Review: Jurassic World

In case my clue at the end of the last post wasn’t clear enough, and if you haven’t read the title, this is my review of Jurassic World. I feel I need to start off by saying I went into this movie expecting it to be bad. I just went in to see dinosaurs causing a rampage and Chris Pratt being a bad ass. I got that, and a little more. Let’s get to it.

I came for this, everything else was gravy.
And I got more gravy than I was expecting.

We open up on two brothers, Zach and Gray Mitchell, going to Jurassic World. Jurassic World is a fully functional Dinosaur Theme park/zoo that was built atop the ashes of the old Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar. They are traveling there to visit their Aunt Claire who is the operations manager of the park. Claire, being a pretty generic workaholic, dumps the boys on her assistant before they even get more than ten feet off the boat. Nice Aunting. While they set up in their room, Claire flies out with the new good natured eccentric billionaire with more dreams than common sense, Simon Masrani. Think John Hammond from the original film, but Indian. Claire and Masrani visit the paddock for their latest attraction, a genetically modified super dinosaur, the Indominus Rex. While their fortifications to her paddock is impressive, Masrani insists that they get their resident velociraptor expert Owen Grady in to observer and offer feedback.

We then to Star-Lord- er I mean Owen training his group of raptors. He has them well under control, but it’s less a boy and his dogs, and more a boy and his tigers. As long as their fed, and there’s some distance, yeah the raptors follow orders, but the second food becomes an issue, well, it’s best to be far away. He explains this to the Kingpin—er I mean Vic Hoskins, head of InGen security, but Hoskins is still convinced they can turn the raptors into some sort of specialized bio-weapon. Back with the two Mitchells, the boys ditch their escort and start seeing some attractions, while Claire goes to Owen and asks him to inspect the enclosure. There’s a few pointless remarks about the two of them having a failed relationship, but they drop that almost as quickly as they picked it up. When they get to the I-Rex enclosure, we and Owen learn that the I-Rex was created using the baseline of a T-Rex genetic code spliced together with the DNA of other creatures. What creatures you may ask? That’s classified, until it becomes relevant. To their horror, the I-Rex has apparently escaped, she doesn’t appear on any of the heat sensitive cameras and there are claw marks on one of the side doors. Claire rushes back to the control room, while Owen and a few guys inspect the paddock. While on the phone with her team, Claire is again horrified to learn that the I-Rex is still in the paddock, it had hidden itself somehow. Owen barely escapes the beast after it breaks out of its paddock, killing the two guys with him. He doses himself in gas to kill his scent.

I kind of wanted someone to repeat "Clever Girl"
No such luck...

At mission control they mobilize their specialized containment team to capture the I-Rex. Unfortunately the I-Rex clawed out her tracking implant (why would you put that somewhere it could reach?), is capable of camouflaging herself, and the team is only equipped with non-lethal weapons. They last maybe thirty seconds. At the same time, the boys are taking a specialized gyro-sphere off-road, thirty seconds before the staff get the call to shut everything down and send the people into the main park. And reception at the park sucks, so Claire’s attempt to call them directly is a garbled mess. And the older brother Zach is in that rebellious phase where “return to the park immediately” message that the gyro-sphere plays translates to “Do whatever you want.” What are the odds? They get to check out some ankylosaurs before the I-Rex shows up and wrecks their pod. They escape the irate I-Rex by jumping into a lagoon. On the run, they find the old Jurassic Park Visitor Center, and somehow get 22 year old jeeps that had been sitting out in a jungle for that entire time running again. Owen and Claire team up and try to track the boys. While tracking, they come across a heard of Apatosaurus’s that were slaughtered by the I-Rex. The two arrive at the VC just after they left, and are attacked by the I-Rex. They escape, just barely. At the same time, Masrani learns that some of the DNA spliced into the I-Rex include a cuttlefish which somehow helped it grow faster, and a tree frog which was supposed to help it adapt to a tropical climate. One of the unforeseen complications of this creature was that the cuttlefish DNA helped her hid her body temperature from the cameras and the tree frog DNA gave it chameleon like camouflage. Yeah, not sure how that works either. Masrani and a team fly out on a helicopter to stop the I-Rex, but instead just force the beast into the Jurassic World Aviary where they keep the flying prehistoric beasts. The fleeing Pteranodons and derpy looking Dimorphodons cause the helicopter to crash, killing Masrani.

The Pteranodons cause some havoc among the terrified tourists, and the Dimorphodons (which look like some sort of disturbing offspring between a T-Rex and a Pteranodon) cause some discomfort. Also, Zach and Gray regroup with Owen and Claire just after the two adults make out. Real appropriate behavior. After the Pt’s get tranquilized, it’s revealed that Hoskins has been put in charge by InGen’s board of directors, and he plans on using the raptors to hunt down the I-Rex. Owen is furious to see his raptors used like this, but reluctantly agrees to help. They set out at night, and track the I-Rex down, but then they learn she has one more dino in her DNA. Can you guess? That’s right, Raptor! The I-Rex takes over the pack, somehow, and sets them on the InGen team. After this our heroes need to figure out how to stop the super I-Rex, save the tourists, and also learn more about this supersized chimera. Chimera refers to any organism that is a mix of two or more distinct cells, not just that lion/goat/snake thing you learned about in Greek Mythology. Just an FYI. I won’t ruin the finale for you, but it includes road flares and a pretty intense Dino fight.

