After the box office disappointment and mixed critical reaction of Jurassic Park III, Universal decided to put the franchise on hold. For the next 14 years, plans for a 4th movie were in development with numerous directors considered, concepts discussed, and screenplays written that were all over the place. Over the years, many of the original cast members, including Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Richard Attenborough were either in talks to return or expressed interest in reprising their roles. After Joe Johnston declined returning to direct the fourth film, people like Alex Proyas and Brad Bird were considered to direct the film before Colin Trevorrow, who previously directed Safety Not Guaranteed, was ultimately chosen. There were several writers working on the initial scripts, including William Monahan, who eventually left to work on Kingdom of Heaven, John Sayles, who also wrote the original Piranha and The Howling before being nominated for Passion Fish and Lone Star, and Mark Protosevich, who also wrote I Am Legend and the first Thor, until Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were ultimately picked to helm the screenplay. Released in 2015, 14 years after the previous film, with an entirely different cast and crew, how did Jurassic World turn out?
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Set 22 years after the first film (this one ignores The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III), a new park called Jurassic World has been built on Isla Nublar, the island that the original park was set on. However, unlike the previous park, this one is not only fully operational and open to the public, but it has become a huge success and seems to have been in operation for quite a long time. The park is mainly run by Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who is more focused on her work than her personal life. This is made apparent when her nephews Zach and Gary Mitchell, played by Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins respectively, come to the park and are escorted around by Claire’s assistant Zara, played by Katie McGrath. While Gary is overly excited and ecstatic to be at the park, Zach is clearly not having any of this and is more focused on picking up chicks there. Meanwhile, the park’s owner Simon Masrani, played by Irrfan Khan, has hired Dr. Henry Wu, played by BD Wong, to create a new dinosaur genetically spliced from other dinosaurs in order to attract more tourists. Known as the Indominus Rex, this new asset, as its referred to, is being touted as the biggest, baddest, and meanest dinosaur they have to offer. Before unveiling it to the public, Masrani wants to have an expert evaluate it, so he has Claire bring in velociraptor expert Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt. Grady warns them about having the dinosaur kept in isolation, and through a series of circumstances, the Indominus Rex ends up escaping and it’s up to Grady and Claire to track the dinosaur down before it kills the tourists.
When this movie was first announced, like most other people, I was very excited to see this movie since I really loved Jurassic Park. Plus, this was right after Guardians of the Galaxy came out, and Chris Pratt just exploded on the scene. So with all that said, when I finally did see the movie, I was largely entertained by it, but there were still things about the movie that bugged me. First, let me get into the positives. For one, the cast in this is terrific. Chris Pratt, as always, is both funny and insanely charismatic. Bryce Dallas Howard, on top of looking gorgeous, does her job well in spite of the material, and she actually does go through a character change, which is nice. Also, while they aren’t as good or memorable as Lex and Tim from the first film, Zach and Gary are still fun characters and both Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins play off each other really well. While it is a shame that a lot of the original cast members don’t return for this one, it is nice to see BD Wong reprise his role from the original for a minor supporting role here. Plus, it’s cool to see Vincent D’Onofrio in a movie. Also worth mentioning is Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus as Lowery and Vivian respectively. While Johnson is more memorable and fun, Lapkus is also enjoyable and she and Johnson play off each other nicely. Aside from the cast, the dinosaurs do look impressive and are a fun spectacle. While I would’ve preferred more of a blend between practical effects and CGI like in the previous films, I can’t deny that the CG here looks good. Even though John Williams didn’t return to score this film, they did bring in Michael Giacchino as the composer, and he does a solid job mimicking Williams’ style of music.
Now here’s where I get into everything about the movie that either doesn’t work or just really annoyed me. First off, for a movie written by two writers who before have written great material, this movie is not exceptionally well-written. A lot of the characters in here feel more like archetypes than actual three-dimensional characters, i.e. Pratt as the confident and gruff action hero, Howard as the uppity business woman who’s all about business but learns the meaning of life or something like that, and D’Onofrio as the stereotypical military-minded guy who wants to weaponize the raptors despite how terrible of an idea it is. Speaking of terrible ideas, I normally don’t complain about characters doing things that seem idiotic or nonsensical since it’s only a movie and you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief, but the characters here make some dumb decisions. For starters, Masrani says he wants a dinosaur with tons of teeth and who is very aggressive, but doesn’t oversee what sort of dinosaur DNA is used in the creation. Also, for a park that supposedly has a state-of-the-art security system, a pair of kids can easily roam free around the park while the workers just stand there and do nothing. And whenever a dinosaur is on the loose, a lot of the characters, except for the leads, seem to not know how to handle the situation. Sure, the security system was breached in the first film and the characters were unsure of what to do to survive, but in its defense, the park wasn’t open to the public, and aside from Hammond and the staff, none of the main characters had ever been to the park or even seen these dinosaurs, so of course they wouldn’t know what to do. Here, we have people who not only work at the park, but they have personal experience working with the dinosaurs and have extensive knowledge of these creatures. Going back to the effects for a minute, there’s only one scene in the whole movie where they have a practical dinosaur. It’s very brief, but it does look good, so my only question is: if they could create a dinosaur practically, why was every single other dinosaur CG? Admittedly, some shots I can understand why they were digital, like the pteradons flying through the air or some of the bigger dinosaur fight scenes, but I don’t understand why a film with this large of a budget couldn’t have done CG and practicals like before.
Complaints aside, while this movie is nowhere near as good as the original Jurassic Park, it is arguably the best of the sequels. It’s definitely not as boring as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and it is slightly better than Jurassic Park III even though I kind of liked it. Still, if you’re going into this expecting not only the great, three-dimensional and complex characters of the original, the well-written and subtle social/moral commentary, and a wonderful mixture of practical and CGI, you are going to be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a fun ride that still has impressive-looking CGI, fun though generic characters played by actors above their given material, and some pretty fun set-pieces and spectacle, Jurassic World is still enjoyable to watch even if it fails in recapturing the magic of the 1993 original.
