Runtime: 2 hours, 4 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Quick Impressions:
Saturday afternoon, my six-year-old spent just about the entire movie slouched way down into her seat, staring in wide-eyed horror up at the screen, occasionally making low sounds of alarm and leaning into her parents’ reassuring embrace. (My husband and I each had at least one hand on her the whole time.)
At one point, I leaned over and whispered to her, “You don’t have to worry because those two boys are safe. No matter how scary it seems, the dinosaur is not going to get them. People may get killed, but they won’t. Trust me, in movies like this, the children never get eaten.”
That seemed to reassure her…for a while. An hour or so later, I told her so again, this time wrangling two additional characters into the brace of people I was positive would not get eaten in this movie. Later I learned my husband had provided similar whispered reassurances.
Nevertheless, her general mood remained one of rapt horror. She stayed awake and paid attention to the whole thing, never once looking away from the screen. But boy were her little eyes wide with alarm!
Then just before the end credits rolled, she got alarmed for another reason.
“Oh no!” she cried. “It’s not about to end, is it? The movie’s not over!”
With a shrug, I told her, “Well, there might be a scene in the credits. I don’t know for sure.”
In dismay, she wailed, “But I don’t want it to be over! I like it so much!” As the credits ran across the screen, she asked me gravely, “You are going to buy it right? This is definitely one we should buy. Can we buy it on the way home?”
When I explained that new releases come to theaters first—and in fact, this is the only way theaters can manage to stay afloat in this era of amazing home entertainment systems—she immediately came back with, “Well, okay. But when it comes out, we’re buying it, right?”
After the movie, my mom said that she hadn’t liked it as much as the first one. It had its moments, but the first one was still the best.
Rather shocked by this, I asked, “Well, you didn’t really expect it to surpass the first one, did you?”
Meanwhile, my daughter took offense. “I thought the whole movie was awesome,” she said. “I liked every part of it, and I thought the whole thing was great. I especially like the little dinosaur at the end. He was so brave.”
Later on, I asked her which scene had been her favorite, and she answered, “I loved the whole thing, but my favorite was that little dinosaur.”
Every time anyone said anything positive about the movie, she always chimed in her enthusiastic agreement. She really, really loved Jurassic World, even though she was so petrified throughout the whole thing that you could have mistaken her for a relic from the Jurassic period herself.
I also enjoyed it. Though it’s far from perfect, and my mom is right that the original is superior (obviously), Jurassic World is a far worthier sequel to the 1993 hit than anything else they’ve tried so far. (The Lost World was conspicuously disappointing, but I’d say this is better than the admittedly enjoyable third one, too, because it’s a fresher take on the material.)
For whatever reason, Jurassic World was the one big movie I was most excited to see this summer. (Perhaps my desire to see it was heightened by the realization that my baby might come early, robbing me of the opportunity. But he’s hanging in there, and I’ll be 36 weeks in two days, so I was able to make it to the theater for this one, after all.)
To my shock, the movie did not disappoint me. I really enjoyed it. In fact, it is by far my favorite summer movie of 2015. (Of course, this summer I’ve been able to see only three movies. But for what it’s worth, I did enjoy Jurassic World more than The Avengers sequel and Tomorrowland. I can’t claim that it’s objectively better than those films in some way, but for whatever reason, I enjoyed watching Jurassic World more.)
The Good:
Probably my favorite thing about this movie is Aunt Claire and her ridiculous high heels. Curiously, this particularly story element marked a great divide between my husband and me and my parents (who interpreted it quite differently).
My mother finds it ridiculous, ludicrous that Claire would still be wearing her high heels at the end of the film. (She said so several times.) My husband and I both felt as we watched (without conferring) that that was precisely the point.
It’s a wink and a nod, a clever meta joke on an all too familiar 80s/90s action movie trope. How many blockbusters from the 80s and 90s feature a female character running around in ridiculously uncomfortable high heels? The female protagonist is always dressed to impress when the story starts. She’s never expecting to be pulled into a gritty action adventure. She never has on the appropriate footwear. But movies from that era tend to go one of two ways. 1) Somehow the movie completely ignores the impracticality, and the woman remains flawlessly dressed in high heels and perfect make-up 2) The woman gets increasingly bedraggled over the course of the adventure due to her highly inappropriate wardrobe choices. She becomes a sweaty mess, and her wardrobe falls apart, and her shoes either break or she throws them in a ditch or something.
And usually the audience watching these movies laughs and makes jokes and complains about the woman’s attire while the characters on screen somehow fail to notice (in much the same way that 80s/90s antagonists can’t hit one person with a machine gun while the protagonist can kill twenty guys with one bullet. The audience calls this out fondly, but for the characters, it’s all business as usual).
