Orlando Bloom's still working, just not in Jurassic World

When I saw the character Martin Krebs appear on screen in Jurassic World: Rebirth (review here), I thought "Boy is it nice to see Orlando Bloom on screen again!"

I was never a huge Bloom fan, but I always thought it was strange, and a little unwarranted, that he was unceremoniously ushered out of the spotlight during what should have been the prime of his career. I don't even remember the reason for it. Was he cancelled? Not that I recall. Did he stop being good? Not that I recall there either. 

The guy is only just now 48 years old. It's not like he hasn't been working, it's just that the projects have been almost exclusively what we would have once called "straight to video."

I mean, this was a guy who appeared in two of the iconic trilogies of the early 21st century, those being Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. At one point, he was among the highest grossing actors of all time in terms of the money made by his movies. Both of those trilogies had other future installments, and Bloom appeared in some of those too.

Then sometime around the end of the Hobbit trilogy, which is now 11 years ago, he just stopped appearing in high-profile movies, with only his appearance in 2017's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as a reprieve from that. But I don't even think that was a lead role, if memory serves. I believe it was a cameo.

The only problem with all these fond recollections of Orlando Bloom's career is that Jurassic World's Martin Krebs is not actually played by Orlando Bloom. He's played by Rupert Friend, which I didn't realize until the closing credits of Jurassic World: Rebirth. 

Easy mistake to make. I knew the internet would have a good picture of them side by side, so here it is:

Imagine my surprise, then, when the very next movie I would watch would actually feature Orlando Bloom.

That's Deep Cover, a new Amazon Prime movie I first clocked a few weeks back when it was being advertised as coming soon. I noticed Bryce Dallas Howard in it (more on her in a moment) but I didn't pay enough attention to identify her co-stars at the time.

But when Wednesday night rolled around, after I'd seen Jurassic World on Tuesday, that was the logical next movie up for me, and there was Orlando Bloom in the flesh. 

And killing it, to be honest, making me wonder again where he's been all our lives.

The movie has a pretty delightful premise, even if that premise comes to strain credibility a bit. What is the biggest problem faced by undercover cops who are trying to infiltrate a criminal organization? It's being able to stay in character the whole time, adapt to any changes, and supply credible information about their character at a moment's notice, in the highest stakes situations where a misstep could get them killed. There was a whole speech about it in Reservoir Dogs. 

Who best to do this sort of thing, then? How about improv comedians?

Bloom's character is actually coming in to improv as a desperate attempt to keep his career afloat. He envisions himself more as a serious actor, just a serious actor who has been failing to get any work outside of commercials. This leads to much hilarity, especially the way Bloom plays him: deep into the method and forever blind to his own practical limitations as a person who is not actually a gangster.

The whole movie works well overall, with an enjoyable third lead performance by Nick Mohammed of Ted Lasso fame, as the unconfident, stammering member of the trio most likely to lose face and get them killed. 

But let's get to that second lead: Bryce Dallas Howard. Who has also been on my mind this past week.

You may recall that I mentioned Howard also in connection with Jurassic World: Rebirth, when I was contrasting her with Scarlett Johansson in this post, since Johansson was effectively inheriting the lead female role from Howard in the Jurassic movies. I said I liked both actresses but that I respected Johansson while I did not particularly respect Howard. 

Well, lo and behold, Howard reminded me in Deep Cover that I respect her pretty well, too, and she's a lot more than just Ron's daughter. Perhaps I always knew that, but my goal in that post was to boost Johansson, so I had to have a straw man against whom to compare her. 

It's funny that Johansson and Friend would have scenes of pairing up with each other in Jurassic World and Howard and Bloom would have scenes of pairing up with each other in Deep Cover, kind of like alternate universe doppelgangers. 

Oh but we're not done with the actors in Deep Cover in terms of funny proximal viewings.

Two movies before I saw Deep Cover, I saw Heads of State. These are both genre movies, effectively both action comedies, released on Amazon Prime, and they both feature Paddy Considine in a villainous role. That may be the actor's specialty these days, but two in the same week underscored just how much that's the case. 

