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Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Irrfan Khan, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Michael Crichton
Jurassic World seems to know you're here for dinosaur action, or, at least it thinks you are. The movie wastes no time getting to the park, and from there it spends a short time setting up all the foreshadowing before letting the bad stuff happen. And you can kind of see why it does that, because its action scenes are probably the best part. They don't ever really feel repetitive, some of them are pretty interestingly set up, and they really do their best to build suspense even though if you watch movies you can probably peg right off the bat pretty much everyone who will survive and everyone that won't (which is a shame, because certain characters that'll obviously survive bring what should have been their deaths down on themselves through sheer idiocy). Really the question falls more to "How will they make it out of this?" than "Will they make it out of this?", and it can be fairly fun to watch them work their way out of their situations, even if the answer is sometimes "Contrivance" or "Stupidly".
Jurassic Park definitely tries to have heart and emotion thrown in among its action moments, they're just not very good. After a while the movie starts giving the impression it really just wants to be a movie about something scary killing people and is simply bowing to studio mandates by throwing in some slower moments every once in a while, as it slots them in at the easiest moments with no regard for things like logic. Would you ever stop and have a tearful reunion and forced romantic moment in the middle of a crowd that's panicking because some dinosaurs are flying around trying to kill people, including potentially you? The characters sure would, and they do. There's even a tiny emotional subplot that doesn't effect anything and doesn't even have a resolution, pretty much being forgotten about roughly three mentions.
It may have been easier for them to make emotional scenes work if the main characters were better, as some of the moments could have been really good if we just had some background. The characters start out good enough, fairly basic as far as characters go but still distinct from each other, but their traits pretty much rub off as the movie goes on and has more action. A couple of them get some development, but it's all scrunched up near the beginning. After that they're defined by what they can do, which wouldn't be too much of a problem except only one of them can really do anything specific to them. You're left with three bland characters and one slightly less bland character to try and care about.
The movie's decision to focus on this group of specific people is a fairly weird one because it ultimately ends up wasting the tons of potential the plot had. The big appeal of the movie is supposed to be that, to quote the tagline, "The Park is Open", and thus there are a few thousand random innocents at risk of dying. The movie has the dinos pose an immediate threat to the park goers in one scene (an extended version of the one shown in the trailers), and for the rest of the movie it's pretty much just a reason they need to be quick about stopping the I. rex. Not even getting into the potential for action and suspense scenes that's definitely there and just not used, the movie has glimpses of effective emotional moments practically gift-wrapped for it in these scenes, and they completely ignore the opportunities. And maybe that's because of the PG-13 rating that they shied away from major carnage, but if an aimed for rating doesn't allow for full exploration of your gimmick then picking a different gimmick is probably a good idea.
The movie brushes off potential in other places, as well. The I-rex's camouflage abilities are used once, maybe twice, before never showing up again. The mosasaur that the marketing features so heavily does one thing plot relevant that involves it being onscreen for maybe seven seconds, and has two other brief scenes there pretty much so its plot important moment is foreshadowed. A major plot point is brought up at the beginning and then spends the entire movie presumably twiddling its thumbs waiting to actually do something. The flying dinosaurs have the one scene and then join the rest of the ignored elements. There's way too much stuff vying for attention in this movie, and it either needed to be spread across multiple movies, or they had to pick a couple of things to actually explore and then cut out the rest to make room for that stuff.
What the movie does make room for is a vaguely confusing subplot about non-main characters wanting to use the animals for warfare and some shady plans going on behind the scenes. The whole warfare subplot is pretty much so we have the obvious bad guy we can boo at, and the shady dealings are a very blatant sequel hook, that's pretty much all there is to say about both the plot points.
The visuals are pretty much what people expected; It's not absolutely horrible, but there are certain moments where you can just really easily tell the dinosaurs are CGI. It's probably too obvious to say it's at its best when it's in the dark and any imperfections can be hidden easily, which incidentally are also probably the most visually interesting parts of the movie. In contrast, there are a few scenes that look really good, like the flying dinosaur attack and the I.rex appearing after camouflaging.
Jurassic World is the type of movie you shut your brain off while watching and just go to to see carnage. It tried to be more, and the potential was there, but its attempts fell flat. So instead just enjoy the tons of call backs to the original movie, watch the deaths, and don't give up hope that we may one day get a Jurassic Park movie without the obligatory major kid characters.
