Jurassic World (***)
Directed
by: Colin Trevorrow
Starring:
Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Vincent D’Onofrio,
Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong, Jake Johnson
Seen:
June 12th 2015
***
Out of ****
By now
Jurassic World has broken several Box Office records, chief among them the
opening weekend – beating out both Marvel’s Avengers movies. The trailers gave away
just enough to entice two generations into cinemas without going into spoiler
territory, and I believe the movie has done more than enough to warrant its
success. Jurassic World is great fun, it looks great, and it doesn’t simply
rest on its laurels to make money. It is a self-contained story that, rather
heavily, uses elements from its predecessors, incorporating them into a story
that thrills and entertains almost as much as the original Jurassic Park did 22
years ago.
Jurassic Park is still the best, but Jurassic World
takes its place as the only one of the three sequels that I would watch again
without any reservations. The second movie happened to, in my opinion, contain
the best partial Jurassic movie of all four, but latching on a Godzilla ending
ruined it for me at the young age of 17 in 1997. Also, I read Michael Crichton’s
The Lost World before seeing the movie, and that may also have added to my
disappointment and disillusionment, as the movie did not utilize some of the
coolest sequences (or the story for that matter) from the book, which were ripe
for the picking. This is in part remedied in Jurassic World though, as at least
two of those lost The Lost World sequences are present now – and they are
awesome. I can honestly not remember much of the third movie, only that I was
disappointed and that it felt like a B-grade attempt to make money off the
success of the brand.
The one thing that did amaze me though, and keep in
mind that I haven’t recently watched Jurassic Park again, was that visually
this movie did not feel at all ahead of its 22 year old ancestor. That’s not to
say Jurassic World looked bad, in fact it really looked rather good; but it did
leave me in renewed awe at the supremacy of the masterpiece Steven Spielberg
unleashed upon the world in 1993. The dinosaurs didn’t for one second seem
unreal then, and neither do they now, making immersion into the story that much
more of a foregone conclusion.
Chris Pratt is without a doubt a certified star. His
presence and playful attitude are integral to the movie, and without him Jurassic
World might not have been half as fun or entertaining. Bryce Dallas Howard undergoes
quite a transformation from a corporate slave to a Jane for Chris Pratt’s
Tarzan (sans swinging from trees that is). Vincent D’Onofrio is a chameleon,
disappearing into his role as the park’s security expert, among other things, and
he couldn’t resemble his character Wilson Fisk in Marvel’s Daredevil less. The
movie doesn’t however give him much more to do than to be one of the decision
makers among many who do not realize that what they are busy with is bigger
than they could possibly fathom.
Jurassic World is a thrilling continuation of the
franchise, and I for one am glad it wasn’t another dud like Jurassic Park III.
The story is simple: things go wrong as greed and stupidity run amok, and the
heroes need to find a way to survive while destruction reigns supreme. Jurassic
World realizes its limitations, and doesn’t try to outdo other movies by going
ridiculously over-the-top. The references to Jurassic Park are plentiful and
great fun to spot, and while Jurassic World might not be as well-remembered in
22 years as Jurassic Park is now, it’s definitely worth your while to catch
this on the biggest screen available. The dinosaurs are dead, long live the
dinosaurs!
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