Little life finds its way into this lousy sequel

Rating: 4/10 (17 June 2015)

Remember the scene in the original Jurassic Park where the lawyer gets eaten while cowering on the toilet? Of course you do. It's a fun little moment. But it's also an easy joke and a sour, callous moment in a film that otherwise is pretty respectful of the life and death stakes at play in its scenario. Well, the makers of Jurassic World, mad little scientists of cinema that they are, take all the narrative DNA of the original film they can get their mitts on and pump in a whole lot of the toilet scene DNA to fill gaps in the chain and beef it up to modern standards. The resulting film is occasionally enjoyable on the lowest level of sensation, but mostly an onerous exercise in empty spectacle devoid of wit or humanity.
Despite the lip service this pays to Spielberg's comparably towering original, this new dino epic inverts nearly every element that made the first entry work so well and endure to this day. Chief among this is the original film's absolute love of science. Yes, the ultimate message is the danger of science overstepping its boundaries, but our main characters were two paleontologists and a mathematician. Here we must settle for Chris Pratt's ex-Navy man (I never thought a film could put me in the position of finding Chris Pratt unlikeable, but here we are) and a host of faceless paramilitary jug-heads. The strain of militarism runs deeply in the film (despite its pretensions otherwise) and combined with a general lack of humanity forcing me to the point of outright rooting for every human to be gobbled up whole and never heard from again.
Colin Trevorrow, likely in a misguided attempt to apologize for not being Spielberg, throws limp dick semi-satire all around the periphery to no real avail. It's telling that this film cues up John Williams iconic theme with shots of a theme park thoroughfare dotted with corporate logos. Hey, Starbucks. 'Sup, Brookstone. Hiya, Samsung. Hang loose, Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville. For all its hip po-mo posturing, this is an oppressively imagination-free affair, a sponsored dinosaur of a film, Comcast/NBC/Universal Pictures Presents Nostalgia Tinged Blockbuster 2015.
In his 1993 review of Jurassic Park, Ebert lamented that film's lack of awe and wonder. Perhaps he was right, but there was genuine terror and at least a cursory streak of humanity. The only such sensations dredged up by Jurassic World are a blood-thirsty cackle here and there. The problem isn't that the film appeals to our most base instincts, it's that it fails to satisfy them fully.