Disappointing dino

Rating: 5/10 (15 June 2015)

I love the original Jurassic Park and I will still watch the sequels. I have been looking forward to this addition since I very first heard rumors of its arrival. I have been waiting years. All that being said, I was disappointed after such anticipation. I suppose if I had never watched the first one I might be more pleased with this one, but I doubt anything will ever make me feel like the first one did. In 1993, it was like nothing else of its time.
I did appreciate some of the nods to the original, such as the DNA cartoon that the children were interacting with and the mosquito in the large amber rock that Chris Pratt hides behind in the final action scene. There were countless others, to the point that it started to seem like the old dog doing the same tricks. The kids get the hamster ball ride dropped on them after they get out of it, which was strikingly familiar to the scene in the first movie where Dr. Grant and Tim get out of the car, then it falls on them but they do not get crushed because of the open roof. They're looking up through the glass and you see the eye of the dino just like the kids did the T rex in the first movie. All that aside, the plot was weak and some of it was down right cheesy, here in no particular order:
-Owen and Claire's relationship/interaction is cheesy and predictable.
-The fact that Owen supposedly has these raptors trained to be loyal to him, respect him, and obey his commands is preposterous and another reason I say cheesy.
-At one point the younger nephew starts blubbering about his parents getting a divorce. It was totally pointless to the rest of the movie. Nothing about the parents interactions in the beginning led anyone to believe there was turmoil or upheaval in the household. At one point I thought, OK, the parents sent the kids down to the park with her sister so they wouldn't be present during a messy divorce hearing or something. At one point the mom is talking on the phone outside of a meeting but it didn't give us enough information to let us in on if this was her job or the divorce meeting. The entire movie could have done without that information and would not have been affected.
-Dr. Wu ends up being not entirely a villain, but not entirely portrayed in a positive light either and that was a major disappointment for me. It was like he sold out or something. I love BD Wong and I love his characters and it bothered me.
-Claire's hair looks like a wig.
-Owen's motorcycle is apparently an all terrain vehicle, which I think someone else mentioned in a review.
-A lot of the stuff to do with this genetically engineered dinosaur did not add up. I will say I think the franchise has been building up to this super raptor idea for a long time. Most people always considered the T rex to be the ultimate predator, but after watching Jurassic Park, our eyes were opened to this new dinosaur, the raptor. While not as large as the T Rex, she is to be feared and respected because of her cunning and fierceness. This new monster's vision is not based on movement like the T Rex, yet on several occasions, like when Owen and Claire hid behind the jeep, they stay real still like that will make a difference. If her vision is based on thermal energy, she would have noticed them. And they did not feed the new dino live animals, which unless they freshly slaughtered the steer they drop to attract him, she wouldn't be enticed by that side of beef. The T Rex got live food because his vision is based on movement. the Idominus Rex should have been fed live food because her vision is based on warmth. Just a theory.
-It was silly at the end of the movie how the raptor and the T Rex looked at each other like they had come to some understanding over eliminating the Idominus Rex. Even more so that the water dinosaur hopped out of the barrier and dealt the final blow.

I know teenagers are difficult, but really. If you are in a ride that involved large unbridled prehistoric animals and they call it back and then seconds later your aunt that runs the park calls you in a panic, would you not maybe consider going back?

-Hoskins insisted on using the raptors to fight the super monster, which had to happen for the sake of the movie to happen, but really? That thing was huge and was hunting them. Did they really need to use the raptors like blood hounds to find it? And the raptors were so small they were no match for that thing anyway. They could have just as reasonably dropped a missile or rocket or whatever they originally suggested just as easily and not involved the raptors at all.