REVIEW: Jurassic World

   OK, all together now:  "Open the door, get on the floor, everybody walk the dinosaur..."

   Twenty-two years after the original kerfuffle on Isla Nublar, the park is at long last open.  Jurassic World - the park in question, and its eponymous film - has finally been released, showing the world not only what could have been if John Hammond's vision had been realized, but also that people. never. learn.  One of the taglines, "Bigger.  Louder.  More Teeth." should make that abundantly clear.

Welcome to Jurassic Park...er, World. 

    This is a movie which I need to review in two different ways, as you'll see.  First, the traditional approach:

     Jurassic World is the fourth movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, though it largely ignores the first two sequels in favor of being a follow-up to the original film in plot and tone.   The premise is straightforward: despite the setbacks of the original venture, the park, now known as Jurassic World, has been opened to the public and has proven remarkably successful.  Families flock to Isla Nublar to see the dinosaurs, stay in fancy hotels, go on dino-themed rides, etc.  A desire to boost revenue even further leads to the creation of a brand-new species, the Indominus Rex, a monstrous hybrid made of different types of terrifying dinosaurs, with components from a smattering of other creatures, all of which were apparently psychotic.   Indominus promptly escapes and starts destroying everything in sight - human, dinosaur, or inanimate object.  And as is usually the case, chaos ensues.

   The plot is predictable; viewers know from the outset how the movie will play, and which characters will end up as fodder for the island's attractions.  Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard head the cast, he a rugged ex-Navy dino trainer, she a career-minded director of operations for the facility.  The roles, however, are strictly disaster-movie tropes; Pratt's Owen Grady is a bland no-nonsense bad-ass incapable of error, and Howard's Claire Dearing is a humorless 'suit' yearning for affection in between bouts of running and screaming.  (Seriously, what is it with babyshaming the red-headed heroines this summer???)  Both characters exist to be the requisite Leading Couple, and while they handle the expository dialogue and action sequences ably, their romantic relationship is forced and devoid of chemistry.

Look at the dinos, not each other.  You'll have better chemistry that way.

    While in a typical summer blockbuster monster movie, this lack of depth would be standard, here it's actually disappointing.  The first Jurassic movie gave us memorable characters that were fleshed out and nuanced.  The new cast hardly lives up to that; in fact, I had a hard time figuring out many of the character's names, and I was listening for them.  Rounding out the stock roles are Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson as Claire's nephews, also known as Obligatory Endangered Children; we also have Vincent D'Onofrio as Meanie Who Wants to Exploit the Dinos, Irffan Khan as Well-Meaning CEO, Jake Johnson as Techie Providing the Moral That No One Wants To Heed, and B.D. Wong returning from the original film as Dr. Wu, AKA Arrogant Jackass Geneticist.  There are cameos by Jimmy Fallon (impossible to overlook) and Jimmy Buffett (blink and miss), and a nice tribute to Richard Attenborough's John Hammond (who we learned has passed away prior to the events of the film.)  No reference is made to Grant, Ellie, Malcolm or the other characters, though Malcolm's book makes a quick cameo, as does 'Mr. DNA'.

     The movie's messaging is about as unsubtle as you can get, but that actually works in its favor, in a meta sort of way.  While we still have the warnings about messing about with nature and consequences therein, there's an added level of commentary about consumerism, marketing, and excess, which is sometimes tongue-in-cheek given the blockbuster nature of the film.  In terms of the moral dynamic, in the first movie, bad ideas were happening on a road paved with good intentions, here, bad ideas are happening with a cavalier disregard for common sense.  It's made rather painfully obvious that anyone who thinks Indominus Rex was a good idea should have been committed to an entirely different sort of facility.  The plot thread about weaponizing the dinosaurs for military purposes is so ill-advised it's hardly worth discussing.  Again, the audience will know exactly how most of this is going to play out - but it is worth noting that a logical door for a sequel has been clearly left wide open.

This image really should be on a Most Wanted poster.

   All that said, though - no one's really coming to see this movie for character development, plot intricacies, or discussions on ethics in bio-engineering.  (Though, again, all that *was* in the first film.)  People are coming to see the dinosaurs.  And they do not disappoint.  Every last one of them is rendered beautifully, coming to life right out imagination.  Indeed, there's a clever bit of retconning thrown in where it's explained that some of the dinosaurs are not scientifically accurate because they were engineered to look the way they're expected.  The dinos are the true stars of the movie; Indominus Rex really deserves the top billing.  She's a modern-day Frankenstein's Monster, stitched together out of disparate dangerous parts by an ethically-challenged doctor, and she breaks loose into a world that she neither knows nor understands.  As such, she relies on pure killer instinct, though as we find, that instinct quickly becomes violent and sadistic;  none of the other dinosaurs have killed for sport.

