Movie Review: Jurassic World

The folly of man is on full display in Jurassic World. Unfortunately, it’s happening both in front of the camera and behind it.

Anticipation for the first Jurassic Park sequel in fourteen years has been absurdly high, though probably unreasonably so, given there are already two disappointing sequels in the saga to date.

If Steven Spielberg couldn’t even produce a satisfying follow-up to 1993’s bar-setting blockbuster Jurassic Park, what hope is there for newbie director Colin Trevorrow?

Plucked from the rookies after making sweet indie sci-fi Safety Not Guaranteed, Trevorrow has been handed the reins to one of the most beloved franchises in the business. The result? A slick and mostly entertaining trifle with absolutely zero to differentiate it from every other blockbuster around. We didn’t say the same about Jurassic Park back in the day. The next closest thing to a hit monster movie in 1993 was Free Willy.

Trevorrow’s not just toying with Transformers here; he’s toying with the hearts of tweens, teens and twenty/ thirty-somethings across the globe. Bold move. If he had totally crashed and burned, Phantom Menace style, he’d have a harder time getting a follow-up gig than the operator of, say, a theme park that became overrun by dinosaurs during peak season.

On that note…

His picture kicks off twenty years after the events of the original, with the regeneration of dinosaurs now old hat, and ageing – yet still pristine - theme park Jurassic World looking for innovative ways to bring in fresh crowds.

Here’s one approach: creating a new, predatory, camouflaging, sociopathic dinosaur from scratch.

They say there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm, but I feel this one could have spent a few more minutes in the oven.

The hybrid-beastie, christened Indominus Rex, makes a break from captivity the very same weekend prickly park operator Claire Dearing (the flame-haired Bryce Dallas Howard) has to look after her visiting nephews, Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson). (Potential subtitle: Don’t Tell Mum The Babysitter’s Red?)

Their best bet at wrangling Rex is Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), the park’s resident dude/ velociraptor trainer. His boss, Hoskins (a smarmy Vincent D’Onofrio), wants to use the velociraptors for strategic military operations and believes their being set loose on the scent of Indominus Rex is as good a test of their capabilities as any.

Grady is sceptical. When the corpses of both staff and holidaymakers begin to pile up, the others agree.

As ghoulish as it might sound, there really aren’t enough of the latter to make Jurassic World as genuinely frightening or exhilarating as the original. You would think one of the four screenwriters – Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa – would have recognised the appeal of setting this in a highly-populated area: more opportunities to have innocent redshirts scrambling to keep from being picked off by ancient, huge-toothed creatures. Instead, we get only one such scene. The rest of the proceedings take place away from the crowds. You know, like in the three films before it.

Cinematographer John Schwartzman doesn’t even convey the grandeur of this unbelievable universe. Sure, everyone in the flick talks about how bland and boring dinosaurs are these days, but we viewers might still have been awed if the camera was tilted up at the spectacle of it all. (Maybe that’s what happens when you work with Michael Bay three times prior. How can you hold your head high when you’re constantly keeping your eyes down?)

There’s stuff to like: Bryce Dallas Howard makes whole an otherwise underwritten character and avoids shrewishness despite the script constantly telling us she works too hard and would much prefer being a mother. (Joss Whedon was, sadly, on point when he critiqued the picture’s unpleasant gender politics.)

A steely B.D. Wong, returning from Jurassic Park, reprises his role as the geneticist who figured out how to microwave up new dinosaurs. Irrfan Khan is a nifty addition as the billionaire CEO genuinely wowed by his creations. Plus, Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus, largely comic performers, bring a daffy touch as control room employees watching the mayhem unfold.

Then there's... the other stuff. I love Chris Pratt, but why hire the Parks and Rec graduate – our closest thing to a Harrison Ford in his prime – and not let him crack wise? Having him play the strong silent type is as baffling a miscalculation as, well, bringing dinosaurs back to life. The decision to focus on the brotherly two-some of Simpkins and Robinson is also unfortunate. If only Britt Robertson, wasted as the plucky teen daughter in Tomorrowland, could have been subbed in their place, then we’d really be getting somewhere.

Jurassic World is no ungodly failure. It’s just unforgivably short on ‘wow’ moments. Will new generations fall for it? Will it inspire another series reboot in 14 years’ time? Legacies are hard to predict. All we know for sure is Jurassic Park has held its legacy and Jurassic World, passable as it may be, doesn’t fully honour it.

3/5

In cinemas now. Rated M for violence.