Jurassic World was one of, if not the most, anticipated movie of the summer. To some it rightfully earned that title. Just by looking at the numbers one might think that this movie was in fact worthy of all of its anticipation as it grossed more than $1.5 billion worldwide.
This year appears to be the “Year of the Sequel” with a new Terminator movie and a long awaited sequel to one of the most famous movie titles in history Star Wars. The word ‘sequel’ generates a feeling both of excitement and fear amongst fans of all ages. Sequels are, historically, resented as bad or mistakes, but still, there are occasional gems such as Toy Story 2 or The Dark Knight that were well received movies in their own rights.
So the question on everyone’s mind when Jurassic World was released was this; “Will it compare to the originals?” Many people were skeptical, especially after the 14-year gap between story lines.
To start off, the acting in this movie was spot on. With no appearance from Sam Neil or Jeff Goldblum in these movies the new star power hired on was Chris Pratt as the gruff but lovable ‘Owen’ and Bryce Dallas Howard as the stark business oriented woman ‘Claire’. These characters share a questionable past of implied romance that the audience can tell right away will be brought back inside of this life or death situation.
The story follows Owen and Claire as they protect Claire’s nephew’s and find a way to kill the Idominablesauras, a bio-engineered dinosaur that has been created with being the biggest and the baddest in the world. In the mix is the stock character of the military man with an agenda who seeks to use the newly-Owen-tamed velociraptors for military missions played wonderfully by Vincent D’Onofrio from Law and Order fame.
The plot is not amazing or anything other than what was predicted from every single veteran moviegoer, or lover of the old films. There are several throwbacks to the old movies and plenty of jokes on the same subject. And of, course, everyone could, would and probably did predict the final showdown between the evil manmade dino and the king of the prehistoric jungle, the T-rex, who, although not dealing the final blow, would team up with a velociraptor to vanquish his foe.
The plot, though simple and predictable, is not where this movie falls short.
In general, the movie really loses its feel when it tries to mimic the “feeling” of the old movies. In the older movies there was a sense of wonder in the brought back to life dinosaurs, the creatures were misunderstood, dangerous and, above all, beautiful.
The producers surely with the biggest throwback to the old movies presented the old theme music. Where in the first movie the crescendo of this theme music was presented over a beautiful valley with grazing dinosaurs and a sparkling valley, the crescendo seemed to go off too soon as the camera zoomed in on a window and then overlooked a shiny new theme park. The majesty in this is all wrong. Where are the dinosaurs? In this sequel, the lethality of every dinosaur presented is shown in stride, either that or the dinosaurs are glorified pony rides or Shamoo impersonators, as well as velociraptors that become puppies in their own right. The one exception to this is when Owen and Claire stumble across a valley of dying dinosaurs. The problem with this is that it required watching one of them die to feel connected to the life in these dinosaurs.
This movie was good, but not great. The parts were mostly there and it wasn’t missing much, but it just felt like the pieces didn’t fall in together. The analogy I keep coming back to is Chex Mix. My father hated the rye chips, my mother hated the bread sticks, and I hated the wheat chex … the point is that some of the things just don’t fit. No matter how you look at it, Jurassic World doesn’t stand up to its older siblings. Not because anything is necessarily “bad” but because it’s just Chex Mix.
