Nostalgic cash grab

Rating: 5/10 (4 July 2016)

"Jurassic World" is the third sequel (or possibly second first sequel? I'll get to that later) to Jurassic Park, my favorite film from childhood. As a dinosaur obsessed six year old, I begged and begged my parents to take me to see that movie, until, despite media reports that the film was perhaps too frightening for its target audience (i.e., me) my parents relented and took me to see it shortly before it's VHS release.
Oh what wonders! My parents fears turned out to be unfounded, because I had come as close as I ever would to seeing what my six year old self wanted to see: dinosaurs in the flesh. How could I be frightened when I was this close to seeing my hearts desire? Admittedly, it is not that difficult to impress a six year old boy.
I probably watched Jurassic Park 300,000 times between the ages of six and thirteen. It was undoubtedly my favorite film from childhood. I absolutely loved that film.
In 2011, many years after I had last seen Jurassic Park, a local theater had a "classic movie night". This is also several years before Jurassic Park was converted into 3D for an official rerelease. Rewatching it, I was shocked at how well it held up, particularly the visual effects. Although my dinosaur obsession died before I reached adulthood (you could say went extinct, har har) my love of movies carried on, and Jurassic Park is truly a great movie. It has astonishing visual effects, tense and terrifying action sequences, likable and interesting characters, great performances from the cast, a far fetched but imaginative and intriguing plot, and has (almost inarguably) not been matched in terms of quality by any "summer blockbuster" made by Steven Spielberg since then.
But I'm supposed to be writing a review of Jurassic World, which has none of those things. A not-quite-remake, not-quite-sequel to Jurassic Park, Jurassic World (as of my writing this) quickly became the third highest grossing film of all time (and quickly dropped to fourth after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens). Obviously, I wasn't the only person anticipating this one. Despite eye rolling trailers and a general sense of "been there, ate that", I was going to see this movie no matter what.
I am going to keep this review spoiler free, although I must say that the movie's plot makes very little sense in the context of the first two sequels to Jurassic Park. Indeed, while the first movie is referenced frequently both directly and indirectly, the sequels are treated as if they never happened. Whether this means that this is a "selective sequel" (striking The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3 from continuity), or simply that Jurassic World is lazy with its continuity, is almost besides the point. 2&3: hate em. Let's forget about them.
I'd be more okay with this tact if what was made was better. Jurassic World seems to have two somewhat contradictory goals: remaking Jurassic Park, and making a sequel to it. And in the sequel department, the writers have come up with a plot that seems to throw sh!t at the wall and see what sticks.
Problem is, a lot of it doesn't. The plot is loose and all over the place. The tone is wobbly. The characters wooden, the performances uneven, and the visual effects no more spectacular than anything else released in 2015. Action scenes tend to carry little emotional weight.
Which isn't to say that the movie is terrible, or even outright bad. It's not. Individual scenes, moments, and plot threads work just fine. They just don't congeal into a satisfying whole.
Unlike Jurassic Park, which I made the mistake of rewatching immediately after this movie, for the first time since 2011. I was amazed at how well it held up, and how much better it is than this film is. This is an unnecessary remake. It is an unnecessary sequel.
But we all wanted to see it. Hence: 4th highest grossing film of all time.