Review – Jurassic World

Jurassic World is utterly absurd.

Granted, when you start with the conceit that dinosaurs are being bred in captivity to be shown off in an amusement park, “absurd” is a relative term. But this film still asks a lot in terms of suspension of disbelief.

For starters, we are supposed to accept, without question, that 22 years after everything went to hell in the first Jurassic Park film, that the new owner Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) has simply worked out the kinks and has turned the island of Isla Nublar into a popular resort destination. Not only that, things are running so smoothly at Jurassic World that it has actually gotten stale and the researchers are forced to turn to genetic modification in order to create a new dinosaur to boost ticket sales.

All of that is a bit absurd, but pales in comparison to the fact that we are supposed to accept that military-man-turned-park-employee Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) has somehow trained four raptors to follow his commands. Trained them so well, in fact, that Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio), the head of security operations, thinks the raptors could be used as weapons in future wars. (No, seriously.)

Maybe you are thinking that all of that sounds a bit outlandish, but not completely absurd. Well then, allow me to officially tip the scale for you by telling you a bit more about the genetically-modified dinosaur they’ve created. The Indominus Rex is essentially the Predator – it senses heat signatures, can lower its own body temperature to fool scanners, is able to remove its tracking chip to elude capture and is smart enough to set up dummy evidence to throw people off its trail.

As you may have guessed, the Indominus Rex breaks out of its holding cell and wreaks havoc on the entire park. Hoskins sees this horrible turn of events as the perfect excuse to field test the raptors, meaning he’d like to release more dinosaurs into the wild in clear If You Give a Mouse a Cookie logic. This all happens on the day that operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) decided to invite her two nephews to the park and, unsupervised, the duo wastes no time putting themselves right in the middle of all the commotion.

Still, as absurd as the whole set up is (and as impossible as it is to watch Chris Pratt drive a motorcycle alongside his raptor army without rolling your eyes), Jurassic World is a very fun movie. The special effects are well done and it captures the danger and excitement of the dinosaur clashes of the original film. To its credit, it also doesn’t shy away from going to some dark places (which feels necessary if you really are going to create a world where people barreled ahead with building a dinosaur theme park despite ample evidence in the last three films that that wasn’t going to end well). In fact, as things continue to spiral out of control, the film feels downright nihilistic as you see 20,000 theme park attendees pinned down, fearing for their lives.

I really enjoyed Chris Pratt and found Owen to be a charismatic and capable hero, though he pales in comparison to Jeff Goldblum’s iconic Ian Malcolm. Bryce Dallas Howard was a bit more a mixed bag as Claire, sometimes coming off likable and capable and other times feeling grating and terrible. (It’s hard to say if it was the writing, Howard’s portrayal or both.) Vincent D’Onofrio is a welcome addition to any film or TV show, but I found Hoskin to be a frustratingly one-dimensional villain. I did really enjoy Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus, who both work together in the control room and have several highly-enjoyable exchanges.

Compared to the original Jurassic Park, Jurassic World feels overly cartoony and simplistic. It doesn’t have a fresh take on the story or any iconic moments. But it still manages to be a fun, well-paced popcorn flick that delivers on its man vs. dinosaur/his own hubris premise. So if you want more Jurassic Park in your life, this will (mostly) satisfy your craving, but I can’t say you’d really miss much by skipping it.

Or, in other words, to quote Ian Malcolm, when making this film, the writers and director “were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Written by Joel Murphy. If you enjoy his reviews, he also writes a weekly pop culture column called Murphy’s Law, which you can find here. You can contact Joel at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.