All Over the Place

Rating: 5/10 (12 June 2015)

The four writers of Jurassic World didn't seem to be sure what they wanted their film to be - therein might lie the problem with collaborative writing. Collaborative writing is not always a problem - there were multiple writers on great films such as Toy Story and Children of Men, but after seeing the final cut of Jurassic World I wonder if the writers each wanted something different for the film to say.
We start the film with two brothers who will be traveling to Jurassic World, the younger one more excited, the other one a young high-schooler more concerned about leaving his girlfriend even though he won't tell her he loves her when she says it to him. This older brother, Zach, is a pretty boring character who merely stares at girls at the theme park, but not necessarily in a creepy way since they smile at him. And his girlfriend is hardly ever brought up again; what a jerk. The younger one, Gray (I thought his name was Greg), is a dinosaur enthusiast who is constantly running to get to the next attraction in a hurry. Sending two kids to a dinosaur theme park seems like a bad idea - no matter how "safe" it is - but when they get there it is revealed they will have an adult chaperone, but they run away from her at one point, of course.
So the movie suggests we will follow these two kids on their exciting journey, then introduces a handful of other "main" characters. There is the Chris Pratt character, who personifies animal activism in this film, "Aunt Claire," who is a workaholic who works behind the scenes at Jurassic World, and does not have time for her two nephews - the boys mentioned earlier - and a security guy who is interested and obsessed with using Chris Pratt's raptors as weapons.
If that wasn't enough, the main plot takes on a Godzilla-esque story (if Godzilla were a villain like in the '98 version) focusing on an alpha dinosaur who is virtually unstoppable, and escapes captivity through employing great intelligence and goes on a rampage across the park. You would think security would shut the park down immediately, but no - this is also a movie which questions the relationship between commercialism and safety, and the park's owner says security should be able to handle these types of problems without inducing fear in the park-goers.
Without even getting into the second act of the film, this is already a mess, and if that wasn't enough, the film is filled with terribly cheesy comedic bits which feel extremely out of place for a sequel to a Spielberg classic. These moments feel more awkward than funny, and they drag the movie down with them.
Jurassic World is mildly entertaining, but lacks the sense of wonder and awe present in the first film in my opinion, though it does contain some good moments of suspense. This is a decent popcorn movie, but its overload of various themes and subplots make it sloppy.