Title: Jurassic World
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson
Nothing can prepare you for the way Jurassic World will have you fighting with yourself over what you love and hate about it. There are first looks for franchise movies that haven’t been released yet which already have fans preemptively disliking it but that wasn’t the case with Jurassic World, a movie which was overall met with welcome anticipation. Colin Trevorrow, an indie director coming off a gem of an original film and starring Chris Pratt with his charisma riding alongside cool raptors. Even the amazing film site marketed the picture as our wildest dreams come true and a place we were finally going to.
Jurassic World. What could go wrong?
You know aside from the obvious inevitable Dino escape which prompts every movie. See and that’s the thing…in Jurassic Park you have the prototype of this destination being tried out by an ensemble of dynamic characters with reasons to be there. They were people with minds and compelling relationships which made you care about them being in danger. There was a moral to the story that with the subsequent films has been whittled down and turned it into a disaster franchise even in well intentioned hands of Trevorrow.
Yes, he built a place we wanted to see, we got the action and bigger badder monsters but attention seemed to be given more to those things over depth. It just goes to show that fast tracked returns to beloved franchises are going to be problematic even with the best talent attached. The action is awe-inspiring, the scope of the park is exciting especially to Giacchino’s top notch score, the dinosaurs sell you on not caring if they breakout and when they do the horror is thrilling yet subtle enough for the rating. Kids will be scared like you were when you were their age.
One huge problem: you don’t care about anyone in the movie. Much like most disaster movies being made now, the effort goes into set pieces and the catastrophe sequences with one dimensional characters and little story. The film is supposed to center around Bryce Dallas Howard’s character Claire who runs the park and is trying to keep investors and attendees happy with a new spliced beast the Indominus-Rex. She’s the one note career woman who can’t human or function outside of work. The film takes place when her nephews come to visit her and she just dumps them on her ‘hot’ and also incapable of human interaction assistant. Claire gets caught up with questions being raised over if the I-Rex is safe for attraction opening and has to consult with Pratt’s Owen Grady, a dinosaur whisperer and intended lady whisperer in the film. Pratt is pretty much his likeable self in the film except for the parts where his character derides Claire over her inability to make a connection with people. Their chemistry feels forced and crammed into their call to action when the I-Rex breaks out and her nephews are in danger. Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson play the kids in this one and while both have some fun moments as brothers which include one of the most nostalgic (and tear inducing) moments in the movie, they also suffer from feeling more like vehicles to take you there than characters. Jake Johnson, one of the few likable characters is probably so because he feels like an extension of the fan more so than cause we actually care about him keeping his job after he jinxes the place by wearing an original park shirt. A jinx that of course is pointed out by Claire because she can’t have fun or live a little until she really, really has to in one of the film’s big final moments. The only strong female characters in this movie are the dinosaurs and it’s a shame that they’re the only memorable parts of it that make you wish you loved the film more.
It’s going to take more re-watching to see if there is more to Jurassic World that can redeem it, maybe something we missed or if we’re just going to try to convince ourselves it’s good for the sake of the nostalgia of our inner child.
Technical: A
Acting: B
Story: D
Overall: C