So my husband and I saw Claire’s high heels as a self-conscious, self-referential genre joke, an homage to Jurassic Park’s origins, like, “Remember how awesome the original movie was and how much you loved it as a kid? Remember how movies from that era always featured a woman running around zanily in mockably inappropriate footwear?”
Right from the outset, Chris Pratt’s character tells her that she’s never going to make it far in those shoes (because he saw all those 80s/90s action movies when he was a kid, and so he knows). So the movie expressly calls out the shoes. And then she responds by refusing to take them off and triumphantly wears them until the very end of the movie.
There’s something so delightfully tongue-in-cheek about it all, like it’s calling us out, saying, “Oh yes, I know how much you love to say that this kind of thing is cheesy and ridiculous, but I also know that you love it! And Claire is going to continue to wear these ridiculous shoes, and you’re still going to get totally sucked into the action and emotional core of this movie and totally love it, anyway.”
That’s over explaining it. (There’s probably also an over-the-top feminist element, the idea that she’s going to do everything he can…in heels! The film mocks this idea and at the same time affirms it. Really, it’s all quite delightful.)
My husband and I loved this tendency in the movie—the way it could good-naturedly mock what was mockable about the genre and still fully participate in the genre, call out these jokes but without preventing the audience from becoming emotionally invested in the story. (A movie that does this really well is Scream, although Jurassic World is doing it in a slightly different way.)
Even my mother noticed the meta, self-referential commentary running through the movie. (I say “even my mother” not because she fails to get movies but because she had such a different take on the high heel thing.) She said to me afterwards, “I thought in a way the movie was kind of about making movies, the idea that they have to come up with more action, something new to please the audience.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “We’re the ones clamoring for more teeth. We’ve all seen Jurassic Park. We want to see something that reminds us of that experience but is fresh and new and higher octane.”
At least, that’s what Hollywood thinks. Lately studios seem petrified to take a risk on anything that isn’t a reboot of or sequel to a known moneymaker. And the special effects have to be insane because otherwise people would just stay home and watch on TV instead. Most people go to the theater to experience the kind of mind-blowing special effects and killer sound that average, middle class audiences can’t afford to replicate on the small screen (or at least, that’s what Hollywood thinks).
Actually, I thought the plot and themes of the movie were remarkably coherent for a sequel. I think it totally makes sense to start with a fresh set of characters rather than finding contrived reasons to keep throwing the original protagonists (all pretty smart and wary to begin with and now repeatedly traumatized) back into peril.
I love the idea of the theme park being up and running and needing fresh ideas to keep the consumer base hooked. That’s so true to life. (And not surprisingly, this movie made me want to go to Disneyland. Everything makes me want to go to Disneyland. Logically, I should have wanted to go to Universal Studios, instead, but I’ve never been there.)
I also thought giving both the hero and the villain ties to the military was very timely and resonant (even if the villain does quickly become a bit of a Hollywood cliché.) Some of the thematic messages of the movie (such as the idea that creatures who are alive should be treated with dignity) were not only spot on but also really culturally resonant. (I mean, the feeding of the aquatic dinosaur is equal parts dystopian outrageous and Sea World typical. We live in an outrageous time, I guess.)
I was also a fan of the whole, “You did this, so this is all your fault even though we all told you to do it and demanded it. We’re innocent because we chose not to look at what was being done on our behalf to achieve our desires.” That’s obviously a message very relevant to today’s average American consumer.
The other thing that’s so great about the movie is Chris Pratt. Afterwards my husband kept saying, “If they reboot Indiana Jones and cast anybody but Chris Pratt, they’re stupid.” He’s right.
I realize Sam Neil was the hero in the original Jurassic Park, but Pratt is clearly channeling a young Harrison Ford in this role. He’s all dressed up like Indiana Jones and has so much of his wit and warmth and charisma. Pratt has suddenly become the best action hero ever. It’s like he knows what we want in the hero of a summer blockbuster because he grew up watching them along with us. And wow do they know how to dress him and make him up and light him to his greatest advantage in this movie. His long delayed entrance is somewhat annoying but highly effective in showcasing what an awesome character Owen is. The entire time he’s on screen, you really don’t want to watch anyone else.
I also love Bryce Dallas Howard. I’ve been a fan since I saw her in The Village. I honestly think she’s a very talented actress whose career got slightly derailed by association with the inconsistent work of M. Night Shyamalan. (I realize that her dad is Ron Howard, and that gave her a huge in, but truly she has talent.) I was excited when I learned she had a leading role in this movie. (It also made me terribly afraid that the movie would bomb and be kind of bad since that often happens with big movies where she plays a protagonist.)