   The rest of the prehistoric cast is filled out by old and new species alike - we finally get to see brontosaurs (or apatosaurs, whichever you prefer) alongside familiar forms like the triceratops.  The velociraptors are back and incredible as ever, now being trained as a pack and learning, with questionable success, to relate to humans.  The park's current star attraction, the mosasaur, adds an impressive aquatic element, and the pteranodons and dimorphodons get to wreak some significant havoc.  And of course, the Tyrannosaur returns as well, and from its existing scarring - and a little online reading - it appears that this is the very same rex who once saved the survivors of the original film.  While I'm not entirely sure how she survived all this years, I suppose it's true that life, uh, finds a way.

We've come a long way since Jaws was the scariest thing on screen.

     The movie is full of little callbacks to the first film.  The ruins of the long-abandoned visitor's center make an appearance, though we see how poorly it has fared in the intervening years.   One of the original Jeeps makes a return, and there's a very clever little nod to Ian Malcolm's demonstration of chaos theory.    And while there's new orchestration, both of the main themes of the original movie are present, alternating between mournful and majestic.

     Indeed, that majesty is the single best part of the movie.  As characters arrive on the island, we're teased by that familiar music, gradually swelling until it bursts out triumphantly as we finally see the park and its inhabitants in all their glory.   Herbivores frolick together, carnivores are fed under careful but appreciative observation, children interact with dino hatchlings and even ride pygmy versions of triceratops, and thousands of people delight in these magnificent creatures - everything the way it could or should have been.   I got the very same goosebumps during this sequence that I do every time I see the scene in the original film where Grant & Ellie meet their first dinosaur.  And just as with the first movie, I watched all this and found myself wishing it could be real.  I would cheerfully hop into one of those gyrosphere things and go for a stroll alongside some sociable stegosaurs any day of the week.  For me, this is true movie magic.

    The movie is ultimately quite enjoyable, though thanks are due entirely to the dinosaurs.  They're exciting and fascinating, and the film is well paced and takes full advantage of them.  The climax of the movie utilizes the key dinosaurs in a sequence that is silly to the point of ridiculous, but in such an exhilarating and fun way that it's impossible not to feel like a kid again.  There's a sort of willful abandon to the set-up that harkens directly back to the climax of the original movie with that same silliness that you cannot help but love.  Let's be honest - it's the reason everyone's seeing this movie in the first place.

I know who I'd put my money on.  No school like old school.

   I mentioned earlier that I needed to review this movie in two ways.  What you've just read are my thoughts as someone who views cinema through a critical or analytical lens.  But really, if I'm going to honestly express my thoughts on the movie, I need to let my inner monologue for the film handle it:

    Ooooh dinos where are the dinos I wanna see the dinos omigod that's the music it's the park it's the gates it's the DINOS lookit the dinos there are the dinos and they're riding the dinos and petting the dinos and it's the rex! and lookit they're all hanging out and that huge thing just swallowed a shark and the raptors are friggin' awesome and somehow cute and yes, yes, yes, people, blah blah blah Wu is a schumck and Bryce Dallas Howard is very attractive yadda yadda yadda holy cow Indominus is terrifying and  and OH WOW it's the original set and lookatit and uh-oh pterodactyls and was that Jimmy Buffett and its a raptor gang and now it's a dino smackdown and oh crap and IT'S THE REX and I cannot believe this is the most awesome silliness and OH CLEVER GIRL and I cannot believe they just did that and I'm just waiting for the banner to flutter down again and see ya later, sucker and dinos and dinos and ...oh, it's over.  Can we see it again?

Raptor Squad.  I smell a spin-off.

  And really, I can't call this a popcorn movie because I would have completely forgotten the popcorn about three seconds in.  This is the most fun I've had at the movies for a while.  And so, while I'd like it to have been the original, it obviously never could be, though it's probably the next best thing.  It has the same love and reverence for the dinosaurs - but with a lot more of them, in all their glory.

   After careful consideration, I have decided I will endorse the park.

FINAL RATING:  8 PAWS (OUT OF 10)