Well; 14years after ‘Jurassic Park 3’ slopped onto screens and stunk out the room. It was the era of the ‘Soft Reboot’ and every franchise was being pulled out of the toy trunk, given a quick clean with an anti-bacterial wipe, a paint touch up and launched headfirst back into theaters…’Jurassic World’ was ONE of those movies.

The plot? Its the present day, and despite John Hammonds clear message that there shouldnt be a ‘Jurassic Park’ AND two incidents where multiple people died and several people BARELY made it off the islands alive…Jurassic Park not only lives, its corporate sponsored. Rechristened Jurassic World, the park is beholden to corporations who are demanding increasingly more unrealistic additions to the park in order to keep people going through the doors and keep the share prices rising.

And we open the film being introduced to Zach and Gray, children of worlds saddest mother ‘Karen’. The kids are being shipped off for an extended weekend at Jurassic World, so that their parents can sort out seperation proceedings, BUT! They wont be doing it alone! as Karens sister Claire, who also happens to be the 2nd in command to the CEO of the park has agreed to give them an all access pass tour of the park on arrival…aaaaaand she’s too busy to ACTUALLY spend time with them, so instead, they get her P.A…who really isnt that bothered about spending time with a couple of kids.

Claire is then shown the parks latest attraction, genetically modified dinosaurs, basically the corps want something new a big, so they’ve taken DNA from a bunch of dinosaurs and other animals, in an attempt to create a non stop killing machine. Claires impressed, but the CEO wants checks to be carried out on its paddock, because they arnt entirely sure its completely safe.

Enter ‘Owen’, the parks raptor handler, he’s ex-navy and treats the animals with the upmost respect and importance. Much to the confusion of the rest of the handlers who just see the animals as product to be moved around the park. Owen gets the summons to go and take a look at the park security up at the paddock, and on arrival, something isnt quite right…the new dinosaurs seemingly missing, and when Owen sees scratch marks on one of the paddock walls. they believe its escaped its containment…worried, they head into the paddock…only, ITS A TRAP! and the new dino escapes into the park, RIGHT into the area where Zach and Gray are hanging out, Leading Claire and Owen to race to find them, and sending the kids on an adventure through the backroads of the park. While the park staff try desperately to keep control of the situation.

One of my first thoughts on this film happened around 20 minutes in, and it was a pretty glaring one for me. Is this film ignoring the sequels up to this point, or is it considering them. Because if its ignoring the sequels its pretty bloody GLIB to take the message of the first film (AKA: That some things are best left in the past, and that Jurassic Park shouldnt exist…and that, while they cant exactly undo what they’ve done, they could at least leave the dinosaurs to thrive and build their own societies away from human internetion) and essentially say ‘Ha! LOL! No!’ and just…Not only decide to rebuild the park in THE most pro capitalist way possible, but to do so while ACTIVELY trying to make out that John Hammond would have wanted ANY part of this.

Or! it DOES count the sequels as canon to this film, in which case its a bridge too far for me, the events of ‘Jurassic Park 3’ happened less thanb 14 years prior to this film, and this film establises that the parks been open and thriving now for at least a few years. Sooo…are they just ignoring that in a 10 or so year window at least 2 dozen people died and there were several raids/attempted invasions of the islands that house the dinosaurs? theres at least a dozen people who are still alive out there who survived these islands…and despite the fact this brand would have been toxic as asbestos by this point, SOMEHOW, they managed to get, what I can only assume is billions of dollars to fund and open a park?!

Nah, to me it feels like theres a step missing in this series. you cant go from the end of either the original OR ‘Jurassic Park 3’ to this without there having to have been SOME kind of serious transition in mindset towards it. I found the jump to this film, after the events of ‘3’ to be jarring to the point of concussion. and thats not even getting to the fact that some characters from the original DO return, and are now for some reason evil…I…dont really get it.

I think the difference between this film and the original ‘Jurassic Park’ is a problem a lot of contemporary films have, they treat the theater going experience as a theme park ride, they play down plot, human moments and sincere attempts at courting the audience, in place of set pieces and shallow CGI Action scenes. and thats kind of where I found myself with this film.

The plots fine enough, the genetic engineering of dinosaurs was kind of the next logical step after ‘Lost World’…But the execution feels somewhat shallow and uninteresting. Its like they basically went ‘well, people liked the T-rex in the first 2 movies…whatabout a SUPER T-REX!!!!’ and noone stopped them. Everything just kind of feels so vapid. and empty, the attempts at anti capitalist sentiment fall flat, because, you cant say ‘corporations sponsoring eugenics is BAD’ while simultaineously making every other shot a Merc or Samsung commercial…

the dialogue is marvelisation dialogue, everyones trying to be the likeable sarcastic so and so…and im just SO done with that style of scriptwriting by this point. the pacing is WAY too slow, this things over 2 hours long and it absolutely shouldnt have been. the characters arnt strong enough to sustain that and the film falls into the same mistake 2 and 3 did which is putting extended action scenes over genuine human interacation.

It feels like someone watched Jurassic Park, didnt get the subtext or the messages it had and made a clone of it in an easily digestable ‘slush’ form. and while the actual plot is fine enough, I dont think I could give this film my full attention on a second viewing. Its a ‘glance over my phone every 20 minutes’ kind of movie. Something to fill the deafening silence where I could be watching an AGFA or Criterion movie instead…

beyond that the technical elements are…fine. Once again a director has fallen into the trap of overegging the action scenes over giving us a sense of these humans ACTUALLY being real people. its a big budget studio picture, so everything on the direction and cine front is going to be of a standard. The trouble is here, the standard is about as good as it gets, they somehow manage the amazing feat of making grand sweeping scenes of dinosaurs roaming the land look kind of boring. and while the CG is miles better than what we had in ‘Jurassic 3’…10 years on from its premiere, its starting to creak a bit.

And thats probably how I’d sum up the rest of this film, the cines fine, but kind of unremarkable, the performances are fine, but dance the line between that Marvel style snark and being dry to the point of kindling. the soundtracks still milking the Williams score for all the nostalgia it can. The fact the films already starting to feel a bit dated only 10 or so years from its release is frankly concerning, because all thats telling me is 10 years from NOW, its going to look Pony.

I dont have the same level of whistful nostalgia for Jurassic Park as most people seem to have. If you were to ask me, from what i’ve seen, I think they really should have just left this as a ‘one film and done’ kind of thing. As it stands, as far as soft reboots go, I really just didnt get this one. I can see how this could lay the ground for maybe one or two more movies. But I know theres been WAY more than that, and I cant even BEGIN to imagine how tenuous they’re going to get from here on in. But yeah, I didnt hate this one, I was just…kind of unimpressed by it and left wondering what the point of any of it was other than to put brand names in front of people and to try and revive an IP that had been on ice for a decade and a half…Your milage may vary…But I dont think i’ll be in a rush to revisit this one…

EDIT: OH! And I almost completely forgot…the GAUL of this film to essentially take the plots of ‘Lost World’ (I.E a corrupt company trying to capture dinosaurs for their own nefarious needs) and ‘Jurassic 3’ (people who are aware of the events of the park getting stranded and trying to get back to base to call for help) and cherry picking elements of it to create some kind of recycled hybrid movie is ESPECIALLY annoying when you consider the main plot is about cherry picking the best bits of dinosaurs…GOD this movie kind of sucked in a way…

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jurassic-world/