REVIEW: Jurassic World

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that Jurassic World was easily one of my most anticipated movies of 2015. As excited as I was, I did my best to keep my expectations in check; the Jurassic Park franchise isn't exactly famous for the quality of its sequels and even The Phantom Menace had a promising advertising campaign. As excited as I was to return to Isla Nublar, I was well aware that this could easily turn out to be yet another terrible, mindless excuse to have a bunch of dinosaurs fight and eat people. I sat in my seat, the house lights dimmed, and I didn't stop smiling for the entire two hour runtime. At long last, we are given a film worthy of being considered a follow-up to Jurassic Park.

The film opens with brothers Zach and Gray (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) being sent off to the titular theme park to visit their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) while their parents work out a divorce back home. In the 22 years since the original Isla Nublar incident, John Hammond has died and his company has fallen under the control of one Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan, who is a naive delight); Masrani has managed to fulfill Hammond's original vision of opening a functioning dinosaur theme park to delight children of all ages. The park has thrived since the early 2000's, supporting crowds of over twenty-thousand people a day. While it was astounding at first, the novelty of Jurassic World has begun to wear off; a new attraction is needed to increase park attendance. Enter the Indominus Rex, a genetic hybrid of a good dozen different dinosaurs and animals, designed to be the nastiest, scariest thing on the island by a country mile. As the park's operations manager, Claire brings in Owen Grady (a scruffy raptor-tamer played by Chris Pratt) to inspect the monster's paddock. As one would expect, karma befalls those who tinker in God's domain and the beast escapes during the inspection, wreaking unimaginable havok on the island full of families and tourists.

Story-wise, it's the next logical step for the Jurassic Park franchise, as well as a not-so-subtle metaphor for the moviegoing public; over the years, we've become so accustomed to seeing revolutionary special effects in summer blockbusters that studios feel the need to indulge in mindless excess without putting any thought into their product. While I appreciate this message, I find it a bit ironic that Jurassic World, of all things, is the movie presenting this metaphor. This is the biggest, most bombastic Park movie yet. We have dinosaurs eating people, dinosaurs eating each other, dinosaurs fighting each other AND people at the same time, dinosaurs teaming up to eat people and THEN fight other dinosaurs; if it wasn't so well-paced, it would honestly be totally overwhelming. I feel as though I should mention, this movie does go to some out-there places. If you can accept a theme park full of genetically cloned dinosaurs born from DNA found in fossilized mosquitoes, you should be able to accept everything else that happens in this film, but it definitely toes the line of straight-up silliness. A good litmus test can be found hanging on the wall of your local theater; if you can look at the poster of Chris Pratt riding a motorcycle alongside his gaggle of raptor pals and still feel unironic excitement for this movie, then everything will work out swimmingly for you. If not, then I'd suggest you temper your expectations. I personally loved it; that said, I can totally understand someone thinking this is the goofiest movie of the year.

The movie has all the elements of a total schlock-fest; whether or not they're visible depends on the mindset of the viewer. If you're looking to see a bunch of cool-looking dinosaurs tear each other apart amidst the backdrop of a tropical theme park, you're going to get just that. If you're looking for suspense and thematic elements like those found in the first movie, you'll find those as well. However, the two elements don't blend quite as well as in the original feature. There's interesting commentary on themes such as isolation, genetically-modified organisms, paramilitary organizations, maternal instincts, pack mentalities, and animal rights, but none of this subtext is really present during the action. If there's something interesting happening with the characters, there's a good chance there's no dino-carnage happening onscreen (and vise-versa). 

The most interesting facet of the film was easily the Indominus Rex; we see it hatch in the beginning of the film, twitchy and terrified, as if it knows within a second of being alive that it's an abomination. The staff of Jurassic World proceed to keep their new attraction under-wraps, raising it in total seclusion until it is fully-grown. The way that the filmmakers accomplish in making this thing legitimately terrifying is probably the film's greatest strength; before we even get a good look at it, we get to watch Owen's incredulous assessment of its environment. It's spent its entire life alone, the only other living things its come in contact with are its sibling (which it apparently ate) and its feeders (who have long since been replaced with a meat-laden crane). It's a powerful, intelligent beast that has been alone literally its entire life; an outcast from nature itself who suddenly escapes into an island full of creatures who are not only fundamentally different, but objectively weaker to boot. As silly as it may sound on paper, you really get the feeling that this thing is insane; it's huge, powerful, and unpredictable, which makes for a truly terrifying combo. One of the key aspects of any kind of monster flick is ensuring that the threat is legitimate without dumbing down the protagonists; while the film ticks the first box with aplomb, it's the second part that gives us some trouble. The thing that made the first Jurassic Park so good is that the actions of the protagonists felt natural; any stupid mistake they made could be easily explained in the context of their situation. Here, the people trying to contain this rampaging Murdersaurus (including the Asset Containment Unit, led by Vic Hoskins, played by Vincent D'Onofrio) are just a little bit too incompetent to come off as totally believable.

The cast all play their parts well, but there isn't really a standout among them. Howard and Pratt make for good protagonists, Irrfan Khan is delightful as Masrani, Robinson and Simpkins aren't horribly annoying, but I'd be surprised if anyone here was remembered exclusively for their role in this movie. The closest thing to human standouts would probably be Lauren Lapkus and Jake Johnson, playing Jurassic World employees who operate the park's massive command center. They've got great chemistry and their scenes are some of the most enjoyable in the movie. Vincent D'Onofrio is fine as the brash, ignorant Hoskins, even though he falls into the same old stock "military guy who wants to harness the power of thing" stereotype. B.D. Wong returns as geneticist Henry Wu, playing the character as much more of an egotistical schemer than before. Honestly, the majority of the cast is comprised of flat characters. Sure, Chris Pratt's Owen is cool and enjoyable to watch, but he's completely static throughout. The only characters with anything close to an arc are Claire and Zach (the latter of whom doesn't have nearly enough screentime to explore his development from angsty teen to caring older brother); no one is particularly bad, but no one is particularly amazing either. However, I can only apply that to the human element of the cast; my favorite characters by far came in the form of Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, the four velociraptors whom Chris Pratt is attempting to train. Before this film, the velociraptors were the snarling, scheming slasher villains to the T-Rex's lumbering brute; here, they're somewhat domesticated without completely losing their teeth. Their relationship with Owen is one of the best parts of this movie; by the end of it all, you really feel for the raptors as animals, rather than just as the shrieking predators they usually portray. This particular example highlights what I find to be Jurassic World's greatest strength; it's something new. It works off of the elements presented by the previous films and gives us something fun and original, made with care and reverence for that original groundwork. In a world of cynical cash-grabs, Jurassic World is anything but.

I found Jurassic World to be a rollicking good time from beginning to end. It indulged my inner-child without devolving into an uninspired exploitation of nostalgia, a very easy pitfall for a film like this to fall into. While it can get a little ridiculous at times, it still maintains a certain level of substance that I feel keeps this movie from becoming yet another insipid summer blockbuster. It's not as good as Jurassic Park, but it's certainly a worthy follow-up in addition to just being loads of fun. If you've got the time, hit up your local cinema and take a trip back to Isla Nublar, preferably with a good, receptive audience.