Jurassic World
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Irrfan Khan, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Michael Crichton
Jurassic World seems to know you're here for dinosaur action, or, at least it thinks you are. The movie wastes no time getting to the park, and from there it spends a short time setting up all the foreshadowing before letting the bad stuff happen. And you can kind of see why it does that, because its action scenes are probably the best part. They don't ever really feel repetitive, some of them are pretty interestingly set up, and they really do their best to build suspense even though if you watch movies you can probably peg right off the bat pretty much everyone who will survive and everyone that won't (which is a shame, because certain characters that'll obviously survive bring what should have been their deaths down on themselves through sheer idiocy). Really the question falls more to "How will they make it out of this?" than "Will they make it out of this?", and it can be fairly fun to watch them work their way out of their situations, even if the answer is sometimes "Contrivance" or "Stupidly".
Jurassic Park definitely tries to have heart and emotion thrown in among its action moments, they're just not very good. After a while the movie starts giving the impression it really just wants to be a movie about something scary killing people and is simply bowing to studio mandates by throwing in some slower moments every once in a while, as it slots them in at the easiest moments with no regard for things like logic. Would you ever stop and have a tearful reunion and forced romantic moment in the middle of a crowd that's panicking because some dinosaurs are flying around trying to kill people, including potentially you? The characters sure would, and they do. There's even a tiny emotional subplot that doesn't effect anything and doesn't even have a resolution, pretty much being forgotten about roughly three mentions.
It may have been easier for them to make emotional scenes work if the main characters were better, as some of the moments could have been really good if we just had some background. The characters start out good enough, fairly basic as far as characters go but still distinct from each other, but their traits pretty much rub off as the movie goes on and has more action. A couple of them get some development, but it's all scrunched up near the beginning. After that they're defined by what they can do, which wouldn't be too much of a problem except only one of them can really do anything specific to them. You're left with three bland characters and one slightly less bland character to try and care about.
The movie's decision to focus on this group of specific people is a fairly weird one because it ultimately ends up wasting the tons of potential the plot had. The big appeal of the movie is supposed to be that, to quote the tagline, "The Park is Open", and thus there are a few thousand random innocents at risk of dying. The movie has the dinos pose an immediate threat to the park goers in one scene (an extended version of the one shown in the trailers), and for the rest of the movie it's pretty much just a reason they need to be quick about stopping the I. rex. Not even getting into the potential for action and suspense scenes that's definitely there and just not used, the movie has glimpses of effective emotional moments practically gift-wrapped for it in these scenes, and they completely ignore the opportunities. And maybe that's because of the PG-13 rating that they shied away from major carnage, but if an aimed for rating doesn't allow for full exploration of your gimmick then picking a different gimmick is probably a good idea.
The movie brushes off potential in other places, as well. The I-rex's camouflage abilities are used once, maybe twice, before never showing up again. The mosasaur that the marketing features so heavily does one thing plot relevant that involves it being onscreen for maybe seven seconds, and has two other brief scenes there pretty much so its plot important moment is foreshadowed. A major plot point is brought up at the beginning and then spends the entire movie presumably twiddling its thumbs waiting to actually do something. The flying dinosaurs have the one scene and then join the rest of the ignored elements. There's way too much stuff vying for attention in this movie, and it either needed to be spread across multiple movies, or they had to pick a couple of things to actually explore and then cut out the rest to make room for that stuff.
What the movie does make room for is a vaguely confusing subplot about non-main characters wanting to use the animals for warfare and some shady plans going on behind the scenes. The whole warfare subplot is pretty much so we have the obvious bad guy we can boo at, and the shady dealings are a very blatant sequel hook, that's pretty much all there is to say about both the plot points.
The visuals are pretty much what people expected; It's not absolutely horrible, but there are certain moments where you can just really easily tell the dinosaurs are CGI. It's probably too obvious to say it's at its best when it's in the dark and any imperfections can be hidden easily, which incidentally are also probably the most visually interesting parts of the movie. In contrast, there are a few scenes that look really good, like the flying dinosaur attack and the I.rex appearing after camouflaging.
Jurassic World is the type of movie you shut your brain off while watching and just go to to see carnage. It tried to be more, and the potential was there, but its attempts fell flat. So instead just enjoy the tons of call backs to the original movie, watch the deaths, and don't give up hope that we may one day get a Jurassic Park movie without the obligatory major kid characters.