Review: Jurassic World

It’s now 22 years after the events of “Jurassic Park”, and the island is now home to Jurassic World, which is pretty much “Sea World” with dinosaurs. However, regular ‘ol revived dinosaurs are apparently no longer ‘cool’ enough, so rich dude Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) is set to unveil a new, genetically-altered hybrid dinosaur called Indominus Rex, a mixture of velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) is called in to do some last minutes checks to make sure the dino’s holding cell is secure enough. Grady, who has been trying to train and tame his own pack of velociraptors thinks the genetic hybrid is a big-arse menace waiting to happen. It doesn’t take much of a wait for that big-arse menace to escape and run amok in the park. Meanwhile, park COO Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is supposed to be showing her young nephews around the park, but being a workaholic, she pushes them onto employee Zara (Katie McGrath), who isn’t very good at her job. Vincent D’Onofrio turns up as Grady’s employer, who has militaristic designs on the raptors. Lauren Lapkus and Jake Johnson play a couple of park employees, B.D. Wong returns as resident scientist Dr. Henry Wu, and Judy Greer appears briefly as the boys’ worried mother back home.

I thought the original “Jurassic Park” was the most disappointing movie I had seen up to that point when I first saw it in cinemas in 1993. I was pretty much ‘meh’ about it, to the confusion of most of the kids my age (12-13) at the time. I still feel that way today, actually (“Titanic” isn’t far behind), and this 2015 return to the franchise is pretty disappointing, too, and doesn’t even have the virtue of featuring Jeff Goldblum’s sarcasm. Directed by Colin Trevorrow, it’s especially disheartening that the director of the wonderful sci-fi/romantic comedy “Safety Not Guaranteed” has offered up what is essentially an unofficial remake/rip-off of “Jaws 3D”, or to paraphrase what Bryce Dallas Howard’s character ironically states in her first scene; ‘Same movie, bigger teeth’. It’s cynical crap, all Trevorrow and his co-writers Derek Connolly (“Safety Not Guaranteed”), Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver (who teamed up for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”) have done is given us Disneyworld instead of Disneyland. Or more to the point, if the first film gave us essentially a living museum, this one gives us a fucking amusement park/petting zoo.

All of these movies are essentially big-budget B-movies, but the only one to get it right (though I’m apparently in the minority) was “Jurassic Park III”, the least pretentious of the lot. The first one had Spielberg forgetting what made “Jaws” work (patience and suspense, for starters), the second was more of the same only worse, and now this one’s basically “Jaws 3D”, but trying to have its cake and eat it too because it never really comes down hard on the idea of the park administration being wrong-headed. Park COO Bryce Dallas Howard and billionaire backer Irrfan Khan aren’t portrayed as quite as stubborn or foolish as Lou Gossett Jr. in “Jaws 3D”. In fact the ones who come off worst are really neglectful bitchface employee/minder Zara (Katie McGrath), “Jurassic Park” returnee Dr. Wu (B.D. Wong) and militaristic Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio). So while it’s undeniable that the film’s plot echoes “Jaws 3D”, it seems half-hearted, as though the filmmaker still wants us to see “Jurassic World” (the amusement park) as way totes cool and not really question the morality of it. Scenes of kids playing with smaller dinosaurs like some kind of fucking petting zoo almost made me vomit. I get that not all dinosaurs eat meat, but c’mon, it’s borderline sick if you ask me (seemingly without any irony from the filmmakers) and certainly stupid. In fact, Trevorrow himself might be a mixture of Murray Hamilton from “Jaws” and Lou Gossett Jr. now that I think of it.

Y’know, if this were at least good B-movie material (like “Jurassic Park III”) it could’ve been a lot of fun. Unfortunately, for the most part it’s as super-serious as the first film, only with a dumb plot that simply can’t be taken seriously. This time out we get genetically-altered super-dinosaurs hoping by Vincent D’Onofrio to be used as super-soldiers. I’m sorry, fucking what? That’s stupid times infinity and without tongue-in-cheek, eye-rollingly lame. Yes, I just tried to make rollingly a word, and spellcheck can go fuck itself. I mean, are regular revived dinosaurs not enough anymore? Think about that. They’re revived dinosaurs for fuck’s sake, isn’t that awesome? Well, even the original film lacked any really awe, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but starting the film from a default position of ‘regular’ dinosaurs not being exciting enough, is a mistake in my view. I get why they’ve done it, but it doesn’t work for me.

