Jurassic World movie review (remastered)

Here's what you need to know; under new management, John Hammond's dream has finally come true, a dinosaur theme park to capture the hearts and minds of people across the globe, and it's open for business. But underneath the huge, tourist friendly exterior of the park lies a secret or two, a genetic experiment hidden from the public eye, born not of humanity's pursuit of knowledge, but of darker, more sinister intent, one that's got a plan to escape its confinement and give park manager Claire, Navy veteran Owen, and the other twenty thousand people now trapped on the island one hell of a bad day.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is currently tearing it up at the box office, no surprise there, given that this film was a roaring success, climbing to number two on the highest grossing films of 2015 behind the Star Wars juggernaut. It was also back in 2015, while nursing a broken heart, that I started this blog, which started out as you'd expect; the sloppy ramblings of a dumb teenager, as opposed to now, where it's the slightly more organised and better written ramblings of a slightly more intelligent adult. But back when I was a dumb teenager, I decided I wanted to write reviews of movies on my new blog, and after a few really crappy first goes, my first proper review was for this very film, Jurassic World, which reads like it was written by an almost literate man child, and that's because it was. With the sequel now out, and my review of it already written and ready for the upload, I thought it would be a novel idea to revisit the first film I reviewed, and for the sake of fairness, to look back at that first review and to contrast that to how my reviews have changed in the short years, so I've included it here, warts and all, apologies in advance for the spinal injury, because you will cringe. But first, let's review Jurassic World, again.

Jurassic World's opening scene sadly introduces us to one of the film's many problems, the kid characters; Gray, the nerdy younger brother, and Zach, the horny older brother, as they are dropped off at the airport by their parents to go to Jurassic World, before the film establishes the turmoil in their parents' marriage. Why exactly the film needed this or even considered it a good idea, and why it didn't instead open with Claire giving the Park's investors a tour or Owen, the raptor daddy is beyond me. That there is our intro to the two leads, as Claire shows the park's owner their latest attraction, and Owen feeds his raptors, before the film, again, establishes a dumb subplot that comes up multiple times, and even becomes pivotal in the final act, the weaponization of dinosaurs. What I can say for sure however is that it's not boring; Chris Pratt and his infinite likability and badassery makes every scene he's in a lot of fun, and Claire is fine, I do like how her character changes over the course of the film, as her mindset and outlook towards the animals on the island changes in response to the things she sees and the consequences her actions have, which is more than can be said for Owen, who doesn't really get any development, not that he needs to because he's always right and he's already awesome. But where the problems are found is in the kid characters and the rest of the supporting cast, Hoskins is an annoying little gnome who really wants to militarise raptors and jumps on literally every opportunity to forward that goal, completely ignoring the point of Jurassic Park, you know, the whole arrogance of man thing. The kids are annoying, with them both having their awkward moments, and with the parents' divorce being brought up a few times, which does literally nothing for the plot besides, I guess, making you care about the kids, but the problem there is that it doesn't work. Then you have Masrani, the park's owner, who's fine, the Park's control room personnel, who vary from tolerable to cringe worthy, and finally there's Wu, who has apparently, since being John Hammond's lead geneticist in Jurassic Park, become a bit of a mad scientist. He's the guy who created the Indominus Rex, and something I do love about the film is the muddy motivations for the creation of the Indominus; how it is supposedly just a new monster to attract the masses, but then has all of these crazy powers like camouflage and the ability to hide its heat signature, aspects that make a lot more sense when it is revealed that Wu has a deal with Hoskins, the guy who wants to send Raptors to fight the Taliban or whatever, which is still a stupid idea, and a dumb subplot, but how it incorporates the creation of the Indominus is something I do actually like.

