Jurassic World - Raptors, Rexes, and Trikes! Oh My!

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 4^th 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!