(USA, 124 min.)
Dir. Colin Trevorrow, Writ. Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver and Colin Trevorrow
& Derek Connolly
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson,
Ty Simpkins, Vincent D’Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Judy Greer.
Jurassic World
makes the dinosaurs bigger, louder, meaner, and scarier, but it doesn’t make
them better. Park jumped the shark
with the third Jurassic movie, and
this fourth installment arguably returns the franchise to a respectable-enough
level, yet the magic of the Jurassic
world is gone. The loss is ironic, since the gist of Jurassic World is that audiences don’t find dinosaurs very exciting,
so their scientists and corporate stiffs need to amp up the crazy and unleash a
new monster upon the masses every now and then. The idea follows the same
business plan: give an old film an extra shot of adrenaline, a lot of obvious product
placement, and some more CGI, and audiences flock to the theatre like kids
seeing a new dino. Jurassic World goes
Godzilla the fourth time around as it
roars and bares its teeth: if only the scientists behind the genetic engineering
gave it a bigger brain.
Jurassic World revisits the world of Jurassic Park with the standard franchise formula of bringing new characters to the old location and having them follow a similar plot that gives audiences familiar twists while throwing in new surprises. The visual awe returns as the dinosaurs are more detailed and fierce than ever before, and the young boys on the trip, brothers Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), carry themselves with far more composure than most little kids would while seeing a movie with so many scares. World is arguably the most adult Jurassic jet in terms of the scare factor.
The film nevertheless has a clear family-friendly appeal
with a cheesy intro that sees mom (Judy Greer) say good-bye to the kids and
wish them luck on a trip with their aunt. Said aunt is Claire (Bryce Dallas
Howard aka Two-Slice Hilly), an uptight career-woman who oversees the operations of the park,
which has been rebranded Jurassic World to let customers and investors know
that this is a bigger, better and safer park. Claire says ‘hello’ and sticks
the kids with her assistant and the two brother go gallivanting around the
island while Claire tends to Jurassic World’s latest attraction: a T-Rex hybrid
called ‘Indominus Rex’, which has a mean disposition from the start.
Jurassic World
itself has a mean disposition, which sets it apart from the franchise’s
Spielberg days. This time, the action carries a mean-spiritedness in place of
the sense of wonder and awe that makes the first Jurassic Park such a marvel. As Indominus Rex stomps around the
park à la Godzilla and other dinosaurs join in and kill every human in sight, Jurassic World plays out like cruel blood
sport. The script essentially introduces characters with varying degrees of
unlikability and primes audiences to wait and see the baddies get their just
desserts. One particularly brutal death featuring pterodactyls and the big
mosasauras is especially off-putting: the sequence teases out the bloody end of
a relatively minor character with tasteless glee. Jurassic Park has death, destruction, and violence, but this
action is different. It plays like blood lust. Death is the object of the film,
not an obstacle in its greater adventure on the right to create life and play
god.
The spirit of the film is different, too, without any
prominent franchise originals like Sam Neill, Laura Dern, or Jeff Goldblum.
Chris Pratt makes for a likable placebo for Neill’s Alan Grant, and Howard is
fine in her action turn with one of the most inconsistently written characters
of all time, as are Omar Sy (The
Intouchables) and Irrfan Khan (The Lunchbox) in small roles as park staff. Jurassic
has big footprints to fill after the T-Rex stomped so strongly the first
time, and this return simply doesn’t deliver anything but lesser, if
serviceable, attempts to cash in on the original’s appeal.
Jurassic World undeniably
entrains as full throttle idiocy while the kids evade the big bad Indominus Rex
and Two-Slice Hilly runs around the jungle in the sturdiest pair of high heels
known to man. The sight of Howard running around and dodging a fifty-foot Rex without
even stumbling in her heels frequently reveals just how silly Jurassic World is, as do the countless
blunders by candidates for the Darwin Awards as dumb people go face to face
with velociraptors, etc. and meet bloody ends. Director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) doesn’t have the
same hold on the scope and tone of Jurassic
Park as pre-War Horse Spielberg
does, but the VFX team rises to the challenge with some spectacular dinosaurs
that provide big screen thrills.
The film only really lives up to the magic of the original Jurassic Park when it lets the big bad
T-Rex stomp out of his cage for the grand finale. This dinosaur isn’t a stone
cold killer just because he’s a carnivore, and the triumphant return of the
T-Rex brings a silly dino-to-dino showdown that’s bound to make audiences roar.
Jurassic World is bigger, louder, meaner, and
sillier than any of the Jurassic
movies that have come before it, which is exactly what the sequel scientists in
Hollywood engineered.
Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Jurassic World is
now playing in wide release.