The Indominus doesn't waste any time in escaping, which isn't good if the film wanted to be a more dramatic, philosophical romp like its predecessor, but since that clearly is no longer the case, it's only good that the Indominus escapes as soon as possible, to as to waste no time in getting to the monster romp. This is something that the film uses to it's advantage however, because the Indominus Rex is awesome. The scenes of the Indominus causing chaos are easily the film's most enjoyable moments; and while it's all surface level, it's cool to think about the mindset of the animal, which Owen talks about a few times, and it's interesting, granted, it's all glossed over every time it's brought up, but it does get brought up, and it gives the Indominus a veneer of depth. But the Indominus isn't the only dinosaur that gets development, if you can call it that, because then there's Owen's raptors; Blue, Echo, Charlie and Delta, and when I first saw the film back in 2015, I thought Owen's relationship with them was dumb, but my opinion has changed slightly since then. The concept of Owen and the raptors being part of the same pack together has the potential to be cool, but where it goes wrong is how that gets weaved into the weaponizing dinosaurs subplot, because despite seeing the raptors nearly kill Owen, their own pack alpha, Hoskins still really wants to put dinosaurs on the ground in Syria or something, even though Owen, as well as the audience knows full well that it's a terrible idea that could literally never work. It's also after the Indominus has done most of its rampaging that the film tries for a twist, one that's about as shocking as learning that water is wet, and it's at this point that the raptor pack figuratively and literally falls apart, and where the relationship between Owen and Blue specifically becomes really hard to believe. But it's not the only relationship that's hard to get behind, because there's obviously some tension, a bit of will they, won't they going on with Claire and Owen, which is so easy, but I suppose it would only be an issue if they did it again in the sequel- oh wait, they did. It's weird how silly this film is, even by the standards of the Jurassic Park franchise, but this isn't really a sequel in the spirit of those prior films, Jurassic World represents a reinvention of Jurassic Park, and as the name implies, its bigger, which is only really a bad thing when it's looked at in the shadow of Jurassic Park, rather than as its own thing, which it clearly wants to be.

But what I will say about this film is that when shit hits the fan; when the Indominus starts causing trouble, which is mercifully early in the film, this film becomes very fun to watch. Chris Pratt's charm carries most the scenes not featuring the Indominus, but when that thing shows up, this film becomes the coolest shit ever. Its first big action scene pits it against a squad of ACU personnel armed with bean bag guns and cattle prods, which ends about as well as you'd think, but in 2015, when I watched the film for the first time, the Indominus does something in this scene that made my jaw drop, it was incredible to look at, and is one of a few times that the film shows not just how big and mean the Indominus is, but also how cunning it is, it makes the Indominus scary, and it's awesome. There are obviously a few more action scenes here and there, Owen and ACU vs a swarm of pterosaurs springs to mind, but certainly the most entertaining sequence in the film is the final battle between the Indominus and the Tyrannosaurus, and if you've yet to see the film, yes, it's as awesome as it sounds. In fact this five minute sequence might be the most entertaining sequence in the history of the franchise, is it dumb, shallow, mindless, dino on dino action just for the sake of it? yes, it's all of those things, but is it fun? fuck yeah it is. What else can be said however is that this sequence is very representative of the film as a whole; it's got good music, high production values, beautiful visual effects, and very little substance, it's big, loud, violent things happening, often with flimsy justification and some impressively big logical holes, but who cares, because it's fun. When the film's coming to a close, and it's wrapping up all of its relevant plot points, I still can't help but smile, and I don't really know why, watching it again a few nights ago for this review, I was much more aware of all of the film's flaws, and even noticed some new ones, but I still enjoyed it, so on some level, the film definitely achieves what it sets out to do.

Monster is a relative term
Jurassic World is a dumb, silly, clumsy, spectacular movie; the film's flaws are numerous and major, with its annoying characters, bogus story that's weighed down further by nonsensical subplots, an obvious romance and even more obvious reveals, so by a lot of standards, this film would easily qualify as garbage, so why do like it? Despite the idiocy, the film is very well paced, and I'm never bored when I'm watching it, even after repeat viewings and three years of reflection, and while the film swings much harder for spectacle than it does for substance, its action sequences are very enjoyable, and are the film's greatest strength, especially in its final moments. Top that off with Chris Charming and a badass Dinozilla monster, and you get a pretty good time overall, so long as you can look past enough of the problems. I still like the film, and I'd say it's worth watching.

Well, that's the pseudo professionalism I like to think exists on this blog out of the way, and now it's time for a bit of a blast from the past. Because like I said at the beginning, Jurassic World was the first proper review I did on the blog, making this re-review an interesting experience for me, and a painful experience for us both, because below is my original review, with all its terrible structure, grammar and spelling intact. pre-emptive apology number two, this will suck.

