A Thrill-a-Minute, Kick-Ass Ride! To Sum it Up in Two Words - Pure Awesomeness!

Rating: 9/10 (17 July 2015)

Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)
Rating: 4.7/5 stars
While "Jurassic World" might not match the original for sheer inventiveness and impact, it more than delivers as a supremely entertaining and visually dazzling sci-fi actioner with a surprisingly witty screenplay, top-notch cast, spellbinding special effects, and gripping, coherent action. Combining enough nostalgia, technical wizardry, and over-the-top thrills, "Jurassic World" makes fans of the original feel like kids again (yes it's by far the best of the sequels - though I fell the 2nd and 3rd parts get undue hate - and almost on par with the 1993 classic), and is sure to pick up many ardent fans from the newer generation along the way.
By illustrating just how far summer blockbusters have come in the past 40 years, the only way the young people of "Jurassic World" can be entertained by a great white shark is by seeing one of them fed to the aquatic Mosasaurus, who splashes about in his performance pool and drenches park guests. Built upon the bones — literally — of John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough) original park on Isla Nublar, Jurassic World is a well-oiled tourist mecca. But the theme park has become so popular that the once-terrifying experience of encountering a living dinosaur has become as commonplace as staring at an elephant in a zoo. Children can ride a Triceratops and hug their favorite herbivores in the Gentle Giants Petting Zoo. Older guests can kayak down a river and get up close and personal with Stegosauruses on the Cretaceous Cruise. To combat visitor fatigue, geneticist Dr. Wu (BD Wong, reprising his "Jurassic Park" role) has spent $26 million of corporate monies cooking up Indominus Rex, the park's first engineered hybrid. She's cobbled together from the DNA of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Carnotaurus, Majungasaurus, Rugops, Velociraptors, and Giganotosaurus, as well as some bits of cuttlefish and tree frogs. As Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Jurassic World's no-nonsense operations manager, says, "Consumers want bigger, louder, more teeth."
On the one hand, the film is exactly what you think it is — a lot of people being chased or menaced by ill-tempered dinosaurs that are trying to eat them. On the other hand, there's a level of wit here that you may not expect. The story is no great shakes, of course, since it exists only to put our main characters — and disposable extras — in harm's way. The reason behind this latest addition to the revamped dinosaur amusement park is, however, worth pondering — it's all because a jaded public demands something bigger and badder and scarier than your plain old dinosaurs. As a commentary on our collective Imax and 3D infused Next-Big-Thing blockbuster mentality, that's pretty on point. That the commentary is served up in a movie aimed at that very mindset makes it just that much more subversive. And it most certainly delivers on its promises. The ultimate bad-ass dinosaur — the Indominus Rex — is everything you could hope for in bad-assery, and the film's rather cavalier attitude toward human life ups our inability to predict who won't be standing by the ending credits.
Given the park's previous tragedy, Jurassic World's showman of an owner, Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan, "Life of Pi"), has Claire bring in animal-behavior expert Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to inspect the Indominus' paddock. Owen's been working in a research facility on the outskirts of Isla Nublar, clicker training Velociraptors under the watchful eye of a security contractor (Vincent D'Onofrio), who wants to weaponize the raptors and turn them into dino-soldiers. The uptight Claire and the laid-back, boardshorts-and-tequila-loving Owen barely have time to reminisce about their one disastrous date before the Indominus escapes, begins killing the park's security personnel out of instinct and the other dinosaurs for sport, and endangering the park's 20,000-odd visitors — including Claire's nephews, 11-year-old Gray (Ty Simpkins) and 16-year-old Zach (Nick Robinson) whose Gyrosphere ride encounter with the hybrid is a suspenseful centerpiece.
Only one other scene tops that one for gash-and-giggle tension, an aerial assault on fleeing tourists by prehistoric creatures. Think of "The Birds" directed by Fred Flintstone for a sense of Trevorrow's cheeky style. Trevorrow was handpicked by Steven Spielberg to direct, with only the brilliant sci-fi indie and 2012 Sundance hit "Safety Not Guaranteed" to his credit. That he and Derek Connolly (who wrote "Safety Not Guaranteed") collaborated again for the screenplay along with "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver was encouraging, and it shows in the final product. It's also a pleasant surprise to see just how well Trevorrow handles action. It's clear, clean, and coherent. Trevorrow hits all the right, respectful beats, as a protégé should; you can sense a desire to please his mentor, with several amusing references to Spielberg's 1993 original, and a climactic, triumphant nod to another of his works. Also, the finale is every bit as silly and over-the-top as it's thunderous and deliriously fun.
Pratt is perfectly, heroically dashing as Owen. Bryce Dallas Howard is Pratt's match as park operations manager Claire Dearing, the by- the-numbers, uptight corporate type who must be swayed and kissed. But the film wouldn't have been as entertaining as it is without its supporting players — Vincent D'Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, Jake Johnson, and BD Wong. These actors imbue their cleverly written but actually thin characters with shadings and nuances that have little to do with the printed page. My only problem with the movie is that there's just not enough of the great Irrfan Khan.
While the first hour of "Jurassic World" cleverly sets things up for the ensuing mayhem, the second half is out-and-out, chest-rumbling, dino action. There's an ethical discussion throughout the "Jurassic" movies about whether dinosaurs ever should have been cloned. But, thanks to "Jurassic World", there's no debating the merits of bringing this franchise back from extinction.