Jurassic World: Fun Ride

Jurassic World is a thrill ride. If you feel a but coming, you're right.  Keep reading, however. For a new generation, it is an awesome, exciting, CGI-on-steroids dinosaur movie.  That is as long as you forget that the killing machine in this movie is not a dinosaur, but a horrible science experiment gone wrong.  Did I mention it's exciting and good special effects?

The cast is lead by Chris Pratt as dinosaur trainer and Navy warrior who is joined by an equally impressive executive, always in high heels Bryce Dallas Howard.  The brothers, played by Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson, are a great addition to the cast if for no other reason they are not angst ridden or wise-cracking or lazy teens/pre-teens.  It's actually kind of refreshing. Vincent D'Onofrio is an excellent bad guy.  Just creepy and amoral enough to make us believe that someone might actually think using dinosaurs as weapons is a good idea. The rest of the cast evens out the movie.

Homage is paid to Jurassic Park with discussions of the original founder of the project and the terrible tragedy that happened there.  There are reminders of the dangers of having carnivores on the island and the problems that pack hunters like raptors involve as well as tampering with nature.  It seems that no one really learns from the dangers and failures of the past.  They really needed a Jeff Goldblum, chaos mathematician, reminding them that nature will always find a way.

But...

Jurassic World is not original.  It is CGI on steroids and it is also not just paying homage to Jurassic Park. It is Jurassic Park.  The scenes match, the characters match, in short, there is nothing really that new.  Some of the titles have changed, but the story remains the same.

We have the male and female duo who are falling in love and must save everyone. particularly while protecting two kids who are having a tough time with family life.

 We have the benevolent and moral super rich guy who wants to build a park to remind us that we were not always rulers of the planet.  Meanwhile, the bad guys are trying to figure a way to pervert this noble effort into making a buck.

We have the guy who understands the nature of these beasts and no one listens to him.  While the scientists create these killing machines (and in this case it is literally the same scientist, B.D. Wong).







Even scenes, like driving through running dinosaurs, petting dinosaurs,  and hiding in labs, are duplicated.  So for those of us who remember the wonder of the original movie, Jurassic World, despite still being a thrill, is a bit predictable.  For new generations of this is no doubt as wondrous as the first.

I liked Jurassic World, even if I knew what was coming next.  Did I mention how much fun it was?