I decided to write Jurassic World’s review different than usual—rather than a straight forward review, I’ve created a two-part list split between Jurassic World’s positive aspects, and it’s far more numerous problems. To be a fair sport, I’ll start with the positives: (BTW this entire review is RIDDLED WITH SPOILERS, so think twice about reading if you haven’t seen Jurassic World).
- The actual Jurassic World theme park is a lot of fun to view, in particular the open terrain zone (where one can travel freely with dinosaurs inside a bulletproof sphere), an adorable petting zoo full of baby dinosaurs, and a mosasaurus aquarium (an awesome SeaWorld satire).
- The film gets right to the genetically created super-dinosaur, indominus rex escaping from its cage.
- The film brings my dreams to life by creating an awesome site where velociraptors are trained to work alongside humans!!!
- Such awesomeness is magnified by the raptors’ training expert Chris Pratt (whose character name isn’t relevant since this review will continually refer to him as Chris Pratt).
- The way Jurassic World handles raptor training is surprisingly believable, having it built off of mutual respect between handler and dinosaur. If the handler shows weakness or disrespect towards the raptors (as simple as turning their back to them), then said handler may end up dino-chow.
- The film thinks up a...clever way (haHA) of forcing Chris Pratt to interact up-close with the raptors, rather than from the safety of the catwalk—having a newbie worker fall into their cage and Pratt risking life or limb to dissuade the raptor’s blood-lust.
- I love the explanation given about the series’ dinosaur designs—clarifying how even during the original Jurassic Park, InGen scientists filled in genetic gaps to either recreate the extinct creatures or make them more impressive (aka terrifying) looking. Such explanation fills in the massive plot hole of why creatures such as the velociraptor and dilophosaurus look and act nothing similar to their extinct counterparts.
- Chris Pratt is an enjoyably relatable character, and one of the few humans with common sense, such as when covering himself in gasoline to evade the indominus’ keen sense of smell.
- There're a few good jokes throughout the film, such as when the Jeff Goldblum replacement Lowery (Jake Johnson) tries to romantically kiss his supposed love interest (Lauren Lapkus) only to be rejected in a hilariously sensible way.
- THE ENTIRE FINAL BATTLE IS AWESOME!!! I’m just going to gush over it if that’s alright—wasn’t it awesome having the t-rex show up for battle, and just when it looked like indominus would win old-Blue raptor shows up! How freaking amazing was it when they teamed up against the indominus with Blue riding on the t-rex's back, beating the indominus to a pulp then having the mosasaurus spring out of the lagoon and drag the beast to her doom!!! Such a crazy battle almost made up for Jurassic World’s other 3/4ths…almost.
Now let’s move onto the negatives…ugh:
20 Problems, Issues, and Baffling Questions I had with Jurassic World:
- The dinosaurs are made completely with CGI—no use of real models or a combination of the two to be seen L.
- The original Jurassic Park OST is played inappropriately throughout the film, for example Welcome to Jurassic Park is played during a generic scan of the Jurassic World without any dinosaurs to be seen (you wanted to see majestic dinosaurs during such a magical tune!? TOO BAD, you’re getting buildings and fat tourists instead!)
- I don’t care what explanations they give or what anybody says, no child, teen or adult would in their right mind look away from a f@#%ing Tyrannosaurus Rex eating a goat to phone chat with their sweetheart! Sex is a powerful persuader, but a T-Rex eating a goat is much stronger—it’d be like looking away from Jesus ascending into Heaven to see if you bought enough croutons for that night’s salad!
- The older nephew (Nick Robinson) is a complete brat…which granted is how most teenagers are—but for a movie they could have dialed him down a few levels of obnoxiousness. The teen’s a jackass for constantly trying (emphasis on trying) to flirt with other girls while away from his girlfriend…which once again is how most teenagers are. Unlike most teenagers however, the scene of him staring (literally staring without blinking) at several girls is incredibly creepy and something no one would find appealing.
- The younger nephew (Ty Simpkins) is also annoying, though for different reasons—his “gimmick” of being hyper intelligent is a washed down version of Alexis Murphy’s super hacking skills without any of the charm or silliness. Basically both kids are bland and annoying…and survive the entire film…woo-hoo.
- There’s also a really senseless subplot involving the kids’ parents getting a divorce. The subplot takes some prominence during the film’s first half before being entirely swept aside in a hastily written “blink-and-you’ll-miss” conclusion—making the entire thing nothing more than a time waster about people I don’t care for.
- The film sets out to make its park tech operator Lowery a sassy, likeable replacement for Jurassic Park’s Jeff Goldblum—yet with his constant “I told you so” preachiness, obnoxious lack of empathy, and vast inability to help anyone, Lowery ends up more similar to Lost World Jeff Goldblum…and nobody likes Lost World Goldblum.
- The company’s CEO Simon (Irrfan Khan) is an enjoyably wacky guy…guess who the film kills off.
- Then there’s Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is entirely incompetent at her job, responsible for many soldier/civilian deaths, entirely unfunny with her attempts at humor, and just so happens to get the largest amount of screen time…I hate her.
