Basically a remake of Jurassic Park; but a good one!

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 2015)

This is basically a remake of the original Jurassic Park movie. It follows the same concept of kids, staying with their relatives, trapped in a theme park with dinosaurs on the loose. It just does it with more dinosaurs than before (adding swimming and flying dinosaurs to the mix) and bigger dinosaurs than before (a genetically-enhanced killer).
It even plays tongue-in-cheek homage to that original movie by reusing a number of visual cues (DNA man, the jeeps, flare to attract the T-Rex). And the mix of characters is basically the same too - corporate greed types, scientists that overreach themselves, the guy who 'understands' dinosaurs, the well-meaning but naive owner.
So how did it stack up?
Well it is clearly not as good (not as new, not as involving, not even as tense) as the original Jurassic Park. But it surprised me how much I did enjoy Jurassic World. By sticking to the original formula they were using some thing that worked - and it had me hooked from start to finish. There's a good tension and threat level throughout. The scary dinosaur scenes just keep on coming, from velociraptor chases, to pterosaur flocks, to dinosaur-on- dinosaur fights. And people just keep on getting eaten, one after another!
Others have said that the heavy use of CGI was a problem. I disagree. I found all the dinosaurs to be incredibly lifelike.
The acting is (while not poor) not going to win any Oscars. It was a relatively unknown cast and could have benefited from a couple of top actors to bring more gravitas.
But I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's great fun and I would watch it again.