The Lost Sequel

Rating: 8/10 (14 June 2015)

Jurassic World is the sequel that Jurassic Park deserved. Although still not as good as the first one, it's definitely better than the latter films. First of all, the characters in this film. Chris Pratt stars as Owen who trains rap tors, Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire and the two children namely Zach and Grey. For Owen and Claire, they had great chemistry and they were entertaining to watch for the most part in the film. The subplot of the two children which kind of parallels the two children subplot in the first film was more or less okay, it's understandable as in the first film it was stated that Jurassic Park's "target audience" were the children, and sure they were relatable to the children audience. But that was just about it as they were then overshadowed by the much more thrilling occurrences in Claire and Owen's storyline, although I'm not saying they didn't have thrilling or intense sequences, they sure had a ton of them. Then you have Chris Pratt as Owen along with Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire. Chris Pratt's character was the bad ass and "alpha" rap tor trainer and Claire was kind of like the person in charge of the park who happens to be nephews with the two children. Owen and Claire were entertaining, but it felt that something was missing. In the first film, the way Spielberg introduced each and every character in Jurassic Park was so excellent that we immediately liked and connected to them. You had the wisecracking and funny Dr. Ian Malcolm when he was first introduced and you had Dr. Alan Grant who when he was introduced, he was shown irritated with a child and then proceeded to burn him (not literally). So it was then fun to watch when Dr. Grant now had to cope with two children in Jurassic Park. It was just simple things that made us love the characters in the first film which in this one, did not really quite have that except for the chemistry between Owen and Claire and how the children in this film were very much relatable for it's target audience.
The main thing people usually "complain" about is how it isn't "scary" like the first film. The reason why the first film was so intense and scary was because the tension and scare was only revolving around a few number of people. The issue with many films nowadays is that they'd rather have a larger scope of what's happening, but then the audience wouldn't know what would be happening if there are too much things happening. The great thing about Jurassic Park was because of this small amount of people that everyone can relate to and can provide much more suspense which gave way to intense sequences because the audience now has a clear state of mind as to what is happening and who are the characters that are in an intense situation. As for Jurassic World, the scope of disaster in this film is huge and it was intense at some points, but you gotta admit that the most suspenseful moments in the film was when there weren't a lot of people and it was only just Chris Pratt standing still while the dinosaur comes up close or when the two children are escaping the dinosaur.
Speaking of dinosaurs, let's talk about Indominus Rex and just dinosaurs in general in this film. Firstly, the CGI in this film for the dinosaurs was great. Close up shots looked great and more or less there were no problems, practical effects thankfully used and the human interaction with the dinosaurs looked excellent. Now moving on to the Indominus Rex, she was indeed a menacing antagonist. She was an intelligent hybrid capable of tricking humans and killing for sport as introduced in the first few minutes of the film, yet as the film progressed, it kinda felt inconsistent and her skills and intelligence were undermined a little bit, but maybe it was just because she had quite a short to moderate screen time.
The action and thrilling sequences in this film. As mentioned, the most thrilling and intense scenes are when there aren't a lot of people and you actually know what is happening. Now this parallels as well to the action sequences in this film, because the action was amazing and awesome for children granted, but when analyzing and actually watching it as a whole....it kind of felt dull. Watching the action sequences it kind of reminded me of Transformers and that's usually a bad thing, especially at the boss or final battle (no spoilers), that battle felt too convoluted and it cuts back and forth to the humans and back to the dinosaurs fighting and back to the humans again and back to the dinosaurs fighting. If you have an epic battle, you must emphasize on it or the battle sequence will feel convoluted and confusing as to what is happening.
Now let's talk about the wonder and awe that this film contained that is crucial to Jurassic Park films (well except for the latter films), it sure had A LOT of call backs, references and parallels to the first film, and the John Williams score comes back which provides with a lot of goosebumps and memories back. We've seem dozens of other innovative CGI films in the past few years but this film will still give you a smile if not drop your jaw if you're a kid or kid at heart.
Verdict: 8.0/10