Dinosaurs tap into that part of your child that never left. They trigger giddy guttural reactions with each T-Rex, raptor, or now, Indominus Rex that shows itself onscreen. Jurassic World adheres to Steven Spielberg’s established formula to make it easy for the audience to time travel back to 1993, and even though the novelty is gone, seeing a dinosaur on the big screen is still pretty cool.
Jurassic World – the theme park – is slowly dropping in attendance. To spice things up, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park’s PR director, tries to drum up investors to fund genetic research for new dinosaur engineering, in hopes to curry favor with the park owner (Irrfan Khan). One of the beneficiaries is military man Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his star pupil Owen (Chris Pratt), who are training military use dinosaurs. Claire’s and Owen’s job gets significantly harder when the newest dinosaur, the man-made isolated Indominus Rex, uses its engineering to escape, conveniently on the day Claire’s 2 nephews (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) are visiting their aunt.
Michael Crichton proved that there are multiple ways to tell stories about dinosaurs. It would have been nice to see Colin Trevorrow put ANY new spin on the story, but he clearly feels Speilberg’s 1993 version is the best one, so why change it? Cute kids who turn out to be surprisingly resourceful? Love it. Cheesy philosophizing about control over nature? Even better. Profits over security debates? Icing. Unfortunately, Trevorrow has to contend with Spielberg’s classic and 2 sequels worth of material, and this story feels like filler until we get a new dinosaur interaction. The plot twists can be seen by anyone not comatose (the MILITARY weaponizes animals?) , and worst of all, Jurassic World lacks the abject fear that made Jurassic Park so exciting. Each boo moment was repeated from other films, or lacks the correct atmosphere to drench the audience in dread.
What Trevorrow does add is more dinosaur on dinosaur action. The first hour establishes the strengths and weaknesses of each dinosaur in the game, including an aqua based highlight. When the park eventually goes to hell, then Trevorrow lets the CGI shine. There are attacks from the sea, attacks from the sea, chameleon attacks, raptor hunting: basically fanboy service for a decade of no dinosaurs. I’ll give the director credit though, he saves his best stuff for the final act, especially the final battle. By the end, it had me going full Keanu Reeves with an elongated WHOA. It almost made the tensionless first hour slog worth it for that last 15 minutes of dinosaur battling.
One of Jurassic World’s bigger disservices is to its actors, who are playing razor thin stock photo versions of themselves. Chris Pratt is forced to play Owen with ironclad stoicism, even when he’s telling a joke. What’s the point of hiring Pratt if he can’t be a little goofy? They should’ve hired Chris Hemsworth instead, he fits the role better. Bryce Dallas Howard is actually the real star of this film. Howard in general is best when used in supporting roles, and she does nothing here to earn her sizable paycheck. No one really leaves a lasting impression except BD Wong, reprising his role from the original Jurassic Park. But his screentime is minimal at best. Most of the cast’s failures have to do with a very bland script shared by 4 writers who lacked the resolve to make anyone but the dinosaurs interesting.
Your 10 year old son, nephew, niece, daughter, etc will love Jurassic World. If they can get through the first hour, the dinosaurs will more than keep their attention for the final one, and force you buy dino toys to feed your kid’s interest. One thing you won’t buy: Bryce Dallas Howard outrunning a T-Rex with a 20 ft head start in high heels for half a mile. By far the biggest laugh in the film.