But wait there's one more, and this is entirely within Deep Cover, and it was surely intentional by the filmmakers. 

I mentioned Bloom's history in the Lord of the Rings movies. You know who else was also in those movies, at least the first one?

Sean Bean, who appears in Deep Cover as their liaison within the police force. 

If I don't use the word "coincidences," does this still count as another post about coincidences? (Oops, I just did.) 

What the hell is ScarJo doing in a lame-ass Jurassic World movie?

Take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.

There have been six movies in the Jurassic franchise -- or, three movies each in two separate Jurassic franchises, if you prefer -- and I have seen each one of them in the theater.

You can't say this for Pixar, as you discovered from my most recent post. You can't say this for James Bond, and of course you can't because I wasn't born when some of them came out, but I'm talking about even the recent ones. You can't say this for Mission: Impossible. You can't say this for a lot of series with a large quantity of movies in them.

And you won't be able to say this for the Jurassic movies anytime soon, because we already have plans to go see Jurassic World: Rebirth next week in the theater with our kids, during their school holidays. (By the way, does anyone have any concerns that there will now be more Jurassic World movies than there were Jurassic Park movies? Do we have to change the way we think about the whole franchise, or the two franchises in comparison to each other?)

But notwithstanding my own demonstrated sense of loyalty, I still think I can say that the Jurassic movies, generally speaking, are lame, and that I am ashamed at myself for continuing to think big-screen dinosaurs are going to knock my socks off like they've only done two times before.

If you want the God's honest truth, the one of these six movies I've enjoyed the most was the original Jurassic World. When I saw Jurassic Park in 1993, yes, I was wowed by the dinosaurs, but I left the movie feeling a little less toward it than I hoped and expected I would. The other four were mediocre to bad.

So I do believe I can say:

What the hell is Scarlett Johansson doing here?

Scarlett Johansson is an actress I respect unconditionally. She will probably never win an Oscar, but she always makes good choices and she always shows up, even in movies that ultimately proved not to be so good. In most cases -- maybe not all, but most -- they were still good choices that happened to turn bad.

Jurassic World: Rebirth is not a good choice.

Could it be a good movie? Sure it could. A lot of people out there seem to like director Gareth Edwards more than I do. He's helmed a Godzilla movie and a Star Wars movie. In many respects, he's the right man for the job.

But it's still a seventh movie in a series in which far more pedestrian actors than Scarlett Johansson had been plying their time.

Before I get the hate mail -- do people still send mail? -- I should rush to say that I don't find the trio from the original film, that being Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, to be pedestrian. Maybe none of them are out-and-out stars, but they are all compelling presences, and Jurassic Park would not be what it is without Goldblum inexplicably going around with his shirt off.

But when you move to the second trilogy, then you've got Chris Pratt, and Chris Pratt's charm has long since worn off, if you ask me. 

Maybe I'm letting some of the Hillsong Church stuff rub off on my perception of him on screen, and maybe that's not fair. But by year 15 or so of us knowing Pratt, and year 10 or so of him being a genuine movie star, we've all gotten one too many plucky animated characters and dumb heroes with their vacant charm to really find him fresh anymore.

Pratt's primary co-star in those movies was Bryce Dallas Howard, who I do like, but who I find to be an actress who has gotten a toe in the door through nepotism and then found just enough charm to keep that door open, though not enough to really earn my respect.

I respect the hell out of Scarlett Johansson. I do not respect this choice. No way she should be taking Pratt's and Howard's sloppy seconds.

But you know what else just happened to Scarlett Johansson? And by "just" I mean in November?

She turned 40. And I think, as much as it pains me to say it, that milestone may have pushed her into "career maintenance mode."

Johansson has such a hold on our affections, and still our prurient desires, that it may be hard to believe she's about to see a major change in the types of roles for which she can be/should be cast. But Hollywood rarely makes exceptions. Women over 40 have it tough.

I'm hoping that I'll go to see Jurassic World: Rebirth next week and it'll be incredibly fun, and that it'll seem like another win for ScarJo.

I'm worried, though, that it will not, and that our days of having Scarlett Johansson top our marquees may be dwindling.