Jurassic World
Go! It's no Jurassic Park, but it's still a Larkasaurus.
Dino-park still a terrible idea.
A pencil case. A lunchbox. A maths kit. A backpack. This was the Jurassic Park paraphernalia I managed to squeeze out of my parents in 1993. As well as - most strangely for an 8-year-old - a Jurassic Park ring-binder. You know, for keeping all of my important files in. For so many kids like me, Jurassic Park was a seminal cinematic moment, in the same way that Star Wars had been for others, 16 years earlier. A fascination with dinosaurs was culminating on screen - like the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, we knew those big, ugly, lizards were too big to fail! They were back, alive and in front of our eyes. And with that music... that music! It was magical, exciting and terrifying, all at once.
It remains a wonderful film, and a Spielberg classic. Since then, its memory has been tarnished by The Lost World and Jurassic Park III, so a lot hinges on the latest instalment of the "film-that-shouldn't-have-become-a-franchise" - Jurassic World. With El Padrino Spielbergo only returning as executive producer, novice director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) is responsible for hopefully coaxing it into something half decent. Having squeezed $511 million out of the movie-going public on opening weekend (which is marginally more than all of my Jurassic Park stuff cost) Treverrow is already guaranteed a place in film history - but does the film justify the dosh?
It remains a wonderful film, and a Spielberg classic. Since then, its memory has been tarnished by The Lost World and Jurassic Park III, so a lot hinges on the latest instalment of the "film-that-shouldn't-have-become-a-franchise" - Jurassic World. With El Padrino Spielbergo only returning as executive producer, novice director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) is responsible for hopefully coaxing it into something half decent. Having squeezed $511 million out of the movie-going public on opening weekend (which is marginally more than all of my Jurassic Park stuff cost) Treverrow is already guaranteed a place in film history - but does the film justify the dosh?
Like comparing the skeletons of a Diplodocus and an Apatosauraus, while the storyline of Jurassic World isn't identical to Jurassic Park's, the bones of the two look largely the same, with only marginal evolution. In Jurassic World we return to the island of Isla Nublar where the dramatic failures of the past 22 years appear to have counted for nothing, and John Hammond's dream of a Sea World-esque theme park is up and running, with all mod cons (such as a monorail, oooh). This time, the Velociraptors have been trained into a degree of submission by an ex-marine (Chris Pratt - Guardians of the Galaxy) so they seem less likely to be a threat this time to the two teenage nephews of the park operator (Bryce Dallas Howard - Terminator Salvation) who ominously arrive at the start of the film. Nonetheless, in order to attract more visitors to the park, the megalomaniacal park owners have genetically modified and created a super-smart, super-strong, super-fast dino-thing - the extravagantly named "Indominus Rex". Needless to say, it gets out of its wee kitty box and all prehistoric hell breaks loose. However, this time around, there are 20,000-odd visitors who might get maimed or eaten rather than a paltry seven or eight. But with the velociraptors apparently, sort of, kind of, on our side this time, surely things will be OK..?
Allow me a moment to be a Jurassic Snark, as there are a few issues with Jurassic World that set it well behind Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park was an adventure movie - a compact and thrilling piece of story-telling in which all we needed were for the few, likable main characters to get off the Island. On the other hand, Jurassic World is a monster/disaster movie, more like Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow or even Transformers. All of the focus is on the Indominus Rex - how much destruction will it cause and lives will it devour before the massacre somehow ends in an unrealistic but predictable fashion? Consequently, the main characters are largely just in the movie as potential dino-fodder, so that the camera has something to follow around. This approach just isn't nearly as compelling as Jurassic Park, in spite of Chris Pratt's performance being repeatedly heralded as creating Hollywood's "new archetypal leading man". While he is decent and comfortably fills the role, to say that he has reinvented cinema is beginning to sound like drunken propaganda that his mother invented then pumped into the water system of all the world's magazines.
Jurassic Park was an adventure movie - a compact and thrilling piece of story-telling in which all we needed were for the few, likable main characters to get off the Island. On the other hand, Jurassic World is a monster/disaster movie, more like Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow or even Transformers. All of the focus is on the Indominus Rex - how much destruction will it cause and lives will it devour before the massacre somehow ends in an unrealistic but predictable fashion? Consequently, the main characters are largely just in the movie as potential dino-fodder, so that the camera has something to follow around. This approach just isn't nearly as compelling as Jurassic Park, in spite of Chris Pratt's performance being repeatedly heralded as creating Hollywood's "new archetypal leading man". While he is decent and comfortably fills the role, to say that he has reinvented cinema is beginning to sound like drunken propaganda that his mother invented then pumped into the water system of all the world's magazines.
Equally, there was always something so believable about Jurassic Park. If we could bring back dinosaurs, Jurassic Park is probably what would have happened. Everything would have been totally buggered before it even got going. The whole premise that someone could get the cash, health and safety clearances and willing employees needed make a workable dino-theme park puts Jurassic World outside of the believability that was crucial to the success of the original. Sadly, the most believable aspect about Jurassic World is how we can take a beautiful concept, strip it of all of its grace and wonder, commercialise the hell out of it, abuse the ideals that it was founded on and shoot at it as we watch it destroy itself. The irony of that is more delicious than a blood-sucking lawyer sitting on a toilet.
All that said, the film as a standalone piece of entertainment is actually good fun. Seeing a bunch of dinosaurs larking around and having a good old chomp makes for enjoyable viewing; especially with excellent 3D and soaring cinematography. It doesn't hold a flaming red flare to the original, but there is just about enough of the dino-magic (and dino-music) needed to revive a bit of the buzzy feeling from the first film and make Jurassic World worth visiting.
So go. While it is ultimately just another monster movie, it's a decent monster movie. We can believe a bit of a sigh of relief, but now, it's Jurassic World 2: Cashing in Tyrannosaurus Cheques that we need to worry about...
All that said, the film as a standalone piece of entertainment is actually good fun. Seeing a bunch of dinosaurs larking around and having a good old chomp makes for enjoyable viewing; especially with excellent 3D and soaring cinematography. It doesn't hold a flaming red flare to the original, but there is just about enough of the dino-magic (and dino-music) needed to revive a bit of the buzzy feeling from the first film and make Jurassic World worth visiting.
So go. While it is ultimately just another monster movie, it's a decent monster movie. We can believe a bit of a sigh of relief, but now, it's Jurassic World 2: Cashing in Tyrannosaurus Cheques that we need to worry about...
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