Jurassic World *Minor Spoiler*
As I write this, over 200 million dollars has been spent over the weekend by people going to see Jurassic World. I'm curious as to what those people thought as they left the theater. Honestly, I have no idea what to think. Part of me thinks it was fun as **** and completely validates the enormous haul it took in over the weekend. Part of me thinks that it was atrocious and makes Jurassic Park 3 look like The Empire Strikes Back. Let's try to figure this one out together.
There is a big difference between this film and the previous three. The park is open. The park is developed. The park has a **** ton of dinosaurs. The park is so big in fact that the 20,000 people that are currently on the island serve as a main motivation for figuring out how to fix the colossal mess that our smart and sophisticated characters have cooked up. Director Colin Trevorrow and the writing team had to figure out ways to include character development into a setting that also housed thousands of people. Honestly, they didn't do a bad job...with the main characters. The secondary characters however were misused so bad that I didn't care at all what happened to them. Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, is introduced as a stuck up, out of touch with humanity workaholic that cares more about her job than her two nephews who are visiting the park. Her character, throughout the film, goes through a transformation that I feel was actually earned. Chris Pratt, who by the way was in the Navy if you didn't know after the 15th time they mentioned it, is a total badass. These two characters are perhaps the only characters in the entire film that I gave a sh*t about. The kids were poorly constructed cliches of boys of their age. The youngest is about 11 and if you didn't know...eleven year olds are REALLY into dinosaurs. The older one was about 16 and was so stereotypical teenager that the writer might have actually googled "what do teenagers do" when creating him. We'll get to the rest in a minute.
There is a theme going on right now in Hollywood. Let's take a director that made a well regarded yet small indie sci-fi film and give them the reigns to a half a billion dollar mammoth of a budget. Josh Trank got Fantastic Four. Gareth Edwards got Godzilla. Rian Johnson got Star Wars. To me, this can either go two ways. You either get a film that has the aesthetics and characteristics of a new era or you get an over zealous attempt to try to join the ranks of superior films. I can't blame the directors really. It's like giving the best young go-kart driver the keys to an indy car. I feel that Colin Trevorrow, whole talented, was given the reigns to a franchise that he just wasn't ready for. I felt the film was trying WAY too hard to do too many things. Because he's a good director, he succeeded in some places. Other places he failed miserably. Let's see what he did right.
The effects
I'll admit. The effects in this were pretty awesome. Sure the sight of CGI dinosaurs was a bit distracting at first, but you got used to it and started to get a feel for why they had to be CGI. There were scenes in this film where you just couldn't use anything else but CGI. The action in this film was all over the place instead of precisely timed bursts. There were only a few scenes that slowed down enough for the SFX tea to use animatronics instead of computer generated dinosaurs. That being said, the action scenes were well done. The last battle was one of the best of the entire series and had me actually on the edge of my seat. All the dinosaurs were rendered beautifully and the film was actually pretty violent. One death scene in particular was especially gruesome. It involved basically being repeatedly dragged around and eaten by two dinosaurs. I'm shocked that got through the censors considering this film is rated PG-13. The SFX team did a great job.
The acting
This is a case where the efforts of few trumped the many. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard knocked it out of the park. Chris Pratt should basically be in everything as far as I'm concerned. He's the Harrison Ford of this generation. He's funny, endearing, physically built, and just melts into every scene his is in so naturally that it draws you into the movie better. Bryce Dallas Howard's transformation towards the end won me over. I was reminiscent of Noomi Rapace in Prometheus where, once the **** starts to hit the fan, a true horror actress blossoms out of nothing. The dirtier Howard got in the film, the better and more believable she got. The rest of the cast was very meh, but I enjoyed the two leads so much that it didn't matter. Now let's get to my biggest gripe with the film, and ultimately the reason I didn't love the movie...
The script
The movie went from boring to "WHAT THE **** AM I WATCHING?" so fast that my head spun. There were so many peppered in jokes that weren't funny that I started to get embarrassed and covered my face. There were cliche kiss scenes, predictable dialogue, and the near cock tease of character development before an untimely death. I won't name the characters, but there are at least two that have completely unnecessary character development that leads straight to a death. You can't do that. That is Game of Thrones type **** that I get so frustrated with. I'm not saying you can't kill a character. I'm not saying that every character that dies has to have no back story. They way they did it in the film though, was just so silly. Let's just say that the same reason I hated Bane's death in The Dark Night Rises is the same gripe I have with the two main characters who die in this film. At least give them something special to go out on except a death scene cut right to another action piece.
I also had a huge problem with how they used the raptors.
*this might get spoiler-y*
Raptors are feared dinosaurs in every single film about dinosaurs that has ever existed. This film treats them like dogs. It LITERALLY treats them like dogs, complete with obedience, loyalty, and feelings. I'm sorry, but Raptors don't have ****ing feelings. They don't get sentimental about a character who feeds them. Hell, if the film showed us that Chris Pratt raised these ****ers from birth it'd be one thing. The film made it a mission to point out that every single dinosaur on the island was genetically created and modified by scientists. These things should have only two functions, which actually gets pointed out in the film...eating, hunting, and ****ing. That's all. No ****ing memories of when Chris Pratt threw rats at us and used his clicker thingie to get us to chase goats. **** that. That's stupid. The fact that they actually have full on conversations with each other...and another specific dinosaur...is just stupid. I'm not talking about dinosaur language. I'm talking about literally at one point one dinosaur looks at another and says "thanks for fighting with me. It has been a pleasure" while the other dinosaur responds "the pleasure was all mine.". That's how it was shot. That's how it was conveyed. I literally threw my hands up and said aloud "what the **** is going on?"
Look, I don't expect Scorsese or Kubrick when I go see a film about a dinosaur amusement park. The film was fun and was filled with action and Chris Pratt. That alone is worth your 13 dollars. I could not however get over the stupid jokes at inopportune times, the cliche "every Michael Bay has these" moments of dialogue and kiss scenes, and the complete misuse of terror inducing velocoraptors like they were dogs. Trevorrow seemed to change his mind constantly throughout the film about what kind of movie this was going to be. The plot was all over the place, trying to be funny one moment, while switching gears on a dime and expecting the audience to be terrified. It's a mess.
Yet, the film is making a **** ton of money. There will be more. I hope they find good writers but as long as Chris Pratt is involved, I'll go see it.
Also, Bryce Dallas Howard ran away from gigantic killing machines in heals. Enough said.
2.5/5