I cannot believe that it has been 22 years since Jurassic Park was first in theaters. That was a great movie! And it’s stood the test of time. It’s still an enjoyable watch, and, most
amazing of all, the special effects are still rather impressive. There’s something to be said for really well
done animatronics and puppeteering. Add
to that the masterful way Steven Spielberg was able to build up the tension and
anticipation, and you have a movie that will be loved by generations. I mean, who can forget the ripples in two cups
of water heralding the first appearance of T. Rex?
Jurassic Park was
followed by a couple of movies that did not live up to the original. The
Lost World (the second movie) was alright.
It brought back Jeff Goldblum’s fun Ian Malcolm. But outside of that, it didn’t have much
going for it, in my opinion. We got a T.
Rex rampage through San Francisco (or was that San Diego?), but that felt like
more of a spoof of Godzilla than anything else.
After that came Jurassic Park III,
which I think we could have lived without.
Téa Leoni was irritating. William
H. Macy (who I generally really like), wasn’t very interesting. And the return of Dr. Grant was a bit of a
letdown. The introduction of the
pterodactyls was probably the best thing that came out of that movie.
And now, 22 years after the original, 14 years after the
last film, we get Jurassic World.
(From here on, I’m going to do my best not to reveal
anything about the story that wasn’t seen in the trailers.)
This installment was so much better than the previous two! We finally get to see John Hammond’s vision
brought to life: a theme park/zoo with live dinosaurs as the main attractions. I have to be honest: when we got a first
aerial view of the park with John Williams’ original Jurassic Park theme, I got
a bit emotional. It was brilliantly
done. And there was no let down as the
movie went on.
I haven’t seen Chris Pratt in anything other than Guardians of the Galaxy (which I
neglected to write a review of, but it was awesome!). I’ve heard he was great in Parks and Rec. This time, he didn’t get to do much funny,
but he did well in his role as Owen Grady.
I kept getting the feeling that he was working hard to keep himself
contained, like it wasn’t natural for him to be as serious as this movie asked
him to be. That said, it was loads of
fun seeing him hunt with a pack of velociraptors.
Bryce Dallas Howard did extremely well as a control freak,
anal, put-the-best-face-on-it, person in charge. My only gripe there was that there was a set
up for, and the beginning of head, butting between her character and Chris
Pratt’s character, but it disappeared relatively quickly. However, I think it would have gotten very
old if it had gone on longer than it did.
The biggest surprise to me was Vincent D’Onofrio’s
performance. He’s kind of hit or miss
for me. He was in Netflix’s Daredevil, and I wasn’t all that
impressed with him there. A bit of over
acting, words overly enunciated, things like that. In Jurassic
World, he gave one of the best performances that I’ve seen from him. His look reminded me a bit of Brian Dennehy,
and he was properly bull-headed and slimy.
A-plus for him!
There were lots of others in the cast, of course, but those
three were the stand-outs, in my opinion.
The kids were necessary, but weren’t all that exciting to me. There were a couple of other characters that
I knew would get eaten when I first saw them.
The story was a lot of fun.
Basically, what would happen if a hybrid, super smart dinosaur was
created and got loose in a zoo with 20,000 visitors? Pretty simple, but allowing for a lot of cool
special effects, suspense, action, and nostalgia. It kept the feel of the original movie
(wonder, nail-biting tension, and excitement).
I think one of the things I liked best was that it was a continuation,
not a reboot. And there were plenty of
non-cheesy references to Jurassic Park. We even got to see one of the original Jeeps! And the climax (which I won’t spoil) featured
some old “friends” in a slightly different relationship.
A few small complaints:
First, in just about any movie with some “science” behind
it, there will be flaws. For example, I
don’t think just willy-nilly filling in genetic gaps with random DNA would produce
some of the features that the hybrid dinosaur had, but then again, I’m no
geneticist.
Second, there was an obligatory “let’s set up a sequel”
scene. I guess it shouldn’t be
surprising that it was there—this is the 4th film of a franchise,
after all. Franchises tend to get milked
for all they’re worth.
Finally, (and I’m not sure if this is a complaint or just an
observation) there was a lot of shameless product placement. In some ways, it was so transparent that it was
almost refreshing. Obviously the film
would have it, and instead of trying to awkwardly shoe-horn it in, it was
embraced and made to flow. The Mercedes
logos were a bit in-your-face, though.
All in all, I would say this was a worthy entry in the Jurassic Park series. Much better than the middle movies. Very nearly as good as the original. I was highly satisfied as I was leaving the
theater!
