No Escape / **½ (R)

Jack Dwyer: Owen Wilson

Annie Dwyer: Lake Bell

Lucy Dwyer: Sterling Jerins

Beeze Dwyer: Claire Geare

Hammond: Pierce Brosnan

Kenny Roger: Sahajak Boonthanakit

The Weinstein Company presents a movie directed by John Erick Dowdle. Written by John Erick Dowdle & Drew Dowdle. Running time: 103 min. Rated R (for strong violence including a sexual assault, and for language).

“No Escape” is somewhat of an anomaly in today’s movie market. It’s a throwback to the films of the 70s in the way it doesn’t adhere to the current politics about making movies. It’s an original story, a thriller that doesn’t draw from a “true story” about actual people who live through an actual harrowing world event. It involves a fairly big name Hollywood actor working well outside of the genre stereotypes and the niche he’s built for himself. And, it’s the first foray outside the horror genre by its writing/directing team, the Brothers Dowdle.

That’s not to say it’s above pandering to its audience with Hollywood cliché. In fact, the screenplay is the major drawback of this otherwise fairly well-made film. It doesn’t have the grit and grime of a 70s screenplay, even though it should. It handles its audience with kid gloves and its characters as archetypes, missing out on that real-life feel this story deserves. Yet, it’s still somewhat refreshing to see a movie that isn’t rooted in some sort of comic book or well-established film franchise after the Summer of the Sequel/Reboot that we all just endured. I wasn’t all that displeased with most of the franchise entries this summer, but there’s something of a relief that comes with watching a film that has all of its story and mythology contained within its individual running time.

Jurassic World / *** (PG-13)

Owen: Chris Pratt

Claire: Bryce Dallas Howard

Gray: Ty Simpkins

Zach: Nick Robinson

Hoskins: Vincent D’Onofrio

Simon Masrani: Irrfan Khan

Lowery: Jake Johnson

Vivian: Lauren Lapkus

Barry: Omar Sy

Dr. Henry Wu: B.D. Wong

Universal Pictures presents a film directed by Colin Trevorrow. Written by Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Colin Trevorrow & Derek Connelly, Based on concepts created by Michael Crichton. Running time: 124 min. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of science fiction violence and peril).

The whole concept behind Hollywood sequel making is counter to the notion of criticism. While a critic tries to guide and educate an audience on what will entertain and enlighten them, the purpose of a sequel is generally to make money off of fulfilling an expectation of the exact same approach to the exact same effect as the previous—or best—film in a franchise. So it is left to the critic to merely report whether the filmmakers have achieved a repeated effect or have failed. When you get a tent pole film like “Jurassic Park” that is filled with spectacle and thoughts, it becomes problematic for the studios, which inexplicably feel the need to reproduce the spectacle but rarely the insight.

Spectacle minus the insight was certainly the problem with the previous two movies in the “Jurassic” franchise. In fact, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and “Jurassic Park III” were so lacking in any sort of science fiction themes and insight that the latest in the series—the long-awaited reboot “Jurassic World”—totally ignores the existence of the second and third films. In doing so it returns the story to the roots of its science fiction foundation. Once again the characters are dealing with the themes of the original film about the dangers of playing God with science, the impossibility of containing nature and even some new ideas about the need of some humans to push every scientific development toward weaponization.

Straight Outta Compton / *** (R)

O’Shea “Ice-Cube” Jackson: O’Shea Jackson, Jr.

Andre “Dr. Dre” Young: Corey Hawkins

Eric “Eazy-E” Wright: Jason Mitchell

Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby: Neil Brown, Jr.

Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson: Aldis Hodge

Tracy “The D.O.C.” Curry: Marion Yates, Jr.

Suge Knight: R. Marcos Taylor

Tomica: Carra Patterson

Kim: Alexandra Shipp

Jerry Heller: Paul Giamatti

Universal Pictures presents a film directed by F. Gary Gray. Written by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff and S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus. Running time: 147 min. Rated R (for language throughout, strong sexuality/nudity, violence and drug use).

Despite the conservative political push of the 80’s lead by the Reagan White House, that decade was a particularly progressive time in which to grow up. As a child of the 80’s, I was heavily influenced by pop culture and heavily invested in the politics centered around it, more so than I even realized at the time. Tipper Gore’s heralding of the Parental Advisory label that was adopted by the recording industry seemed a tumultuous event in the eyes of a wide-eyed, music-obsessed prepubescent. Later, the banning of 2 Live Crew’s controversial “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” album was a neon sign of the times that most certainly were a-changin’ despite the wishes and desires of the conservative right. In the middle of all of this, heading the charge was a rap group from Compton, California that managed to bridge the gap between many of our diverse cultures in this country by introducing, not just the black community to gangsta rap, but the entire country with their debut album “Straight Outta Compton”.

Sadly, almost 30 years after N.W.A’s seminal album began the tide of change by exposing to the world what much of the black experience in America was like, we still find ourselves struggling with the same issues of misunderstanding the racial divide and dealing with the same issues of racism that were at the heart of what inspired those musicians at that time. Perhaps it is fitting then that now is the time that we finally get to see a movie chronicling the struggles of those musicians in a film that shares its name with their debut album. “Straight Outta Compton” brings to fruition many years of work by the two most successful members of that group, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, to bring their story to the silver screen. As such, it doesn’t seem the harshest examination by the men it is mostly about, but it is an intriguing and entertaining document on one of the most influential bands in modern music.