A very good movie; tension, humor, action, and good characters

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2015)

*WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS* Well, it's been fourteen years since the last Jurassic Park movie, but now, we finally get another one... and it was worth the wait. Look, I'm not going to act like this was better than the first one, or even as good, but this was still a good movie, and a whole lot of fun. It combined elements of all three of the previous films, and added their own ideas to the mix, and the combo really worked. This time around, we have a new dinosaur, the Indominus Rex, which was pretty scary actually. It had camouflage, and wasn't fooled by lack of motion like the T-Rex was. They call out in the movie that the I- Rex is more powerful than the T-Rex, which immediately makes it feel more dangerous. We also see a fully armed attack team of soldiers take on the I-Rex, which we never saw with either the Tyrannosaurs or the Spinosaurus, which once again, makes it feel much more dangerous. If they just constantly thwart the same dinosaur, the movie loses the tension, but if you add in new dinosaurs, then it just keeps getting more and more tense. I also liked that they brought back the pterranadons (sorry if I'm spelling these names wrong) from JP 3, because I think having flying dinosaurs was a nice touch, and it gives us something smaller, that the heroes can fight back against. But now let's talk about the characters some, since without good characters, it's just watching dinosaurs run around and eat people. Again, these characters aren't quite like those from JP-1, but they're still pretty good. Chris Pratt does a good job of being Owen Grady, the raptor trainer. That was a really good dynamic, and Pratt obviously toned down his natural personality a bit, so the movie would still feel more serious, and he did that really well. He's still got the signature Pratt quips, but he's not just totally goofy. Bryce Dallas Howard also does a good job as the negligent Aunt Claire. She was also a totally new character, one more concerned with profit and attendance than nature, which was a really good twist on the typical JP characters, and they didn't make it out like she was evil just because she wasn't all about non-interference (yes, Lost World, you handled that message pretty poorly). Hoskins, the guy who wants to use the dinosaurs as military weapons, is also a good addition, if a bit clichéd. I like having a human character being featured as the side villain, so I appreciated his inclusion. The two kids gave surprising performances; their story was actually kind of touching, and they seemed to be decent actors. This is by far the most action packed JP movie to date. Soldiers with guns, pterodactyls on the loose, dinosaurs fighting each other, it was good. I liked seeing some more action, though the end fight with the T-Rex and the raptors ganging up on the I-Rex was... it was different. I'm not sure if I liked it or not, but it was a nice change of pace. There are so many character arcs and stories in this movie, I can't do them all justice, so I won't try, but they are handled well, and I appreciate that. The story itself though, that's handled very well. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was refreshing to see a summer blockbuster that didn't have to set up for three of four sequels, and just told a story. There is one plot point that wasn't resolved, but that was a good touch, that way there is room for sequels, but there don't have to be (considering all the money this movie has made in its opening though, there will be sequels). In conclusion, Jurassic World was a very good movie; fun, tense, good action and characters, very good effects, and was a great follow up to the original classic.