Indoraptor kills it in ‘Jurassic World’
Hybrid dino ratchets up the park’s fear factor
T. rex, you’re all teeth, no arms. Velociraptor, step aside. There’s a new dino-monster stomping into “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.”
Beware of the Indoraptor, the supervillainous hybrid dinosaur created as the ultimate war machine in “Fallen Kingdom” (in theaters Friday). It even out-beasts the genetically created Indominus rex from 2015’s “Jurassic World.”
The Indoraptor takes its brutal genes from Velociraptor and Indominus rex (among others), making it 10 feet (from claw to cranium) of unleashed terror that emerges fully in the film’s second half.
“This is the dinosaur that breaks out as the star of the show,” director J.A. Bayona says. With his fictional creature, “we wanted to create a memorable character and liked the idea that, bit by bit, we discover something has been cooking in the shadows. That’s Indoraptor.”
The savage creature is concocted in Dr. Wu’s (B.D. Wong) secret dinosaur laboratory for maximum teeth, lengthy arms and killer claws. It’s a little unhinged and twitchy, as it’s brought out for sale to the highestbidding warlord before all the genetic kinks can be worked out in “Fallen Kingdom.”
But unstable only adds to the allure as it tangles with stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Bayona asked the visual effects team at Industrial Light & Magic to reflect the dinosaur genetic input. But he added references such as Boris Karloff ’s classic Frankenstein to the mix.
“We wanted the dinosaur to have the mood of a rejected creature. I thought about the terrifying sadness of Frankenstein,” says Bayona, who also requested references to mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals. “We wanted to bring the kind of shakes they have with their bodies from the illness for the Indoraptor.”
The creature is especially potent in small settings, with the film’s second half set in a mansion in pursuit of a terrified young girl, Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). The monster creeps up walls and into her bedroom, eliciting fear from the cowering Maisie by tapping its claws.
“That tapping on the floor is scarier than anything in that setting,” Bayona says. “And when you see him in the dark,
series “Hatfields & McCoys,” who shoots a man in the back. (Costner insisted on the plot, against the objections of producers.)
“I had to put my foot down and say ‘This is good for my character,’ because you understand, if you can look beyond that moment, why that may have happened,” he says of that Emmy-winning portrayal.
Costner’s iconic Western heroes, as well as those played by Clint Eastwood, influenced creator and director Taylor Sheridan (“Wind River”), who credits Costner’s Oscar-winning “Wolves” with reviving the genre.
“We were entering an era where the Western had sort of died … and ‘Dances With Wolves’ relaunched the genre, and reinvented it to a degree,” Sheridan says.
It was Costner’s strong moral presence, however, that made the actor indispensable.
“Occasionally, you create a character and a world, and it can only be populated by one person,” Sheridan says. “There’s an internal strength in him that even when he’s doing something bad, you believe he’s doing it for reasons that are right to him.
“He has an internal moral compass that may or may not be aligned with what is legal. He helps me make an audience question who they’re rooting for, or why they’re rooting for someone doing things they don’t agree with.”
When asked whether viewers should root for Dutton, Costner reframes the question.
“I need to root for myself. I need to understand why I’m doing things. I need to have my own level of doubt,” Costner says. “There are a lot of us that come off really certain, and then we close the door behind us and go, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ ”
Costner has a reverence for Westerns, citing John Ford classics (“The Searchers,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” and “Fort Apache”) as favorites, along with George Stevens’ 1953 classic “Shane.”
Costner doesn’t see a connection be- tween “Yellowstone” and his own Westerns, other than in quality, but there’s a bond from filming in the great outdoors.
“You can do a courtroom drama or wake up and look at the Continental Divide. You can look at being the same valley that Lewis and Clark went down and close your eyes and understand that probably at one time you’re standing in the Garden of Eden, says Costner, who has a 160-acre ranch in Colorado. “I moved my trailer out of base camp … to this little stream. I’m really happy with that environment.”
Although he grew up in Southern California, the actor/director says he has always imagined living the outdoors life. He’s an “OK” horseback rider but has developed the skills needed to portray a rancher or a baseball player, as he did in “Bull Durham” and “For Love of the Game.”
“If you can’t throw a ball, you can’t do a baseball movie. You can’t out-act something you can’t do when it comes to athleticism,” he says. “There’s a certain ballet that’s so obvious, and when you’re on a horse, it’s the same thing.”