Jurassic World is decent popcorn entertainment but ultimately feels like wasted potential

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2015)

Upon leaving the theater, my reaction to Jurassic World was "eh it was good enough". A few days later as I think back to the movie, I remember the action packed finale and some of the great visuals but ultimately there was something lacking from the film, a soul, an identity.
Newcomer director Colin Trevorrow proves that he has the ability to to shoot involving action scenes, despite having just one small indie film on his resume. Despite this, sometimes his direction can feel flat, especially in dialogue heavy scenes where he struggles to create dynamism in the interactions of his characters. This leaves the audience uninvested in the intricacies of the story (which is highly straightforward) and simply eager to get to the next dino' showdown.
The dinosaur scenes in this film are overall fantastic, and elevate the movie to new heights. I felt like there could have been a greater variety of dinosaurs on offer here, but the ones that are in the film (especially the Mosasaur and I-Rex) deliver the goods.
Unlike the original Jurassic Park and to a certain extent The Lost World, Jurassic World presents shallow characters and tries to flesh them out in a cliché manner. For example, the divorce subplot involving the two boys that is brought up once early on in the film, and then never resolved or mentioned following that scene. Another example is the main female character Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is portrayed in a negative and highly stereotypical manner for 3/4 of the movie.
Some people have criticized Irfan Khan's character but I thought his small character arc was brilliant. However the military subplot was both unneeded and implausible and should have been scrapped. Chris Pratt was decent as always but wasn't given much to work with here.
Ultimately, the movie somewhat succeeds in creating a plausible and believable world, however it would have benefited from some more confident direction and a greater focus on story and characterization over visuals. I don't really have a pressing desire to delve back into the world of the film because it ultimately felt too soulless, especially in comparison to Spielberg's original.
The movie has been marketed as an action/thriller film and it achieves this at the expense of the more subtle tension present in previous installments in the series.
That said, if you are looking for thrilling popcorn entertainment you will have a good time with this one, just don't expect a classic.
6/10