Jurassic Parkathon - Jurassic World

Welcome to the Jurassic Parkathon

2015 saw the return of the Jurassic Park series for a whole new trilogy with a new cast and… mostly the same dinosaurs. Once again, we have no book to base it on and we have a new face in the director’s chair, Colin Trevorrow. Before this film, the only film he’d directed is Safety Not Guaranteed, which was an insanely low budget picture

It came back big, making over $1.6bn on a $150m budget. That’s the highest box office of any Jurassic Park movie (it’ll beat the sequel too, but we’ll get to that)

The reception with audience and critics seemed to positive again, with a 72% Rotten Tomatoes Rating, with an average 6.66/10 and an audience score of 78% with an average 3.9/5.

Some 20 odd years after the events of Jurassic Park, we return to Isla Nublar, the original site of Jurassic Park that, because it was John Hammond’s “dying wish,” has been converted into a massive amusement park famous the world over. It’s got rides, hotel accommodation and most importantly it has product placement, lots and lots of product placement. I suddenly quite fancy some Pandora jewellery, it’ll go nice with my Starbucks Latte.

So, despite the park being as full as it ever could be and the feedback being over 90% positive, which is insane, it’s decided that people are bored of dinosaurs and they need a new attraction. A genetically modified dinosaur hybrid… Which naturally escapes and wreaks havoc on the park.

We’re introduced to the operations manager of the park, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), she’s a corporate b*tch concerned with the usual corporate stuff and referring to dinosaurs as assets. She also has to deal with her sister’s children, Gray and Zach (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) who she’s promised to take care of whilst her sister is going through her divorce.

We also have a park trainer, Owen (Chris Pratt) who is the one voice of reason in this film. He is able to train Raptors by imprinting on them at birth and becoming their alpha. Our obvious military villain Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onforio) wants to use this fact to have Raptors serve in the military. It ends about the way you might expect.

This film is a marked improvement over the second and the third movie, you can tell the actors are trying, they at least try to make the characters memorable and they give you sense of wonder and awe that was missing in particular from the third one.

Having a new Park open to the public, continuity aside, is a fantastic setup for a film, and they showcase this both from an operational standpoint with aquariums, live demonstrations, petting zoos, and the like, and from a visual standpoint. The park in and of itself looks phenomenal, really showcasing the development of CGI since the first one. It shows the scope and scale that Spielberg would’ve dreamed to have in his version.

Also, this is the first film since the first one where the people who deliberately put other people in danger from the dinosaurs are treated as villains and assholes, rather than characters you’re supposed to sympathise with. And when it comes to action it delivers 2 really cool action scenes in the back half of the film, the first the main assault on the park and the second fight between the T-rex and the genetically modified dinosaur.

I say they try to make these characters more interesting this time around but I do find that there’s a massive problem. The kids are off in their own subplot for the first half of the film, not only is it mostly tedious but it means they don’t have a chance to interact with either Owen or Claire before we’re hit with the dinosaur action. I get that part of the reason why is because Claire’s arc is about having to balance looking after the Park, and looking after these kids (she uses a child-minder, and this is treated as not sensible – I mean the child-minder is a moron who loses them in 5 minutes but…) but maybe a little more interaction near the beginning would’ve allowed us to get to know them better.

Owen, as the voice of reason, is relatively easy to like on his own, (being Chris Pratt helps that too), but the push for romance between him and Claire was unnecessary in my opinion.

The kids themselves are… I’m not quite sure. Gray is the nerdy one who knows a lot about dinosaurs and Zach seems to be a bit of a rebel. They imply he has a bit of a mean streak but it’s not really seen in this film. They’re both fine, I’m just not sure why it’s Zach who doesn’t see the obvious signs of their parents’ divorce (that was also a necessary subplot that needed to be in the movie... I’m lying)

But let’s cut to the chase here. The idea that people are bored of dinosaurs paints a very sorry picture of their audience. This genetically modified dinosaur, the ‘Indominus Rex,’ is a rather confusing specimen. I know he was designed specifically for military application, but they were supposed to give off the impression he was also for public viewing. A dinosaur with camouflage is a terrible idea for public viewing, and being able to regulate body heat is just a terrible idea on its own. Also, not training it to follow humans if its designed for a military application is just f*cking stupid.

It also outlines one of the bigger problems with this movie. The dinosaurs look, I hesitate to say bad but they don’t look real, like they did in the original. I feel they may have gone overboard when adding CGI to the animatronics. Also, the Indominus Rex has the most boring design you can think of.

But about military application of dinosaurs, who thought this was ever going to be a good idea? I know Owen can train Raptors, but there’s no evidence that can be applied to bigger dinosaurs and even then the Raptors initially went straight to the Indominus Rex when they saw it. You don’t want allies who would turn on you mid-battle. Although, I do find it funny that the whole movie they say releasing the Raptors to defeat the IR (I can’t be bothered to keep spelling it out) is a bad idea, and the IR is defeated by them releasing the T-Rex instead.

Jurassic World is a step up from the previous Jurassic Park sequels, with the park itself looking fantastic and the characters are at least somewhat memorable this time around. It runs into problems with the dinosaurs looking off, the plot being dumb and character interactions limited by the structure of the first half. Still, it delivers enough that you’ll likely be satisfied.

Rating 70/100

Next week, and let’s not pretend this was ever about anything else, we go into full rage mode for Fallen Kingdom.