In the early scenes, Howard’s Claire is maybe a bit too restrained and tightly wound. She’s almost overdoing it (like Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby). You watch and think, Surely nobody could be this oblivious and career obsessed. But then her later transformation justifies the uptightness of her early performance. She’s really marvelous in the later scenes. Eventually she has fantastic chemistry with Pratt, and the movie really kicks into high gear once Owen and Claire are finally thrown together with the two boys.
Those kids are great, by the way. I’ve been keeping an eye on Ty Simpkins for a while now because I really liked him in Iron Man 3. (The fact that I recognized his name and remembered him immediately says something about his charisma in that role.) But I was actually surprised to like Nick Robinson even better. His early scenes are all fantastic. After a while, I started to realize, I know this kid, too. I’ve seen him before. I couldn’t place him. Over and over again, I kept thinking, He’s been in one of those coming of age movies we always watch, like Kings of Summer.
That’s how my brain works. It “helps,” but never quite enough. After the movie, I checked and discovered quickly that Nick Robinson (of course) played the lead in Kings of Summer.
He’s really excellent in this, and Simpkins is great, too (better and better, in fact, as the film goes on). Robinson seemed so authentic in his role. I really bought him as the older brother trying to navigate his teen years and ignore his family problems. But Simpkins is simply magnificent in all the scenes where he’s required to show fear. The kid’s eyes are just incredible. There’s this one late scene where he and Bryce Dallas Howard throw the same look of terror back and forth, and they both pull it off just perfectly.
I was also pleased to see Katie McGrath (known to my family as Morgana from Merlin) get such a substantial part. When I noticed months and months ago that she was in the cast, I assumed she’d get some minor role. (In fact, she does play a relatively minor character, but she still gets a surprising amount of screen time and a pretty riveting final scene.)
Vincent D’Onofrio is very good in his part, though I think he and B.D. Wong get the characters who are least satisfying as written. Jake Johnson is revelatory and awesome (unfortunately making the performance of Lauren Lapkus who works opposite him in the control room seem really underwhelming by comparison). Omar Sy is great because he gets to play a sympathetic character who is not a lead and yet is more than mere dinosaur bait. And I’m always glad to see Judy Greer (although her character annoyed me. She was clearly projecting all of her own guilt onto her poor sister who, in fairness, was living her own life and never signed on to guarantee the emotional well-being of her sister’s children).
Irrfan Khan gives a great performance as a really awesome and underutilized character. (I’ll talk more about him in the negatives section).
Best Scene:
Best of all, I love the moment when the boys ask, “Can we stay with you?” This is both hilarious and moving. It also marks the moment when the movie truly hits its stride and becomes worthy summer entertainment.
But apart from that, I’m a huge fan of the long, broken up sequence of the boys making their escape. The contraption they’re riding in initially looks really cool, and I love the way the movie takes us back to the original Jurassic Park and works in the old jeep. (Also I find it deliciously hilarious that Claire and Owen are never really able to save the children because they’ve been so proactive about saving themselves that they beat them back to “safety.”)
Best Scene Visually:
Maybe my favorite part in the entire movie comes when Claire (triumphant in her high heels) thinks to go grab a flare and introduce a new player into the mix. There’s something weirdly iconic about this sequence, and all kinds of warring elements that have long been at play come together here. If I had to pick just one scene to represent the soul of the movie, this would be it.
Best Action Sequence:
If this movie has a weakness (and it does), it is definitely not the action scenes. All of them are great. I’m not even action oriented, and I found every action sequence riveting. (Even the moment in the raptor cage near the beginning is quite breath-taking. I also love it in a later scene when a security guard gets eaten. The way he’s staring at Owen, and by extension at all of us, the entire time.)
To me, what’s great about Jurassic World is that the battles are between sentient creatures and don’t rely too heavily on pyrotechnics. It’s like watching an evil ballet or something, watching dinosaurs and humans fence without foils, the way the humans and dinosaurs interact.
Actually what’s really odd about this movie is that it engenders such sympathy for the dinosaurs. The “evil” dinosaur isn’t actually a dinosaur at all. It’s a genetically engineered abomination created by human greed for the purpose of making money. So in a way, the more authentic dinosaurs are actually the heroes of the movie. There’s this one part that involves a ruptured aviary, and honestly, I didn’t even think about the threat to the humans. I was more concerned about all the dinosaurs escaping safely. But then of course, those dinosaurs become a greater threat to the humans, and the scene of all that chaos descending from the skies is pretty great.
One thing Jurassic World does really well is callback the original by giving lots of pronounced, dramatic clues when the big dinosaur is about to appear. The iconic rings in the water glass will probably never be surpassed, but you get all sorts of similar cues in this film, and I think that’s great (and could be easily worked into a theme park ride for sure).
The unlikely moment when the boys are reunited with their aunt is really good, and from there the action just gets better and better until the end. You really never want to look away once Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and the two boys are all together.
