I’ll get the bad news out of the way first: Gone Girl is NOT as good as Jurassic Park. It’s still pretty good, though? Definitely go see it; I just don’t want you to walk in the theater like, “This is gonna be better than Jurassic Park” cause it isn’t.

Much like Jurassic Park, Gone Girl is based on a book. Sadly, this is where the similarities between the films stop entirely. David Fincher’s Gone Girl is a movie about Ben Affleck (a human) and his missing, possibly dead wife (also a human — there’s actually ONLY humans in this). She disappears one day and, as an audience member, you’re like, “Well, where is she? Did a dinosaur take her?” I don’t wanna give away too much of the plot but, no. Again, dinosaurs actually aren’t in this movie at all. Possibly there’s a deleted scene with one but it definitely didn’t make the final cut. So the mystery (aside from “Um, what the hell?!”) is who took Gone Girl? She basically leaves without a trace except for some blood in the kitchen. So this is when you’re like, “Ohhhh OK they’re gonna clone her and make an amusement park…” Wrong again! This is a movie that definitely keeps you guessing.

So anyways Ben Affleck starts working with the police and slowly you begin to feel like maybe there’s something he’s not telling us. Is this guy an Alan Grant or is he a Dennis Nedry? Maybe he really knows where she is after all? Around this point in the movie you’ll whisper to the person next to you, “Oooohhh … I bet she’s stuck in some amber…” And for the next two hours you’ll be so positive you’re correct you almost just leave the theater cause you’ve already solved the case. But that’s where the screenwriter gets you!! As an interesting (but not entirely successful) artistic choice, there’s no cloning to make amusement parks at all. In fact, DNA is barely even mentioned in the whole film. In this case DNA just stands for “Dinosaurs Not Around.”

Around hour two is when you start to get confused. “We’re 120 minutes into the film and they haven’t even reached the island yet…” BUT THAT’S CAUSE THERE IS NO ISLAND. Maybe it was a budgetary thing? Whatever the reason, the entire fucking movie takes place in America. And, I’m sorry, but it’s just tough to focus knowing this movie was made in 2014, over two decades after we got the technology to put dinosaurs in films. I don’t know if it was out of laziness or maybe he had a death in the family or what, but director David Fincher didn’t take advantage of this technology at all. Like remember in Jurassic Park where they lowered the cow into the velocipator’s cage and he gets like fucking DESTROYED?! That scene is the shit but Fincher has no interest in putting something like that in his film. If this was Steven Spielberg’s Gone Girl, it would have ended with Ben Affleck and Gone Girl riding a triceratops off into the sunset. I guess he was too busy.

So anyways blah blah blah eventually you find out what did / didn’t happen to this chick. And credit where credit’s due — it’s a pretty good ending. So you’re like “Alright, whatever. This movie was fine. I’m definitely not mad I’m just disappointed.” And against your better judgment you stick around till after the credits to see if maybe there’s a bonus scene where Ben Affleck, as Batman, fights a T. Rex but there isn’t. And then you wait another 20 minutes while the ushers clean up the popcorn you threw out of frustration and think, “Maybe it’s still coming and we just really have to work for it.” But it doesn’t. The movie just starts over again.

On a scale of 1–10, I give this movie a … I don’t know … a 5? Go check it out but remember Gone Girl is definitely no “Clever Girl.” (5/10)