More than twenty years after the original, the Jurassic Park franchise returns with its fourth installment: Jurassic World. Now I’m not the biggest fan of sequels, yet the child in me couldn’t help but scream ‘OMG yassss!’ when I saw the first trailer a couple of months ago. Back then becoming an paleontologist was my dream and I could spend hours in the garden digging in the hopes of finding some bones. (Hence how our fishpond came to be.) Even now the magic and mystery around these giant creatures that roamed the earth millions of years ago still excites me. Enough to take me to the theater for a 3D screening.
The story continues as Isla Nublar is now a fully functioning amusement park, Jurassic World, just like John Hammond intended it to be. However the number of visitors is dropping and what better way to boost the sales than launching a new attraction in the shape of a hybrid dinosaur? The Indominous Rex is bigger, faster, smarter and comes with ‘more teeth’. Of course the thing breaks loose and kills anything that crosses its path. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park’s operation manager whose nephews came to visit calls Owen (Chris Pratt), the raptor whisperer/trainer for help to get them to safety.
I’m trying to keep the plot short since the trailer is giving a lot of the plot away. Perhaps a little too much.
Watch the trailer:
A lot has happened in those 22 years when it comes to technology. The budget of 180 million dollars provides unseen CGI details and the dinosaurs look more detailed and alive than ever. The scene with the Mosasaurus in the aquarium that you can also see in the trailer looks amazing! What hasn’t been evolving is the dinosaurs themselves. 22 Years is a long time and during that time there have been a lot of new discoveries that I haven’t seen in the movie (studies show a lot of species were likely to have feathers instead of reptile skin, especially the velociraptors, who are -let’s be real- the true badasses in every JP movie. Sorry T-Rex). But paleontologic correctness aside, I don’t have any complaints about the dinosaurs in this movie. There are plenty of species and they get plenty of screen time too.
There have been complaints about Jurassic World being sexist and I can’t say I disagree. It’s a step back from the original plot where the main characters where shown as equal, while Claire is portrayed as a cold & selfish control freak who turns into a considerate girlfriend who is ready to start a family thanks to alpha male & hero Owen. Funny enough this didn’t bother me as much as the characters and dialogues were so flat I didn’t have an emotional connection with any of them during the movie. Honestly I didn’t care if they would make it off the island alive or not (now I sound cold).
Despite these flaws, I actually did enjoy the movie. Though some elements were clearly a copy paste of the original (2 kids trapped under the glass of the vehicle they’re in), I loved the hints at the original Jurassic Park I grew up with. In fact, it makes me want to do a JP marathon. Overall, Jurassic World is an enjoyable blockbuster worth seeing if you love dinosaurs. It’s highly likely I will watch this again when it’s aired on TV. This summer blockbuster is good popcorn entertainment, just nothing mind-blowing. But hey, judge for yourself. The park is now open.