Jurassic World

Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Vincent D’Onofrio, Jake Johnson, Lauren Lapkus and Judy Greer
Now on DVD and Blu-Ray

by Joanna Orland

Jurassic Park is one of the most iconic and beloved movie franchises in cinematic history.  Taking on such a beast of a Hollywood movie could not have been an easy task for director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) whose indie sensibility sneaks in through some odd self-referential humour and casting choices.  With his indie tone hard to fully eradicate, Trevorrow seems to have overcompensated on the Hollywood front making the fourth installment of this blockbuster franchise the most over-the-top ridiculous and innane yet.

With silly and unnecessary character arcs, plot twists, in-jokes and superfluous details, Jurassic World is bloated and superficial.  No one cares about the romance between Owen (Pratt) and Claire (Howard) or the fate of her two whiny nephews.  No one cares if the nephews parents divorce, especially as they’re not even in the Costa Rican theme park but safe at home in America in their unhappy marriage.  No one cares if Masrani (Khan) can fly a helicopter or if Hoskins (D’Onofrio) will get his way and unleash an army of raptors, in fact nobody cares that there’s a perfectly tamed raptor army in the first place – because this is ridiculous.  In fact, nobody even cares about the new genetically modified mutant hybrid of a dinosaur, the Indominous Rex, that has escaped from containment and is running amok in the open-for-business theme park Jurassic World.  What people want are the old classic predators T-Rex, intelligent raptors and the like claiming their old stomping ground and hunting the humans like they did in the original trilogy.  The satisfaction the audience gets from seeing the T-Rex and an evil version of the raptors is unmatchable and should be the focus of the Jurassic World sequels that are no doubt in the making.

The Jurassic franchise is not about mutants, evil scientists, corporations, the American military, some childrens’ broken home or a romance between two pretty people.  It is an old-fashioned dinosaur action thriller and thrives on being so.  And while there is so much to criticize about this latest rendition, the special effects and action are still hard to beat.  These dinosaurs are far from being extinct!