Jurassic World review

Ok, I've got myself in order, I think I'm now lucid enough to review the movie, so let's go.

first, some background, yes, as a kid, I loved Jurassic Park, but that's where it ended. I still thought very highly of the film,  it being a fantastic film, but it wasn't something that's branded into my brain like Thunderbirds or Godzilla, It's not something I'm glued to when I catch it on the TV like it used to be. so when Jurassic park 4 came onto the scene I was ok with it, but not jumping  around with glee. it goes by the name of Jurassic World, and it deals with a new and risky topic for the Jurassic Park series, genetic modification. (Yes, they're all genetically modified, holes in the DNA, bla bla bla from the first film) Introducing the Indominus Rex, a big, scary genetic hybrid dinosaur. And as Jurassic Park movies go, you shouldn't mess with nature, and bad things happen. this time the super dino breaches containment and runs rampant through the park, causing Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt to have a very bad day.

first thing's first, the good things in the film. the 2 mains of the film, Howard and Pratt, are very good, Pratt in particular, who is a complete bad-ass, and his 'relationship' with the raptors is buyable enough to not be joke. here's a negative, the film goes for emotion a few times, and it tries to make you feel for Pratt and the raptors, and as you'd expect, it fails hard. more on the feels later. more good things though. the star of the lizards, the Indo rex is completely awesome; its huge, it's mean, it's stupidly intelligent, it looks cool, and it has a few 'abilities' that I'll go into in my spoiler review. the park itself is really cool, it's cool to see John Hammond's dream become a reality, a park where people can go to see dinosaurs, though the film doesn't really explain how Jurassic world exists, I mean, Isla Nublar was over run with dinosaurs, so how did they manage to retake the island and build a dinosaur park, it's a mystery. In terms of enjoyability, the films Plateau's at watchable for a troublingly long time, the film takes a while to get going, and when it finally starts moving it gets good, as the Indo rex starts causing real problems and shit starts to hit the fan. it's first half hour or so just isn't that interesting, there' not a lot of dinos and instead a lot of talking, which minus Jeff Goldblum just isn't fun to watch. by comparison, the film's climax is dumb as hell, but it is just so awesome beyond awesome that it's difficult to comprehend, and leaves the film on a note that left me giggling like a child.

now, some negative, Vincent D'onofrio can go away, his character is just dumb, a jar headed military man who wants to use the dinosaurs as weapons, his character is like the cancerous remains of that planned script where they were making dino hybrid soldiers, and it was bad. come to think of it, most of the side characters were stupid, and their interactions with other characters more often than not was a pretty poor. this film also has another story with 2 kids, that, like so many things in this film, isn't as interesting as other things that frankly, you hope film gets back to. Dr Wu was cool, but that's because he's Dr Wu, and his story with D'onofrio is as stupid as D'onofrio himself. Like I mentioned earlier, the film goes for feels a few times, and some of those times it's bearable, and then, raptors, god dammit that was stupid. there's a romance between the 2 mains, and a subplot with the 2 kids' parents planning to divorce, and it's just crap, it's not relevant; the scene that it's in is awkward to watch. finally, the ending maybe pure awesome to watch, but it is dumb, really dumb, if you're not grabbed by it's awesomeness, like what happened to the rest of my 3 man viewing party, it's just shit.

so, verdict. I went in not confident either way, it could have been awesome, it could have been garbage, truth is it has elements of both. there is certainly things to love in here, but there is still some things that just aren't worth loving. it's worth looking at, and, judging by how packed the cinema was, you will probably see it, but know before going into it that it isn't brilliant, that there will be things that aren't good, mixed in the things that make this an awesome time. and for the record, Joss, Chris Pratt isn't sexist, there, I said it. check it out, but don't expect brilliance, just expect that you will have some fun. spoiler review coming soon with some more in depth views on the film.

Gold star
I did write a spoiler review, it was exactly what you'd expect too, me talking about all the dumb shit with no shits given about spoilers, only written with the same total lack of finesse you've just been subjected to. I was surprised by the lack of errors however, sure, they're in there, spelling and grammar isn't great, and some words are missing letters, but there's a lot less than I was expecting, ignoring the atrocious sentence structure that made my head hurt just to think that I wrote it. Minus a contradiction or two, my thoughts on the film haven't changed in any major way, but this is to show myself, and whoever takes the time to read my garbage, that I've changed, that my quality of writing and ability to articulate points has improved, and I reckon it has. Sadly, for whatever reason, I'm still dumb enough to think that writing an entire review of a film I've reviewed before, and then bolting that original review onto the end like a malignant growth is in any way not a stupid and pointless thing to do, maybe it's just the autism, who knows.