Review of Jurassic World (2015) by Dobian — 21 Jun 2015

Let me start with the good. There are some very nice nods to the original Jurassic Park in this film. The statue of Hammond, the return of B.D. Wong as the geneticist behind these creations, and most notably the two boys in the film discovering the original visitor center from Jurassic Park now covered in jungle growth. They even find the original jeeps in the garage. There's also a moment where Claire uses a flair just like Alan and Ian do in the first movie. The park itself looks really cool and is obviously modeled after Disneyland with Main Street leading up to the pyramid-shaped main center. The dinosaurs look great and there is plenty of good dino action in the movie to keep you entertained.

Now for the bad. First, a big missed opportunity I thought in that when I first saw Claire in the film I thought she might just be Lex from the original, all grown up and now running the park her grandfather dreamed of building. Since I had temporarily forgotten Lex's name, I thought Claire might be her, and was disappointed when it wasn't. That would have been a great tie-in, even with her being played by a different actress. The character would then have been very aware of the dangers and pitfalls associated with this park based on her own childhood experience, which would have led to some much more intelligent dialogue and story development. Instead we get a park manager who is a corporate cliche and spends much of the movie being totally clueless to the growing threat to the visitors, when she isn't engaged in her preteen-level flirting with Chris Pratt's character.

I'll refrain from giving spoilers other than to say that the story and plot developments are preposterously stupid. When you look at the timeline for this park, we know that as of 2001 (Jurassic Park III) both islands were still off-limits. Factor in the several years it would have taken to get this park fully realized and it couldn't be more than five years old at the start of this movie. Yet one of the major premises is that the public has already gotten bored with dinosaurs so they need to start making super dino monstrosities to keep them entertained and coming back to the park. Really? Toss in a lunatic military contractor who I am assuming wants to drop lots of velociraptors on the Middle East, animal behavior that defies belief, outrunning a T-Rex while in high heels, and a final dinosaur battle that resembles a Godzilla movie (I was expecting Mothra to drop into the melee), and you have a big pile of dino droppings.

The movie is fun enough as an amusement park thrill ride, just don't expect the character depth, narrative excellence, or sense of wonder and adventure of the original.