BIGGER, BADDER, SCARIER “JURASSIC WORLD” – At The Movies With Kasey

June 22, 2015 Kasey Butcher

If you grew up in the 1990s, chances are that Jurassic Park holds a pretty special place in your memories of childhood entertainment. For me, it’s right up there with Twister and Independence Day. It was the movie that introduced me to how feeling scared can actually be pretty fun in the right context. The sequels to Jurassic Park, however, left a lot to be desired, which is why, when I heard that Jurassic World was being produced as the sequel that should have been, I jumped up and down with childlike glee. Jurassic World did not disappoint my inner eight year-old.

Taking place twenty-two years after the original, Jurassic World opens on a thriving dinosaur theme park on Isla Nebular. After years of incident-free success, attendance has taken a dip. The wonder over dinosaurs has worn off in an era of CGI and smart phones. In order to pique interest in the park again, the scientists at Jurassic World engineer a new dinosaur—bigger, badder, scarier—Indominus Rex. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is busy at the park, working to finish a deal with Verizon Wireless to sponsor the Indominus Rex “asset” when her nephews, Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) arrive to spend the weekend with her at the park. Distracted by the demands of her high-pressure job, she sends them to explore with VIP passes and her flaky assistant. Meanwhile, raptor specialist Owen (Chris Pratt) is busy arguing with Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio) about why using the dinosaurs in the military is a terrible idea. Claire is asked by her boss, Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) to have Own inspect the Indominus’s habitat for ways it might escape. As you’d expect, things go terribly wrong. Only, unlike with the Jurassic Park debacle, this time there’s 22,000 people in the park, including Claire’s nephews.

All around, Jurassic World is a lot of fun. The dinosaurs are scary and interesting. The script is full of little jokes. The sets are full of little throw-backs to the original movie. My favorite part of this movie, however, is the approach it takes to the dinosaurs themselves. The story emphasizes the relationship between the dinosaurs, each other, and the humans around them in a way that is really fun to watch, but also raises the stakes emotionally. It was not much of a stretch for me to find myself emotionally invested in particular dinosaurs, and not just the nice ones. As lead geneticist Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) tells Hoskins, “Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We’re just used to being the cat.” The film opens up many questions about corporatization, the environment, and humans’ relationship to nature without necessarily answering those questions for you.

Meanwhile, the characters, while not as well-rounded as they could have been, are fun to watch in action. Chris Pratt’s Owen is like a living, wise-cracking action figure. His relationship with the raptors is easily my favorite part of the movie. He and Bryce Dallas Howard have good chemistry as a potential couple and as a comedic and action team. In case the advertisements fooled you, however, Claire is the protagonist of the movie and Howard does a compelling job of following her journey through the story, underplaying some moments in the script that could have been incredibly heavy handed in a less subtle actor’s hands. The rest of the ensemble is not as strong, often thanks to overacting, but sometimes because the characters are not as individually developed as in Jurassic Park.

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Jurassic World is the most fun I’ve had at a movie in a long time. It has its flaws, especially in the characters. And some people might be bothered by how much it borrows, including several moments that are basically amped-up homages to Jurassic Park. Overall, however, it was delightful and scary and worth the cost of admission plus popcorn. 4/5 stars.

Jurassic World was written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly, and Colin Trevorrow who directed. It runs 124 minutes and is rated PG-13 because people get eaten by dinosaurs in pretty gruesome ways.

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Kasey Butcher

She is proud to be a Ft. Wayne native, a graduate of Homestead HS, Ball State University & Miami University.She became involved with journalism editor-in-chief for her high school magazine. She authors the "At The Movies with Kasey Butcher" review.

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