Why did we need this movie again? Oh right. We didn’t.
Jurassic World could have at least tried to make us feel like we did. Maybe throw a twist in there, like we aren’t seeing a re-release of the 1993 Jurassic Park. Maybe not contradict with the original either, or instead weave in some sort of reason for the characters not to use common sense. Amnesia, fellas? Remember what happened last time?
It’s possible for me to like stupid movies. What I don’t like is stupidity. The latter this movie provides.
So it’s Jurassic Park again except the amusement park worked (why did they keep trying?) and is now a mass success off the coast of Central America, tourists and blatant plugs and advertisements everywhere (the producers knew what kind of movie this was going to be).
The dinosaurs are bigger and genetically-modified-ier. The corporate conglomerates are richer. As for the park attendees, they’re dispensable, in more than one way.
Two boys (played by Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) head on over to Jurassic World to visit their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the operations manager of the park who’s too addicted to work to pay attention to them. Owen (Chris Pratt) trains velociraptors as part of an attraction and acts as Claire’s former flame. When a souped up Tyrannosaurus Rex, named by its geneticist creators as Indominus Rex, escapes from his cage (surprise!), Claire and Owen need to work together to track down her two nephews, who are now on their own with a killer dinosaur on the loose.
Mix in some out-of-place side plots, including a worker who wants to use the exhibited dinosaurs as military weapons and a truly awkward divorce between the two boys’ parents, and you’ve got yourself the fourth Jurassic Park. Probably one of the few things it gets right is how it ignores the last two installations.
Now, I liked Jurassic Park. Sure, silly. But it worked. The reason why is because the risks could, for the sake of reality, be overlooked. The park was only a plan in the making, and the characters, a select few out of the scientific population, treated it as a prototype, as it should have been. What resulted was a simple but entertaining lesson: well, shoot, we guess entrepreneurs can’t do everything they want.
So, a lesson is a lesson. Meaning, it’s learned. So when Jurassic World is thrown at us, “for funsies” doesn’t really cut it.
The pointlessness wouldn’t annoy me if it didn’t seep through every corner of this movie. “World” doesn’t try to hide what breaks out or who gets eaten. Extras are only there to be rag dolls. And the problem doesn’t even come naturally enough to be enjoyable. The references to the so-called “failed” Jurassic Park jump straight to dull foreshadowing without a hint of staying in the past.
I’m trying to like Pratt, but he’s just not as effective as an action star compared to his hilarious role in the sit-com Parks and Recreation. Like his role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, he tends to choose between his words and his delivery, and when he tries to act macho, he ends up talking like he’s being fed his lines on the spot. As for Howard, she’s forgettable. I must confess, it took me a considerable amount of time to recognize that I had confused her for Jessica Chastain. I now know that Chastain’s the stronger actor of the two.
Somehow, near the entirety of the movie’s two hours of running time feels routine, and the rest is just irritating, not scary but boring. I routed for the dinosaurs. They’ve got a reason to go after the people who thought of this idea.
