Film Review - Jurassic World

Jurassic World
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Genres: Action, Adventure | Children, Young Adult
Duration: 2hr 4m
Release Date: 11th June 2015
IMDB Rating:
Rating:

Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond.

After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor's interest, which ends up, backfiring horribly.

Jurassic World. Wow. Let's just say, from a pretty much Jurassic virgin, I was damn impressed, enthralled, excited and definitely eager to actually sit down and watch the previous instalments in the series properly, rather than just an hour here and there. If you're looking for a film that gets your heart racing, surprises you and entertains you for almost two hours, Jurassic World does it, it's just.. not quite perfect.

Cast wise, I don't think you could have chosen a better cast. Of course, people will have their issues, but me, I'm a HUGE fan of Chris Pratt. What do you mean I had only watched the Lego Movie previous to JW, it still counts.. right? Still, Pratt excelled in bringing Owen's character to life - down-to-earth and realistic, flirty and pretty practical, and not afraid of being made speechless, and alongside Bryce Dallas Howard, his character was fantastic. Although, sadly, Owen's charcater felt like the only one with any real history or background or any substance. Beth's character felt two dimensional and scripted, while any other characters just didn't hit any notes with me personally, other than Larry, but everybody loves a nerdy, clumsy and pretty darn daft guy, right? I think the main problem with Jurassic World and it's character's was that they weren't the focal point of this film. Throughout, the special treatment and focus was on the dinosaurs, and granted, dinosaurs are pretty cool, they just don't have personalities, they have hierarchies. Not so good when you're looking to invest emotional feelings in a film.

Er, while we're talking slightly negatively, lets get the biggest issue out of the way pretty pronto. Where those snippets of the previous films I've watched, I think, got the dinosaurs spot on when it comes to affects, JW just seemed to take the concept and take it a little too far. I won't deny it, the affects are brilliant, they really showcase just how much can be done, but when the lighter scenes of the film came around, you can see just how much of the special affects budget they blew on being 'showy'. However, when the darker, more eerie, gloomier and more tense scenes came around, there seemed to me to be the perfect level of affects. Sadly, the huge contrasts in scenes, form brightness to almost complete darkness just goes to show how much the budget they spent on affects - if they'd took more time to make the affects feel and look more natural, we may have had a little more light in those pretty damn dim scenes. A tad too showy, but still, I admit to being easily pleased.

Another slightly iffy issue I had with Jurassic World was how easily and smoothly the action appeared and disappeared, which is both a positive, a negative. Of course, the fact that the action was as good as it was was brilliant, it just made the viewing experience all the more exciting, but the fact that it looped high and dropped again, it just didn't really keep up the constant feel of suspense. Unlike the previous instalments and the parts I'd seen, Jurassic World in comparison felt more like Jurassic's younger sister that believes it's better and deserves more - scream if you want to be heard almost. You can have great cinema experiences without hords of screaming people, or scenes so busy and so messy that you can guarantee that the main characters will be able to have a moment to look over the carnage in front of them, or have a quick smooch amid the chaos, and while fun to watch, it's not always a good thing. Let me not deny that the cinema experience was really rather great, and from someone who doesn't go the cinema anywhere near enough to please me, it's good too.

Yes, the plot is a little messy. It's predictable in it's romance between unlikely Own and Beth, the typical 'parents aren't around' trope, which is usually seen in young adult, reared it's head once more, the big bad villian who just wants to be practical and actually make the most of violence is of course, a right twonk, and there's a very very intense final battle, and I can't take anything away from that. Jurassic World is exactly as the trailer promised. Action filled, intense and dark - and the actual world part, lets just say it's probably very unrealistic to be able to travel miles upon miles extremely quickly hen you've got dinosaurs a roaming. Be practical people.

I couldn't exactly turn around and say that Jurassic is a character orientated film, nor an action film, or science fiction if I'm honest, although it does try it's hand at being comedy-like, which doesn't really succeed. It feels too realistic to be science fiction - at least, along the genetics and being able to create dinosaurs from found genes, and I don't think I knew enough about the characters to really care if any of them had died. It's closer to an action film that any, but even then, the action is huge when on scream, and forgotten easily when it isn't. You have to award points to JW for how it's easily a great sequel to previous instalments, but doesn't rely on you having needed to watch previous releases, although it has given me the boost I wanted to actually seek out the previous three, and overall, it's a great film. I enjoyed it. I was entertained. I was impressed. For all the reasons you go the cinema, it succeeded. It's got it's issues, and it's messages about captivity and using animals, no matter what kind, as puppets, is wrong, and that respect, loyalty and relationships are your winners, but hey, I went to watch dinosaurs, and I got me some dinosaurs. Job well done, right?