maze Runner,” and “The Hunger Games”

The Wild Robot

Posted on September 25, 2024 at 5:31 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, action, and peril
Profanity:	Some schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Sci-ff/cartoon style violence, shooting, off-screen deaths including death of a parent and a mentor
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	September 26, 2024

A plane delivering high-tech equipment flies into a storm and a crate falls out, landing on an island inhabited only by animals. Inside the crate is a super-intelligent, ultra-capable robot programmed to complete any task a human might require. The contrast between the natural world of the plants and animals and the metal and programming of the robot is the premise for this story, based on the book series by Peter Brown, told with humor and heart by specialist in “opposites attract” stories director Chris Sanders (“How to Train Your Dragon,” “Lilo & Stitch.”

On one side, fur, feathers, and scales. On the other side, metal and code. The robot, identified by the corporation that created it, is called ROZZUM unit 7134, is a kind of souped-up Swiss Army knife. One of the movie’s greatest pleasures is the way its infinitely adaptable parts and appendages are deployed. Nothing in the robot’s programming has prepared it for the island. But it is capable of learning and adjusting to its environment, so after failure to get a satisfying answer to questions like, “Are you my client?” and “Do you need assistance?” she (we will use that pronoun because the robot has the sweet voice of Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, takes the local next step. She sits down and observes her new environment to learn how to communicate with her fellow inhabitants, which enables us to hear what they have to say, thanks to the brilliant voice work of Pedro Pascal as a fox named Fink, Bill Nighy as a goose named Longneck, Ving Rhames as a falcon named Thunderbolt, Mark Hamill as a bear named Thorn, and Catherine O’Hara, hilarious as always, as Pinktail, a mother opossum covered with her babies.

Roz (as she will ultimately be called) could hardly be more poorly fashioned for this environment. It is funny to see her expect the animals to feel rewarded when she follows her programing by giving them stickers, promotional material for the company that made her, followed by a burst of confetti, even more out of place in the lush natural world than she does. The animals at first consider her a monster.

The early scenes about their unfitness for each other leads organically to interest, understanding, respect, and ultimately a very heartwarming sense of family. A turning point is Roz’s rescue of an orphaned goose egg, left alone after an accident and stolen by Fink for a meal. Roz does not understand what it means to care for the egg, and then, when it hatches and the little gosling imprints on Roz as its mother, she has a task at last: to teach the bird to eat, swim, and fly, so that it can be ready to migrate before it gets too cold. “I do not have the programming to be a mother,” Roz says. “No one does,” Pinktail correctly observes.

Roz develops what can only be described as feelings for the little goose, named Brightbill (Kit Connor). She loses some components and breaks down a bit, from pristine and shiny to scuffed and mossy, with a prosthetic calf made from a log.Is she mirroring what she sees around her? Is she creating the programming necessary to give a child a sense of security and the knowledge he is special to someone? Or is there some way for a machine to develop a soul? Or is it just a reflection of all of the damage to her mechanics? Possibly all of the above. But it is a smaller reach than one might think from being programmed to be of service to placing meaning and purpose on that imperative.

A lot more happens, including some parent-child estrangement (adolescents!) and a lot for Brightbill to learn from his fellow geese, as well as Fink becoming less “fox-y” and all of the animals learning to help each other. The action scenes are dynamic and involving but it is the gentleness of the lessons the characters learn about kindness that will make this film an endearing family favorite.

Parents should know that there is some sci-fi-style shooting. A character is killed off-screen sacrificing himself to save others and a character’s family is discreetly killed in an accident. Another character appears to have been eaten but is not. Characters use some schoolyard language.

Family discussion: What was the most important thing Roz learned and how did she learn it? If you had a Roz, what would you ask her to do? Do you think we will have machines like that?

If you like this, try: the books, and “The Iron Giant” and “Wall-E