By Geno McGahee
In 1993, film history was made and CGI became a reality. Well, high end CGI did. JURASSIC PARK was a masterpiece that was really more than a movie. It was an event. Written by Michael Crichton and brought to life by Steven Spielberg, JURASSIC PARK was a huge hit with the fans and, amazingly, holds up as well today as it did all those years ago. Two sequels followed but failed to capture the imagination of the public and didn’t maintain the quality of the first in any way. We thought we had seen the last of the dinosaurs, but this is Hollywood and reboots and “re-imaginings” are common. In 2015, 22 years after the original, we see another sequel called “JURASSIC WORLD,” and it was a very good effort.
The tragedy at Jurassic Park is long forgotten and “Jurassic World” is a popular theme park that showcases the dinosaurs to the public. Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson), his older brother, are sent there to visit their aunt, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), but she is far too busy to initially see them. She assigns them a pre-occupied assistant and takes care of her business at the park. Gray and Zach have free run of the park, but they are facing family problems as their parents are heading to divorce. They are having their own conflicts as well. Hopefully the attacking dinosaurs that they will encounter will solve all of those problems.
Masrani (Irrfan Khan) now owns the park and maintains it for the deceased creator, John Hammond. Hammond was largely responsible for the problems that led to the Jurassic Park tragedy but also the time when they brought a T-Rex to the states. They should have killed all his dinosaurs and thrown Hammond’s old ass into a river. How many chances are they going to give this guy?
Claire and Masrani are ready to showcase their new dinosaur, which is a cross between a T-Rex and some other things that are top secret. The genius behind the dinosaur is the LAW & ORDER guy. BD Wong returns to the role of Dr. Henry Wu, but this time, he’s got a dark side. In the original JURASSIC PARK, he was more of a pretentious prick, but here, he is just a jerk off. Perhaps being proven wrong by Jeff Goldblum in the original when he proved that life will find a way forever soured him. Maybe the fact that the T-Rex’s aren’t hung like horses bothered him. I just assumed that there were male T-Rexes that had big dongs. Am I the only one? Did the males not have pricks either? I’m lost.
To make sure that the new dinosaur is safe to show, Owen (Chris Pratt), a dino-expert is brought over. He has made great progress in befriending the raptors. I’m sorry. This is where this began to lose me. In JURASSIC PARK, there were two things you did not want to see: the raptors or the T-Rex. Well, seeing John Hammond’s ass in that tight shot as he got the wine was something as well, but as far as pure danger goes, the raptors and the T-Rex were the scary things. Here, although they are still dangerous, Owen has earned their respect and trained them somewhat, which brings in the evil government/military conspiracy guy, Hoskins, played by another LAW & ORDER guy, Vincent D’Onofrio.
Because of the nature of the raptor and the “rap attack” (In 1993, I had a T shirt from the movie with that slogan on it and yes, it got me girls. OK, it didn’t), Hoskins thinks that we can just drop the raptors into Iraq or Iran or wherever to kill everything in sight. Owen will not allow his “friends”, the raptors, to be used in such a manner, but we all know those military guys. They won’t stop until they get what they want.
Owen and Claire have a failed romance to overcome, some sexual tension, and then the release of a big monster. The big monster is the dinosaur…in case there was any confusion with that last statement. The big T-Rex genetic freak is loose and has the demeanor of a hunter. It will just kill for fun and starts really screwing things up. He releases the pterodactyls and they begin flying away with people like the monkeys did in THE WIZARD OF OZ. It was rather cool.
Because this monster is doing so much damage, it allows Hoskins to employ his plan. Have the raptors stomp a mud hole in the ass of this giant creature, but it doesn’t go as planned. Owen and Claire team up with the two boys and attempt to survive the park and stop this monster. This leads to a T-Rex vs. Mutant Angry T-Rex Thing showdown, which was rather cool. There was a nice throwback with Claire using the flare to lure the T-Rex over to the problem.
I had a few problems with JURASSIC WORLD. One of the biggest was the softening of the raptors. I know that Owen put years and years into making them human-friendly, but it took away from the scare factor. Imagine Jason Voorhees helping somebody make it out of a burning building alive in one of the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. It’d lose it right there. The raptors should have remained killing machines without discretion. The filmmakers have learned a valuable lesson from this. They have not sold one rap-attack shirt since this movie’s launch.
Another issue I had was we are 22 years after the original and the CGI looks worse than it did all those years ago. What is going on here? I know that there was a mix of CGI and animatronics in the original, but even the straight out CGI scenes were more convincing. This film begins with a CGI bird and it looks incredibly fake. In the original, they were able to maintain the park, make it seem like it was really happening even though the situation was highly unlikely. Here, you fully understand that you are immersed in a CGI show and it loses because of it. I’m sure Spielberg has those puppet raptors in his garage. He would have rented them out, I’m sure. They should have used them.
This is up for debate, but the idea of a super dinosaur just didn’t take off. The T-Rex was enough and they could have unleashed several T-Rexes and it could have been different enough from the first to stand out. They didn’t need to create a hybrid monster to make this one move forward. This complaint fits in with my CGI problem here. The hybrid dinosaur just looked too fake.
In the end, the good heavily outweighs the bad in JURASSIC WORLD. There are many acknowledgments to the original throughout that I enjoyed, including and especially when the two young kids find the old park and some of the items from the first. The acting was very good across the board and the tragedy at a theme park is always a fun experience. Yes, I even like JAWS 3D. The film has some very cool visuals and it moves along at a brisk pace. There was never a time when I looked at my watch and wondered when it would end. This captures part of the magic of the first with the rollercoaster ride that it presents.
JURASSIC WORLD is far better than the two sequels that came before it and outside of a few minor problems I had with it, it is well worth a watch. I picked it up on Blu-ray, which came with the DVD and Digital HD. It has all sorts of cool features including deleted scenes and many features including Welcome to Jurassic World, Dinosaurs Roam Once Again and Jurassic World: All Access Pass. This flick is put out by Universal Studios and the Blu-ray presentation is amazing.
So, I highly recommend JURASSIC WORLD. It is not nearly as good as the original, but it’s hard to compete with such a classic film. It does pay homage and does some cool new things in an exciting way that turns into a real family night sort of flick (although my 5-year-old daughter ran out of the room, calling it a horror movie).
Rating: 8/10
