Jurassic World

Twenty or so years ago Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) refused to endorse Dr John Hammond's (the late, great Richard Attenborough) park. However, somebody did decide to endorse the park, get it off the ground once more and turn into the most popular theme park attraction in the world. However, attendance is falling and younglings are becoming slightly less impressed by the beasts that ruled the world over 65,000,000 years ago. So a new super dinosaur is cooked up in a lab and she, unsurprisingly, makes her escape by using trickery because she's a clever girl. So, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her team, featuring Chris Pratt's raptor keeper Owen Grady, track down the escaped dino that's about to cause a massive lawsuit.

To slap down some sort of yardstick I'd place Jurassic World as being better than the two sequels but worse than the original. Jurassic World certainly doesn't destroy your memory of the original, in fact it does remind you how much you loved the original. Jurassic World is a nostalgic trip back into the past for fans of the original as the old visitor centre gets a revisit. Additionally, there are also little throwaway references to the original and the classic, soaring John Williams score (with nice additions from Michael Giacchino) makes a perfect comeback. Jurassic World does this without making you wish that you were watching the original.

Jurassic World doesn't fully reopen the 'just because you can doesn't mean you should' debate but spends more time looking at how us humans would treat such creatures and how we would commercialise them (allow me to introduce Etihad's Tricepadon™©). You begin to think the whole thing is absurd until you remember that sports stadiums have been named things such as Signal Iduna Park, Sports Direct Arena and The Emirates Stadium. In fact you could look at the whole film as satire of commercialism.

Anyway in the film the dinosaurs the treated like zoo animals by being made to perform tricks and ridden by toddlers. If I was a dinosaur and I waited 65,000,000 years to be made to perform tricks and ridden, petted and hugged by toddlers I'd be pretty pissed off. The head of the park, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, sees them as assets, used to make money, rather than living, breathing organisms so their wellbeing isn't of great concern and the solitary confinement of Indominus rex goes a long in explaining why she is pretty cheesed off.

 

The Indominus rex is quite the beast, more powerful than a T-rex with genetically engineered abilities to hunt, smell and camouflage itself into its surroundings. It is a monstrous beast with capabilities far beyond any form of reality. This ties in the well with the theme that kids today are getting less and less impressed and constantly demanding more and more. The Indominus rex's abilities far outstrip our own and do make her quite a foe. The tension is well built during any set pieces involving the dinosaur but plot armour seems to lessen the impact as we know major character will remain relatively unscathed. Yet the tension is still there, and scenes involving the raptors are as scary as they've always been.

Jurassic World is as good fun as a film about dinosaurs should be the, the dinosaurs don't disappoint, film's final fight is terrific and the script is pretty funny too but there one or two things the film could without, take for example the relationship between Owen and Claire. Whist Howard and Pratt have a good chemistry it is all rather obvious where it's going from the very beginning. At 130 minutes the film could do with a trim so it clocks in at under two hours because there are one or two pacing issues. 

All things considered Jurassic World is a fun film, the cast are terrific, Chris Pratt in particular is excellent, the development of Claire is pretty good as she goes from uptight to all Die Hard on us and director Colin Trevorrow certainly doesn't disappoint us with the spectacle.

3.5/5