{"id":3842,"date":"2015-06-12T09:02:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T16:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3842"},"modified":"2015-06-12T09:02:50","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T16:02:50","slug":"review-jurassic-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3842","title":{"rendered":"Review: JURASSIC WORLD"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The \u201cJurassic Park\u201d franchise has never been about the discovery and wonder of dinosaurs. The films never attempted to seriously inform the viewer while also enchanting with tip-top special effects. No, the dinosaur was just a device to evoke cheap scares and jumps. And \u201cJurassic World\u201d is more of the same, but the old formula still works. Just don\u2019t expect your little ones to learn anything in the process.<\/p>\n

Back in 1993, I remember being completely captivated by so much of the original \u201cJurassic Park.\u201d It was directed by Steven Spielberg, who certainly at that point could do no wrong. Few may remember that it was written by the late Michael Crichton, who adapted his own novel. Crichton was both a fantastic writer and a frustrating one, because he would introduce amazing scientific problems and often resolve them in all-too familiar ways.<\/p>\n

The first 45 minutes to an hour of the first \u201cPark,\u201d which gave us the typically fascinating problem, was sublime and subtly disturbing. There was a disquieting force lurking that made for a potent third act of running, jumping and escaping. It was a huge success, but looking back at it, when it was recently released in post-converted 3D, I realized that the ending could not capitalize on the promise of its marvelous set-up. By falling into monster movie chase sequences, the science (junk as it may have been) lost almost any purpose. Today, the Syfy channel churns out monster films round-the-clock \u2013 \u201cSharknado,\u201d anyone?<\/p>\n

So, I had hoped that after a hiatus (the last one was back in 2001), a new continuation of the franchise would include a way to elevate the material above cliche. An attempt to expand the \u201cJurassic Park\u201d political universe is made in \u201cJurassic World\u201d by introducing a sinister quasi-military corporate contractor into the narrative. The ludicrous idea is that the creatures could be somehow militarized for the battlefield. But more on that later.<\/p>\n

\u201cJurassic World\u201d finds the island reborn as an amazing amusement park. The world\u2019s eighth-richest man, Masrani (played by Irrfan Khan), has taken the original idea and expanded it greatly. The old park is nothing compared to the new monstrosity. All attractions and dinosaurs are sponsored by the wealthiest companies on the planet (lots of Samsung is visible but very few Apples). The sickening grandeur of the place gave me a \u201cWestworld\u201d vibe (ironically, another Crichton project), because as cool as it was, you know that things are going to go bad.<\/p>\n

Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) manages the corporate affairs of the park, but incredibly has very little knowledge of the animals themselves. She\u2019s one cold fish. Meanwhile, in another part of the park, Owen (Chris Pratt) has been employed to help domesticate and train a pack of raptors. He\u2019s making some headway, which leads a military corporate head named Hoskins (Vincent D\u2019Onofrio) to pitch him on his idea of selling them to the military. This idea is part of the plot, but from the very outset, it is wrong-headed. As fellow critics sharply pointed out, we don\u2019t train lions and send them into battle, do we?<\/p>\n

Anyway, in order to keep the park fresh, we\u2019re told, new attractions are required. Therefore, the boys in the lab are always cooking up something new. Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) is the mad scientist who combines various species with dino DNA to grow the creatures. While the dinosaurs are pretty scary, his lab is extremely creepy. Watching dino eggs hatching in the opening title sequence is effective.<\/p>\n

Of course, things begin to go horribly wrong when a new attraction, a huge raptor-like hybrid, frees itself and begins to kill everything in sight. When confronted with a valley full of slaughtered plant-eating dinosaurs, Owen says that the hybrid is \u201chunting for sport.\u201d And because the company has so many millions wrapped up in the creature, they try to capture it rather than just put it down. Things go from bad to worse when other dinosaurs get released during the hybrid\u2019s rampage.<\/p>\n

The chase sequences are well-paced. The creatures are excellently animated. And Chris Pratt (who became the next big thing after \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy\u201d) is in good form as the hero. But the moments when people aren\u2019t running, jumping, escaping or getting eaten are almost painful to watch. The dialogue is really clunky and unlike the original film, there are few characters you really care about.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no Richard Attenborough, no Sam Neil, no Laura Dern, and certainly not a character that could match the nerdy cool of Jeff Goldblum. The narrative is plot driven from the point \u201cgo\u201d and aimed clearly at getting us quickly to the scares and the jumps, regardless whether anything in between makes sense. But it\u2019s what\u2019s in between that makes an okay movie and good or potentially great one. And \u201cJurassic World\u201d is just okay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan remembers Michael Crichton, but do the makers of JURASSIC WORLD?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3846,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions\/3846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}