There’s only one set-piece in the entire film that in any way suggests the filmmakers realise how absolutely, monumentally dumb this all is and decide to go all the way too Dopey Town with it. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** It’s the scene where the horribly snooty, neglectful minder Zara gets an hilariously protracted, thoroughly mean-spirited but entirely deserved death. It’s the best scene in the film and the one scene where the dopiness of the material seems to meet the intentions of all involved on the same plane of existence. Yes, it’s probably too silly, but we’re already dealing with a guy who wants to turn genetically altered dinosaurs into super-soldiers. At least this scene was fun, albeit too damn late. ***** END SPOILER *****

The performances and characters here for the most part, also didn’t grab me. Given you’ve already got Vincent D’Onofrio and B.D. Wong ‘heeling’ it up, I think it was a huge mistake to shuffle the naturally warm and appealing Judy Greer off to cameo status, and put the cold, affected, and mannered Bryce Dallas Howard (who really hasn’t impressed since being one of the least awful things about “The Village”) forth as the female lead. True, part of my loathing here comes from having heard the same damn line over and over and that smug look on her face from the trailer. That’s part of it, sure. However, she’s as forced and mannered as Greer is warm and natural. It seems a no-brainer to me, but perhaps no one here wanted us to actually like the characters. ‘Coz, I mean that’d be awful, wouldn’t it? But since the kids are dull, Howard is irritating, and star Chris Pratt is merely OK doing standard Chris Pratt, it’s up to the charming Irrfan Khan and hilarious Jake Johnson to make us care. Sadly, as much as Khan looks to be having a whale of a time, and Johnson gets credit for pointing out that genetically-altered dinosaurs really aren’t necessary, these two aren’t in the film nearly enough to save it. There’s way too many characters floating around for anyone to really resonate anyway. Khan in particular does try his best though. D’Onofrio is a wildly hit and miss actor, and he misses here, I’m afraid. No subtlety at all. “Orange is the New Black” alumni (former alumni?) Lauren Lapkus is sadly underused, and who gives a shit about B.D. Wong then or now? Not me, he’s graduated from a minor role of little importance to a weak arse minor villain. That’s a lateral move at best.

2015 doesn’t bring us exponentially improved dinosaur FX like you’d expect. The smaller dinosaurs in particular don’t look as though they’re really there interacting with the scenery and the human characters. Of course, that’s because they’re really not there, but by 2015, surely we’ve worked out how to make it look a bit more seamless? (Then again, the 1993 film wasn’t all CGI, some practical work was used. I’ve always preferred practical FX to be honest, unless the CGI is truly top-notch or absolutely necessary). Velociraptors bored the shit out of me in 1993, and still bore the shit out of me now, so I probably wouldn’t have cared even if they did look great. The bigger the dinosaur, the better they look here. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but it is nonetheless, albeit only slightly (They still look too clearly superimposed). Having said that, the big Raptor Rex hybrid to me doesn’t seem worth the trouble. It’s not that much more of a menace than any of the other dinosaurs, let alone those in previous films. It’s a silly addition where none was needed. Having said that, we’re talking about a 110+ minute dinosaur movie, and who the hell needs that?

There are two things I liked about the film. Firstly, the greenery on show here is lush and beautiful. It’s really stunning to look at when we’re given a chance from cinematographer John Schwartzman (“The Rock”, “The Amazing Spiderman”, “Saving Mr. Banks”). Meanwhile, composer Michael Giacchino (“Super 8”, “Star Trek”, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”) takes the frankly overrated John Williams theme and manages to outdo him with this music score. It’s pretty terrific, actually. I’m sure many will love hearing the familiar Williams theme early on, but I’ve got to admit I’ve always found that forgettable. The rest of the score works, though, and there even seems to be hints of Williams’ “Jaws” score from Giacchino at times, if I’m not mistaken.

A natural progression from the first film in all of the worst ways possible. The scenery is lovely, but the FX are surprisingly uneven, the (too many) characters cardboard, and the ideas and plotting super-lame and derivative. It’s dumb. Really, really dumb. It’s “Jaws 3D” with dinosaurs, and pretty boring too. No heart, no awe, no sense of wonderment. And where’s the fun? Remember fun?

Rating: C