While I have always tried to keep spoilers out of my reviews, I am taking a new approach with Jurassic World. I am writing both a spoiler free version for all of you who have yet to see the movie and a version with spoilers (that you can read here: http://bit.ly/1Ibd7Bu).
For those of you who have been living under a rock and don’t know much about this movie, it essentially takes place 20ish years after the first Jurassic Park movie. After the original founder, John Hammond, passes away, he leaves his idea to his successor who is able to create the island resort Jurassic World. We join the action about 10 years after the park opened and learn that (somehow) people are getting bored of dinosaurs. The new attractions aren’t bringing in as much attention and, while still doing extremely well financially, the board of directors is looking to find something to inject new life into the park’s profits. The special lab technicians from InGen are able to use gene splicing to create the world’s first artificial dinosaurs. Enter the Indominus Rex. When this bad boy breaks loose, all hell is unleashed upon Isla Nubar (which, like I said earlier, is a fully operation resort park housing over 20,000 visitors).
Let me preface all of this by saying that I really enjoyed Jurassic World. It is not a perfect movie; however, I still enjoyed watching it so much (despite a crazy storm knocking the power out for 15 minutes right as it was starting). The movie boldly tried a few new things, some of which worked and some of which didn’t. Without giving anything away, here is my take on Jurassic World.
The first thing that is obvious is the revamped special effects. While the original absolutely blew people away by introducing advanced CGI for the first time (seriously check this out, the effects still hold up 20 years later by today’s standard: http://bit.ly/YT60yk), today’s advancements in technology have led to even bigger and better effects. Although I think there are a few scenes with a little unnecessary CGI, this movie’s visuals are amazing. From the first time you get a glimpse of the park to the ending credits, your eyes in for a cinematic feast .
While the two main actors, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas-Howard, do a great job in the movie, a lot of the secondary characters do come off as a little one dimensional and cliche. Also, thirty minutes into the film you already have a pretty solid idea of who is going to live and who is going to die. Pratt and Dallas-Howard, however, showed why they were the top-billed talent in this movie. Nobody thought that Chris Pratt could break the lovable simpleton mold from Parks and Rec, but this is back-to-back summers with Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World that he has shown his acting range is a lot larger than initially anticipated. While Dallas-Howard got off to a bit of a stale start in the first half hour or so, she really turned it around and did a great job as Claire, the park administrator. She had been in two other movies which ruined a franchise in Spider-Man 3 and Terminator Salvation, so I am glad that it didn’t happen again with Jurassic World.
The movie had a few minor plot holes which I will go into more detail in with my spoiler review, but all-in-all, Jurassic World was a good movie that thoroughly enjoyed.
Comment and let me know what you thought of Jurassic World.
CinemaStickler 