Review: Jurassic World

Imagine a theme park full of live dinosaurs brought back to life for the amusement of visitors and run by people who love telling everyone how much in control they are...

This is the basic premise to Jurassic Park. Now imagine that same premise, except add a genetically engineered dinosaur rampaging through the island and subtract engaging characters to care about. Welcome to Jurassic World.

Jurassic World is supposed to be the sequel to Jurassic Park according to the director, Colin Trevorrow who wants you to ignore The Lost World and the third one. Fair enough, because they were cash cows or cash Corythosaurus anyway. (One of these guys):

You're welcome for that obscure dinosaur joke. The film begins by following two brothers going on an all expenses paid trip to Jurassic World courtesy of their aunty Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is the director of the park. The younger brother is super excited to go, spouting facts about the park and dinosaurs whereas his older teenage brother couldn't care less if his life depended on it (which it inevitably does). This sets up a world where people treat dinosaurs like animals at a zoo and Jurassic World is just your average holiday destination.

We find out through Claire that the park is slipping in attendance and the big boss has demanded a new attraction – something scary, something that will get people to the island. Enter Indominus Rex who is guaranteed to boost attendance and doubles sales. Chris Pratt is the ex-marine turned raptor-wrangler who isn't afraid to tell everyone how bad an idea this is. Sure enough Indominus Rex is smarter than your average dinosaur and fools the stupid humans into opening the doors. Clever girl.

In Jurassic Park we were warned about the consequences of tampering with dinosaur genetics. And we're pretty much given the same cautionary tale in Jurassic World except that they swapped out likeable characters for basic, stereotyped characters that move the story along.

Claire is a by the numbers business woman whose sole role is to run the massive and complex dinosaur park. She is pestered by her sister for not spending time with her nephews and why she hasn't had kids herself. She's apparently great at her job but not when there's a loose dinosaur. The biggest issue with her character aside for her choice of footwear in the jungle is why her character arc is to want to have kids. Dr Grant's arc in Jurassic Park was similar except his was more about going from disliking kids to finding them alright. And why two boys? What was wrong with Lex and Timmy? Everyone knows that Timmy was the weakest link from Jurassic Park. More Lex, I say.

At least Claire has a character arc. Chris Pratt's character remains the same throughout the whole film. He doesn't learn anything, he's always right and (dang it) he remains ever charming, which has more to do with my fondness for Pratt than for his character. He does get to do some cool things with raptors but that didn't mean I necessarily cared what happened to him.

Despite my reservations on character development I really liked this film. I found it fun and enjoyable. The action is solid and only gets better towards the end of the film. It's a great action film and there are several nods to Jurassic Park, which made me giddy throughout. I thought it told the story that logically proceeded JP. It reminded me of when I first watched Jurassic Park. Nothing will compare to the moment I first watched the T-Rex breach its paddock; it was awe inspiring.

I thought Jurassic World missed an opportunity to comment on growing audience expectations. To hold a mirror up to today's audience that are inundated with bigger and better special effects with not much story (see Transformers franchise). We can't expect to be wowed any more by special effects that ship has sailed. We have been spoilt these last 22 years with every increasing spectacle, which is why it is so important to focus on developing a good story. Originality will always be the constant wow factor. Why do you think Pixar films have such a high success rate?

Jurassic World gets 3 out of 5 stars.

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