Who could get tired of this?

As always, the good. The effects were pretty spectacular. I was expecting only CGI, but they did work in some old school practical effects as well.  Like with the aforementioned slaughtered Apatosaurus herd, Owen examines one closely as the animal dies and yeah, the head is actually there in front of him. There’s also a scene where the boys are nearly impaled by a down Pteranodon, and it’s also actually there. I miss practical effects, so seeing it again was real nice. The Indominous Rex, while stupidly named and made for even sillier reasons, is a formidable super beast. She is a logical next step to this whole mad scientist’s dream of amusement park dinosaurs. Her design is really cool, and while her abilities are a little farfetched and weird (why would tree frog DNA give her color changing camo like a chameleon?) they work for the most part. The acting is decent, although rather generic. Chris Pratt is a pretty generic bad ass with a little Star-Lord loveable jerkiness thrown in. He’s one of those characters that I probably wouldn’t have like had he been portrayed by any other actor. You’ve found your nitch Mr. Pratt. I did enjoy seeing B. D. Wong return as Dr. Henry Wu, the geneticist behind the first Jurassic Park, and also the only returning cast member. I do find it funny that this entire plot is possible only because of Wu’s survival, when in the novel Jurassic Park he dies horribly part way through. I also really like Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani, or Hammond 2.0. He captures a lot of the whimsy Richard Arrenborough brought to John Hammond back in the original film. Like Hammond, he’s an irresponsible billionaire that just wanted to make something wonderful. Something that would bring joy to the world. And have it all blow up in his face.

The only returning cast member from the original film.
Be glad, ah ah, of that, or else.. or else we could have had
ah, more Goldblum.

There are a few bad things. Aside from Pratt, Wu, and Khan, most of the other characters are pretty generic. Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing is your pretty generic workaholic that “Rediscovers the importance of family” as the plot roles on. Vincent D’Onofrio’s character is also a really generic “let’s make this a weapon” guy you see in pretty much every sci-fi movie has. I like D’Onofrio, but within seconds of his character appearing I thought, yep, he’s going to be a bad guy. Not a good start. The kids are your generic kids, the young one is a dino obsessed sort-o-dork, while the older one is the kid who is not thrilled to go on a free vacation to a very expensive resort/theme park. Also, the younger one’s name is stupid. Grey? Seriously? Never name your kid after a basic color. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, White, Purple, Pink, and Grey are not people names. Pokémon trainers and eccentric Ice Wizards notwithstanding. … I watch a lot of Anime, alright? Also, while the classic Dinosaurs and the I-Rex’s designs are good, some other designs are not so good. I already mentioned the Dimorphodons, which I didn’t even know was a dinosaur until I looked up plot summaries to help refresh my memory. I just thought they were the first, failed attempt at splicing Dino DNA, a Pterannosaurus Rex, if you will. And most of the interpersonal stuff is pretty forced. Owen and Claire having a failed romance just felt shoehorned in there to make it seem less absurd that she ends up kissing him part way through that movie. Also, the kids’ parents are getting a divorce. It’s not really mentioned before this scene on a tram, or all that much after, but it’s a thing. That one just felt like a weird plot point to throw out to force the two bros to do some bonding. It was just weird.

Oh my, a practical effect.
I was shocked, words couldn't describe.

One last thing to address is the bad science in this movie. For the most part, I can’t fault it. This entire series is based on the bad science that we can recover Dino DNA from amber coated mosquitos. It’s way too complicated to go into,  either look into more detail yourself or just take my word on it, it doesn’t work like that. Most of the bad science is of the sort that it’s believable until you know better. Sun revolves around the Earth? Yeah, if I didn’t know otherwise, I could see myself believing that. So is the mosquito in amber thing. Believable until you know better. All that being said, there is one bit of bad science I can’t let go, and that’s the I-Rex communicating with the raptors. Yes, all animals communicate in some way, shape, or form. But, the type of communicating that has been presented for the raptors in all four movies is highly sophisticated, using specialized organs and ‘vocal chambers’ to make the right sounds. Even if the Indominus Rex got the right genes in the right order to have these specialized parts, there is still no way she could communicate with the raptors. Why? Because she was never taught how to speak raptor. Case in point, humans. Structurally speaking, I have the right parts and brain power to speak any human language. That doesn’t mean if you stick me in a room filled with French people that I’d start speaking French. For further proof, look up anything on feral children. You know, stories about kids raised by wolves or some other species. In every case, while the children did learn some basic communication skills after being discovered and recovered, they still had to learn everything from the ground up. Language is learned, not inherent. I know this sounds like a minor nitpick, it is, but it bugged me for the rest of the film.

Overall, I’m going to give this movie a B. There are some things about it that bugged me, but overall it is a decent fresh start to a film series that grew stale with Jurassic Park 2. The effects are impressive, Chris Pratt is awesome, and the story, while flawed, was still fun to see unfold. If this is the last Jurassic Park movie ever, it’s a better ending than Jurassic Park 3. And if it isn’t, well, another sequel will feel less forced than Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Next time, it’s another surprise! Don’t you just love those?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_World

 http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Indominus_rex

 http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150514214423/jurassicpark/images/0/00/Mosasaurusthe3rd.png

 http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20141204101759/jurassicpark/images/2/2a/Ingen_pic1.jpg

 http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/02/02/jurassic-worlds-superbowl-spot-rewind-theater