Jurassic World (sponsored by Samsung): Rambling Review

I’m going to ‘review’ Jurassic World, but to be honest I’m really just going to ramble on about it. I warn you now, this will feature spoilers and I’m also not going to run through the plot properly, so if you haven’t seen it, read the Wiki summary first!

 

I went in to Jurassic World with deep cynicism and the feeling that I was going to be hugely disappointed. I came out somewhat pleased, which was surprising, but also somewhat disappointed, which wasn’t so surprising. It’s not that Jurassic World is a bad movie, in fact I really enjoyed parts of it and felt overall that compared to Jurassic Park III it was a return to form, but it still didn’t come close to reaching the brilliance of the original.

Generally I enjoyed Trevorrow’s direction more so than his writing with Derek Connolly. There were plenty of great moments filled with suspense and the action sequences were well choreographed and suitably chaotic and thrilling. Sadly though, the script didn’t share this same polish, and was filled with mistakes both large and small which kept distracting me from the fun and enjoyment of the film.

To highlight such mistakes, I want to talk about a relatively small yet suitably eye-rolling one, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character Claire and her choice of footwear for the entire movie: high heels.

Now I get it, she’s the director of the park: a business women, numbers and log sheets (a fact the script drums into you at every possible moment). My problem though, is that it would have been easy for her to be wearing a pair of flats and still come off as a professional and job orientated person. I mean, admittedly no one is looking much at her feet, but if there are any Tarantino-esque fetishists out there, would she be just as professional for wearing a pair of sensible shoes rather than heels? Would she still be awkward and out of touch with her nephews? Would she command the same aura of control and coldness? Yes, of course she bloody would. She’d still be the same character, the only difference is that when she tries to cross Jungle terrain or outrun a T-Rex it would be simply unrealistic instead of unbearably stupid and unrealistic.

Yes Claire, RUN, run in your impractical shoes...

To be honest, this is my main problem with the script and film as a whole; the lack of realism in both actions and characters (and yes, I’m talking about realism within the verisimilitude of the Jurassic Park universe).

You’ll probably still remember the epic chase sequence from the first film where Malcolm, Ellie and British Crocodile Dundee are being chased by a T-Rex in their little gas-powered Jeep: the T-Rex easily catches up with the trio and nearly kills them. In this movie, Claire is able to outrun the same dinosaur on foot, and in heels. Sure it’s a cool slo-mo sequence with dramatic flare holding and suspenseful music, but the entire scene makes no sense.

This tendency towards the unreal infuses the entire movie, and often I felt like these moments were written in just to solve the problem of ‘how to get the characters from A to B’ - I get the need for them to reach B, I just wish more time was spent on the reasoning.

Take, for instance, the moment in which Claire’s nephews, the typical asshole older brother Zach and younger, smart yet troubled Gray, are cruising around in a Gyrosphere. A message pops up telling them to stop and go back, yet our duo decide that VIP wristbands equal ‘do whatever the fuck we want passes’. Coming across a huge metal gate which has clearly been damaged and broken, they again decide to ignore all common sense and ‘take it off road’ - I mean seriously, you’re in a theme park filled with giant, meat-eating dinosaurs and when you see a feck-off huge gate that’s broken you decide to plow onwards?! I get that Zach is a bit of an uncaring jerk, but this is just sheer stupidity and only exists, in my opinion, to get the duo out of the safety of the park and into the wild.

Later in the film, after an admittedly cool scene in which the pair come across the original park’s welcome centre, they decide to fix up one of the decades old, unused Jeeps from the first movie. That’s right, these same kids, all about their smartphones and cushy modern lives, are also wicked good mechanics that are able to fix up a disused Jeep. Even though, moments later, Chris Pratt’s Owen remarks on how the hell they managed that even though we see him tinkering with a bike earlier in the film. He’s a hands on, rough kind of guy and yet is stumped by a car engine, but no, these kids have it down - I mean, kids are the future after all, and apparently can do anything when it’s convenient for the plot.

Now I could go on and on about mistakes and nonsensical moments like that (such as multi-billionaire park owner turned action hero Simon Masrani, who decides that he and only he can fly a helicopter to take down the big bad dinosaur), but, instead I want to discuss one plot point in particular that becomes increasingly important and yet is exceedingly dumb: the weaponising of Owen’s raptor gang.

Essentially, Owen is an ex-navy guy who has been tasked with training the raptors for the park. He’s been with them since their birth and has established himself as the alpha. This clearly bad guy though, Hoskins (and you can tell he’s bad because his name is Hoskins and he’s all cocksure), wants to take them and use them in the military. His reasoning is that when a ‘real war’ breaks out drones and other military tech will be easily hacked and so the only hope is to take uncontrollable, man-eating dinosaurs and put them in the field. It really just doesn’t make sense.

Owen even states that he doesn’t control the raptors, but rather has a relationship with them, and them with him alone. Apparently though, Hoskins is blind to this obvious fact and goes on to put the raptors in the field ‘with or without’ Owen. I mean, with or without him? Without him they would just eat everyone and everything, we’ve seen this in the past movies, so why doesn’t he get that? Well, again, because it’s necessary for the plot.

