Over the last few years, there have been a slew of movie sequels from franchises that seemingly ended years ago. They started out not so great, but lately the quality seems to have stepped up a little. Jurassic World is one that's been on many people's radars for a while now, and I was definitely looking forward to it, despite not being as massive a fan of the franchise as others I know.
22 years after the initial Jurassic Park failed spectacularly, the idea has finally come to fruition in the form of Jurassic World. The park has been open for a while, and is a resounding success, but attendance is flagging a little, so demand for a new attraction is high. Thankfully, the guys in the lab have been working on cobbling together a big, dangerous hybrid dinosaur, the I-Rex. Predictably, this new beast turns out to be a little more than the employees can handle, and the park operations manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) finds herself running for her life, while also searching for her two nephews who are visiting the park. Thankfully Jurassic World's manly velociraptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) is on board to (hopefully) save the day.
This is a pure Hollywood popcorn movie. I knew that going in, so I wasn't overly disappointed when the plot and characters turned out to be entirely predictable. Sure, there are several twists and turns along the way, but it's very much a formulaic movie. I can't blame them for that though, it's based on a winning formula. The characters are all pretty cookie cutter and one-dimensional, we have the hero, the villain, the damsel, every characters has a specific flaw, and the only development we see from them is changing into the polar opposite. But, as thin on the ground as plot and character development may be, it doesn't matter too much. It may be a killer in most movies, but Jurassic World is about the action, and it has it in spades.
Jurassic Park was a big deal when it came out, the effects had never been seen before. But over two decades later the technology has obviously progressed, and Jurassic World sure does enough to catch up. Dinosaurs are all over the place, and they all look spectacular. The park looks great, even with the obvious product placement, and all the boring character development scenes are overshadowed by fantastic action set pieces. Dinosaur vs. man, dinosaur vs. dinosaur, every sequence is perfectly put together to deliver a true blockbuster experience. Jurassic World is certainly not going to win Best Picture, but if you want to sit back and watch a load of dinosaurs tearing up the place, you can't go wrong with this.
My rating: 4/5
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