Spared no expense - for real this time

Rating: 5/10 (28 July 2015)

In the original Jurassic Park, the CEO John Hammond was a complex character. He is amiable, ambitious and proud of his ground breaking genetic achievements, yet displays lack of care and hubris over the more technical issues of his park, despite the repetition of the phrase "spared no expense". When confronted with his carelessness, he is visibly struck and his motivations change once he realises he never had control of the dinosaurs. It's all portrayed well by the late Richard Attenborough.
Jurassic World has none of this. Irrfan Khan plays Simon Masrani, with little nuance as the carefree, charismatic owner of JW who later heroically decides to terminate his million dollar genetic asset and is immediately killed off. JP had the very natural and well acted couple of Alan and Ellie, individually fleshed out yet given a strong base for their careers and mutual admiration in that first moment when we see living breathing dinosaurs. In JW, Claire shoots a dinosaur attacking Owen and they immediately embrace and kiss in a thematically jarring Man of Steel-like moment. To be fair, that's not the worst of it; that belongs to the scene from the trailers where they first talk outside Owen's bungalow (adorned unashamedly with a Mercedes logo). Dallas Howard and Pratt are capable actors but with such a lazy screenplay and with the inevitable romantic sub-plot that immediately predictable when he mentions their first date, there's not much characterisation that draws you into the world of JW. But the biggest offenders have to be brothers Zach and Gray, the nephews of Claire who come to visit the park over the holidays. Gray is younger of the two and a dinosaur nerd, memorising every little fact and detail and being visibly enchanted and excited at the opportunity. So it's a little jarring when a scene change suddenly has his sobbing over his parent's imminent divorce without any preceding indication of this (the script's production woes is mostly responsible for this). Zach is the older sibling, driven by his teenage hormones into the defining characteristic of staring at every girl he sees. But even he is eventually wowed by Jurassic World.
In fact it's his sudden change from the sullen mopey teen that highlights just how conflicted JW is with its key themes. The opening exposition Claire gives to potential investors and the audience talks of the dwindling interest of the public in ordinary dinosaurs, yet beyond this there is nothing that drives the motivation to create new genetic hybrids to boost crowds. Every attraction is crowded full of tourists, from adults and kids, all enjoying themselves. Giacchino's rendition of Williams' iconic theme even pops up now and again to signal to the audience when to marvel like Gray. When the Megalodon bursts from the pool and devours a fully grown shark, even the moody Zach is entertained. The world building draws you in with spectacular shots of the park's scenery and architecture, yet the shallow and inconsistent script contradicts this.
Trevorrow's direction lavishes in pivot reveals of harsh gouges in walls, enormous footprints and numerous slain bodies of Brontosaurus', and the eye popping digital dinos certainly enhance the whole experience. It would be nostalgia goggles to suggest they look fake as opposed to the original JP but it all still unfortunately pales in comparison when seeking to create an atmosphere of dread, or horror, or even wonder. Clairre's British assistant is brutally killed off in a rather extended and gratuitous sequence for a character we do not care for, and the very one dimensional military enthusiast in Vic is offed rather anticlimactically. The final fight scene is a terribly generic and clichéd action sequence of events that seems to be just lifted from any blockbuster. The shot of Claire with the flare is admittedly chilling, but after that the scene descends into a classic hack and slash, and the little tension that it tries to sustain is quickly dispelled by the laughable coincidental manner in which firstly, Blue ambushes the I-Rex just as it seems all hope is lost, and then finally, the Megalodon bursts from its pool to tie up all loose ends.
Even given leeway for its premise there are a few inconsistencies within the script which would be paved over in a better movie (It's a Unix system!). But JW is all glamour and possesses little depth once you start to look a little closer, and it makes it all the easier to spot these mistakes. Why would the entire park have a single helicopter mounted machine gun (or only one helicopter pilot), leaving the hilariously under-equipped containment team to take on a 30 foot monster with electric sticks? Why would you give any tourist the complete control of a gyro ball without any remote control override, opening possibilities for wayward children to ram the dinos and start a stampede, or go offsite and wander into the forest? Why would you lampoon the trope of two characters finding romance in a tense situation (one of the few humorous lines of the movie - Jimmy Fallon does not count) but apply it shamelessly to the title characters? Why would you enter a hostile containment site without first checking the transmitter that always traces its location? I mean, I can buy the I-Rex using the spliced genes of a frog to avoid thermal detection. I can even buy it being able to speak fluent raptor despite being raised in solitary confinement. But you have to recognise when suspension of disbelief just runs out.
Even after all that, JW is still worth a watch, if only for the stunning visuals and modern digital creations of the dinos that, more than 20 years on, remain the few upgrades from the original classic.