Movie Review: Jurassic World
What We Liked
• Effectively erases The Lost World and Jurassic Park III from canon
• Wonderfully filmed action sequences
• Great use of 3D technology
What We Didn't Like
• Some of the interactions between Pratt and Howard were groan-worthy
• A bit too extreme for younger children
I was twelve years old when I first saw the original Jurassic Park in the theatres. For a kid obsessed with dinosaurs, it was a cinematic experience to remember. Based on the Michael Crichton novel and directed by Steven Spielberg, Jurassic Park was the movie event during the summer of 1993. Surely a big-budget remake helmed by a relative unknown director couldn’t capture 
the same magic as the original, right? Wrong.
Even though Jurassic World’s dinosaurs are 99% digital and not animatronic masterpieces from the Stan Winston Creature Shop, the adult version of me was no less thrilled to see them grace the screen for the first time. Mix that with hints of the familiar score, and I was putty in director Colin Trevorrow’s hands.
Jurassic World takes places twenty-two years after the original movie (and also effectively erases The Lost World: Jurassic Park [1997] and the regrettable Jurassic Park III [2001] from canon). Two brothers Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) are whisked away for a weekend – so their parents can get divorced – with their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) on Isla Nublar to experience the wonders of the decades-old resort Jurassic World. Now, instead of being a park with dinosaurs, it’s an island-wide resort that includes such activities as riding in gyro spheres in the meadows alongside dinosaurs, kayaking in rivers, petting baby Triceratops in petting zoos, and witnessing Sea World-esque shows where a giant Mosasaurus splashes the crowd like a prehistoric Shamu.
The problem is, people are becoming apathetic and complacent with what the resort has to offer. To combat the attendance drops at the park, Claire is tasked to create a bigger and better attraction. With a slight wink towards how our society operates lately, during her nephew’s visit to the park, Claire is too busy wowing a big sponsor for the new attraction – a hybrid dinosaur called Indominus Rex. The investors and new park owner (Irrfan Khan) get exactly what they wanted – something bigger, badder, and more terrifying than ever. Nervous that its containment paddock isn’t safe enough to bring park visitors to yet, Claire calls on Owen (Chris Pratt), a former Navy officer who just happens to be on the island trying to train Velociraptors to obey commands. While this may sound hokey, the only thing potentially off here is the awkwardness between Owen and Claire in a few scenes.
As in the previous Jurassic Park films, something goes horribly wrong. But, since this is Jurassic World and everything is on a grander scale, the stakes are much higher – to the tune of having over 20,000 park guests stranded in the middle of dinosaur mayhem. This is where the movie had every opportunity to quickly fall apart. The director’s only other real experience directing is an indie comedy. I would’ve expected action sequences that were chunky and awkward, but Trevorrow knocked it out the 
park (mind the pun). His pacing and blocking for each action scene was masterful. He captured the appropriate thrills, suspense, and horror that I imagine would come along with running for your life while a dinosaur wants to turn you into an appetizer. There were multiple genuinely terrifying moments in this movie – some so much so, that I wouldn’t recommend bringing a younger child, no matter how many toys and commercials are thrown their way.
While this is easily poised to join Mad Max: Fury Road as one of the top movies of the summer, Jurassic World isn’t without its flaws. Some of the interactions between the two brothers didn’t quite feel genuine. In one instance that spanned across three back-to-back sequences, Gray went from overzealous nerd, to being depressed about the impending divorce, and back to normal. At times, their reactions took me out of the movie. Thankfully, they spend most of their time running from dinosaurs, so the distractions are minimal. In fact, as things begin to further descend into chaos, subplots involving an Ingen employee named Hoskins (an effectively creepy Vincent D’onofrio) and Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong, the only cast member to return from the original film) start to boil to the surface. Ultimately, I think a movie that just featured dinosaurs battling humans and each other would get boring, so it was nice to see the other storylines develop.
Speaking of B.D. Wong, his inclusion in the movie was the most blatant nod to the original film. Aside from that, Michael Giacchino’s score is littered with snippets of John Williams’s original score. More subtle nods and Easter eggs are littered throughout the film, but finding them yourself is half the fun.
The use of 3D is also some of the best I’ve seen on film since Avatar. I felt like I was there in many instances, to the point that I ended up jerking when blood started dripping down in one scene. The use of 3D was thoughtful here – not just for an additional cash grab at the box office. If given the opportunity to choose, I would strongly recommend going the 3D route with Jurassic World.
I was supposed to hate this movie. I walked into the theatre with little to no expectations. Reboots and remakes typically annoy me, plus this film wouldn’t be able to capture the magic of the original. I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong, but I will in this case. Jurassic World is as important to this generation of filmgoers as the original film was back in 1993. The scenes in this film that resembled scenes in the original – seeing the island for the first time, the goat in the T-Rex paddock, the reveal of the big bad dinosaur – all elicited the same responses from me as an adult as the original did when I was a kid. For two hours, you’re whisked away to a world where dinosaurs walk the earth, and it’s every bit as amazing and terrifying as it should be.
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