- Why the hell does Claire run through the dinosaur infested jungle in high heels!? Better yet, why does she keep them on throughout the entire film! Chris Pratt is shown to have a knife on him, couldn’t he cut off the heels—or she could simply take them off, maybe when being attacked by killer pterosaurs, or when she’s baiting the t-rex, or perhaps duriFOR PETE’S SAKE YOUR BEING CHASED BY KILLER DINOSAURS, YOU CAN ENDURE A FEW SCRAPES TO THE FEET!!!
- Claire’s nephews are in mortal danger as an artificially made killing machine tracks them down…but OF COURSE there’s time for her and Pratt to leisurely mourn over an apatosaurus’s death—also Claire seems more dismayed over the apatosaurus death than the dozen guards she foolishly got killed earlier…that’s nice.
- The entire pterosaur attack scene is riddled with problems: for starters it feels entirely from the horror-gore genre, which is out of place with the rest of Jurassic World’s action-survival mood. Next I became genuinely upset when the pterosaurs attacked the baby dinosaurs—it was not exciting or scary, just an ugly, disturbing scene. It was as if the Land Before Time characters I grew up with were being viciously eaten alive (just thinking about it makes me upset). The scene did make me realize how little I care for any of the humans in the film…except Chris Pratt. The kids, Claire, or any of the tourists could be eaten, just don’t hurt the baby dinosaurs!!!
- Yet apparently the characters think the same way as me, since despite a pterosaur massacre going on, Claire and Chris find time to share a romantic kiss. I’m sorry your grandma’s being torn to shreds Billy, but unless it’s a t-rex eating a goat, romantic kisses take first priority!
- Did I mention the nephews’ caretaker and Claire’s personal assistant (Katie McGrath) gets swooped up, tossed around, smothered under water, and eaten alive by a mosasaurus…and no one bats an eye! Seriously, not one person mentions, nor seems to care, about her gruesome death—at least in The Lost World there’s a brief mention (no matter how forced) of Eddie’s incredibly heroic, yet terrible demise. She was Clarie’s personal assistant, a title usually belonging to someone the boss knows well enough to trust—is Claire just a completely apathetic person, or so incompetent that she’d leave her only nephews with someone she barely knew (judging from her track record, it may be the latter).
- Does everybody really need a turn standing dramatically in front of the security screen—allowing the camera to slowly zoom in on their face? I’m pretty sure everyone minus the dinosaurs got a shot at it.
- Jurassic World feels utterly confused about how to portray the velociraptors, switching between innocent wild animals to heartless monsters. This is a problematic stance, making scenes such as Charlie the raptor being blown up with a rocket launcher feel way more disturbing than satisfying.
- The designated villains are more heroic than the protagonists. For example, while the protagonists are twiddling their thumbs in their butts, the “villains” led by security head Vic (Vincent D’Onofrio) take charge with a reasonable plan to hunt and kill the indominus. Now Vic may be an asshole, but he’s absolutely right; the heroes haven’t solved the whole murder problem—dozens of people have died and here’s Vic giving them a proper plan of action. So how do Claire and Chris respond? By calling him a “bastard” and claiming he wanted such chaos in the first place. News flash guys: Vic may have wanted this to happen, but he wasn’t responsible for the indominus rex’s creation or escape!...or was he?...no I’m actually asking if he was—Vic’s whole alignment with Dr. Wu (B.D. Wong) is unnecessarily complex and confusing to follow.
- And if per se, Vic and Dr. Wu were in cahoots from the start (creating the indominus rex to distractingly wreak havoc while Vic’s team secretly collects dinosaur embryos), why then would Vic send a team of raptors to hunt it down? Wouldn’t Dr. Wu have told Vic how the indominus is part raptor (which would allow it to ally with the very creatures you’re sending to kill it)? Also why go through such trouble when Vic could’ve sneaked out some raptor/indominus eggs via shaving cream style (especially when you have inside help)? The shaving cream smuggling would have been subtle and swift—no commotion, no one dies, and the military continues having Jurassic World for future weapons creation.
- Of course that’s when it all comes together: the unlikeable characters, the competent “villains”, the wonder and awe being replaced with generic action-survival, idiot logic galore, a stale Jeff Goldblum replacement, an awesome finale…Jurassic World is essentially a new age version of…shudders…The Lost World: Jurassic Park!
- Lastly every annoying character (aka 9/10ths of the main cast) survived to the film’s end—and there lies the problem, I hate the characters. One of the main reasons Jurassic Park worked so effectively was because I CARED for the characters; they were likable people who showcased actual emotions and acted the way I might act if placed in similar circumstances. Without compassion for your characters, Jurassic Park becomes no more than a goofy monster-survival flick, similar to Jurassic Park III—however Jurassic World takes it one step lower my making me care more for the dinosaurs than the humans. At least in Jurassic Park III the vicious carnivores were just that, ruthless man-eaters—and while my empathy for the humans varied, I still wanted to see them escape over being eaten. Jurassic World officially destroyed the remaining amount of wonder, compassion and magic left in the series, and frankly I don’t think I’ll be going to see its next sequel.