All of these elements (and the many, many more I haven’t mentioned) take what could’ve been a great movie and rejuvenation of the franchise and turn it into an average summer blockbuster with inevitable, unimaginative sequels (more on that later). This is a real shame, because despite all of my complaints, Jurassic World has plenty of great moments.

I liked the scene early on when Owen hides under a car and covers himself in petrol to disguise his scent from the freshly escaped Indominus Rex; it’s clever, original and gives his character a nice edge. Similarly, I enjoyed the scene where Zach and Gray find themselves in the middle of a fight between the Indominus Rex and an Ankylosaurus. It’s a thrilling sequence and it was really fun to watch the Ankylosaurus thrash its tail around and bash the kids around like a really dangerous game of pinball (hey, there’s an idea for an app tie-in).

The sequence in which a flock of Pterosaurs wreak havoc on the park and attack the visitors was again, very cool and really what we should have seen more of. I will say at this point though, the torturous death of Claire’s assistant (and Zach and Gray’s babysitter), Zara, was very over-the-top and needlessly gruesome for such a minor character. That kind of death belonged to someone like Hoskins who instead gets eaten off screen (how thrilling).

One scene in the film which I was dreading actually turned out to be one of my favourites. Watching the trailer and seeing Chris Pratt lead a group of raptors on his motorbike just made me groan; it looked ridiculous and I simply didn’t like it. In the actual film however, it’s ridiculous yet also really fun and given the circumstances it makes as much sense as it was going to (though I still don’t like how Owen’s motorbike glides easily over tough, jungle terrain - but whatever).

When the raptors finally face off against the Indominus Rex it was great to see everyone’s shock when they start to communicate and watch Owen’s horror as he realises the Indominus is part raptor. It was a cool moment and I wasn’t expecting it, and though I feel the raptors turned back to Owen’s side a little too easily, it was nevertheless a fun and tense sequence.

Something I did find odd though, and again this goes back to issues with the script, is the sheer lack of focus and emotion evident when some of the raptors died. Earlier in the film Owen and Claire come across a dying Apatosaurus (having been attacked by the Indominus Rex for sport) and the pair comfort it as it dies. Not only does the animatronic head look incredibly good (sadly one of the few uses of practical effects over CGI in the film) but it was also a nice moment in which you can see Claire grasp that these animals are ‘real’ and alive.

So, when the Indominus quickly kills two of Owen’s raptors, and also earlier when one is blown up, the lack of emotion from Owen and the lack of focus given to these deaths felt really strange. I cared more about the Apatosaurus than I did the raptors, and they’re basically the best characters in the entire film.

Generally I feel the problem with Jurassic World is all down to the script and how it feels rushed. The tone is all over the place, there are numerous mistakes that detract from the world of the film and mar the enjoyment of it, and the character development is uneven. I didn’t find myself caring too much about any of the characters, and all of the mopey, soppy kid bits were just annoying.

I also really missed the focus on ethics and morality that the original Jurassic Park had. Even though it was a blockbuster film, it actually brought up major themes like our effect on the planet, our perceived control over nature (“YOU NEVER HAD CONTROL, THAT’S THE ILLUSION” – you go Ellie) and the morals of what we should do compared to what we can do. In this film, all of that is side-lined because hey, Verizon want to sponsor a ride.

Jurassic World clearly has a message in it about corporate excess and consumerism; about our desire for more, for bigger, for better – but it never really deals with the larger consequences or truly makes its point. I actually really liked how the park was full of sponsors and how corporate money was a big part of its success, but when you notice that every character has a Samsung Phone, and how everyone drives a Mercedes, the film becomes a parody of its own point: the butt of its own joke.

Perhaps these grander questions will be answered in the sequels, of which there will inevitably be many. You see, B.D. Wong reprises his role as geneticist Dr. Henry Wu, and is part of a confusing and frankly underdeveloped scheme in which he has some sort of deal with Hoskins relating back to the use of genetically modified dinosaurs for the military. Towards the end of the film (despite Hoskins being killed off) Dr. Wu escapes via helicopter with these dino embryos. So clearly there’s going to be some sort of larger story involving this deal and the application of these modified dinosaurs leading to some tragedy. Sure, it sounds thrilling, but hey, do you remember when Jurassic Park was just about a guy who wanted to run a theme park and amaze people?

I personally won’t be looking forward to the sequels, especially if their focus is going to be on US Army dinosaurs storming the Middle East mounted on quad bikes and tanks or whatever. But, taking Jurassic World on its own, as a film and not the start of a revamped franchise, I can say that I did enjoy it; I had a lot of fun with the action sequences and found a suitable replacement for Alan Grant in Chris Pratt’s Owen.

It’s nowhere near the quality of the original, and it’s a shame the script wasn’t fleshed out more because that could’ve taken this film to a whole other level, but overall it’s a fine movie and a definite improvement over the third one.