packs some punch but leaves a lot to be desired

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2015)

Jurassic World takes us back to the beloved Jurassic Park franchise, and now the Park is open for business! People are flocking to the dinosaur theme park in droves, and now the dinos are just another tourist attraction for people to take pictures of. There is definitely room for satire here, giving this premise, but the movie abandons that early on that in favour of a more bombastic approach. Namely, a genetically engineered dinosaur escapes and kills things. The question now becomes how entertaining is all the destruction? In general, I'd say it's pretty enjoyable. There's a nice scene with a flock of bird dinos attacking the tourists (I particularly liked the older guy grabbing his drinks as he gets away). The dinosaurs look great. We know they're CGI, but it's good CGI, not like in the dreadful Jurassic Park 3. There is a fun chase scene with some raptors, and a great finale with the genetically engineered dinosaur squaring off against a T-Rex. Also, that thing in the water was awesome. In general, the scenes lack the composition and structure that made the first film in the series great, and the second film pretty good as well. There's not really any clever poetic moments that make you gasp at how good the film direction is. There's nothing that comes close to the kitchen scene in the first film. Most scenes are just: dinosaurs attacking, people run, more attack, more running, some hiding. There isn't this great sense of overall urgency to it. Perhaps this stems from the uninteresting characters. Chris Pratt is reliably good in his role, but his character lacks something, perhaps some back story. I dunno. The kids in the movie suck. Spielberg knew how to not only direct children, but also to cast ones that are compelling. These kids were boring and lacked any charisma, and whenever the movie focused on them I was cringing in my seat. Let's get back to the dinos, guys! Bryce Dallas Howard gave the best performance in the film by doing all her scenes in high-heels. I was happy to see Katie McGrath, who was great in BBC's Merlin, but was unhappy in how 1. Her role was tiny and 2. How she undeservedly got the most horrible death in the movie. If I was in charge of the film I would have made the uptight aunt (Dallas Howard) have the gruesome death, and made the British assistant (McGrath) the leading lady. Anyway, there is definitely enjoyment to be had from the film's' great visuals, though not so much from the weak characterizations and the generic scenes.