The Negatives:
The movie definitely takes some time to find its legs. Like the first Jurassic Park (and, in fact, I’d say in deliberate emulation of the first film), Jurassic World begins with a lengthy opening section, designed to set up the story and introduce the characters at a steady, even pace before the eventual chaos begins.
But where the first film is highly cerebral—giving us needed background information, plenty of scientific and philosophical conundrums, and some awfully witty, memorable dialogue—this film just seems to be going through the motions.
Because we’ve seen Jurassic Park, we already know the scientific process for making the dinosaurs. And we also already know what could go wrong and why some people might object. There’s no reason to dwell on these matters in any detail because in Jurassic World, the theme park has been up and running for twenty years.
Still the film slowly, methodically takes its time setting up the story and putting all the pieces (plot elements, characters) in place. But the plot is not exactly complicated this time around. And the characters—for the most part—are not scientists. We have two kids, a driven business woman, a former Marine, and a theme park owner who believes in making magic and living the dream and loves to fly helicopters. For the most part, the protagonists (all the key players, really) are people of action. So we don’t get (and don’t need) all the philosophical debates and science lessons.
In Jurassic Park, there’s this sense of impending doom in the beginning, this idea that if someone makes a mistake and crosses a line, something horrible will happen. But in Jurassic World, that line has already been crossed decades ago. The stakes are different now. Jurassic World might as well be called Brave New World since the kind of stuff all the hesitant people were scared of in Jurassic Park is now the humdrum status quo. The park is up and running and in full swing and has been for years.
The question of whether we “should” do something just because we “could” is totally moot now. Now we are doing it, “could” and “should” be damned. We are doing it, and we have been doing it, and the question now is what should we do next? (Because this formerly ground breaking stuff is starting to get old.)
There’s nothing wrong with this shift in focus. In fact, it works surprisingly well. It’s the next logical step. Once you’ve done the unthinkable, what can you think up next? (You’d better think of something. Consumers get bored easily.)
Jurassic World is definitely more action oriented than its contemplative predecessor. It’s about the world of business, capitalism, consumers, entertainment, the military. Everybody has something to do, and they’re doing it. The action has already started. The theoretical questions don’t matter now. Everything is grounded in the practical. It’s already happening, so we need characters who are brave enough to change the course of what’s happening, not protagonists who endlessly debate what ought to happen.
The thing is, since the story is so straightforward this time around, the extended prologue before the action begins feels a bit empty and dumbed down, maybe even slightly contrived. Jurassic Park took its sweet time setting up the story because there legitimately was quite a lot of story to set up. This time around, we know exactly what’s going to happen before the opening credits roll (because we’ve seen Jurassic Park). So why does it take so long to set everything up?
Despite this lengthy set up, too, we really get very limited insight into the plans of the movie’s antagonist. And we don’t get an entirely clear idea of what’s going on with the children’s parents or why Aunt Claire became so estranged from the family in the first place, or what she originally saw in Owen or why that went wrong. It’s like this whole opening portion of the film simultaneously lasts too long and does too little.
When you watch the original Jurassic Park, it’s like you’re trying to absorb a lot of dense material—scientific, moral, philosophical, psychological—as quickly as you can. You know it’s been simplified for the screen, but there’s still a lot of material to digest. The opening scenes of Jurassic World, on the other hand, feel like when you have a substitute who insists on explaining the lesson you’ve already learned for twenty or thirty minutes instead of just letting you get started on the homework already.
Likewise, if you’re about to attend a lecture by Nobel Laureate in physics, you’d probably appreciate a lengthy, detailed introduction. But if you’re about to attend a reading of Go Dog Go, an hour long lecture about the themes in the book might make you want to punch someone in the face (unless the person giving the lecture has some unexpectedly revelatory insights, of course).
That’s really my only big criticism of Jurassic World. It’s just not as smart as Jurassic Park (or, maybe to be more fair, it’s a different kind of smart). The first film has a highly cerebral component. This movie is more about having the courage to act as you should/must in the heat of the moment. So the long set up feels a little hollow and underwhelming.
But all that means is that Jurassic World is a pale imitation of the original Jurassic Park. As criticisms go, that’s fairly mild. I mean, would you expect a sequel made 22 years later to surpass the excellence of the iconic original?
Jurassic World is still an excellent summer movie that delivers basically everything it promises in its preview. It’s just not as good as Jurassic Park, an enduringly great film. That’s the biggest complaint I have, and as complaints go, it’s pretty minor.
The only other thing that bugged me really doesn’t even matter, but I can’t seem to let it go. I love Mr. Masrani, and I love the way Irrfan Khan interprets the character, but the movie just totally wastes him. He’s like a more mobile (more unpredictable) John Hammond. John Hammond with a helicopter! So what is this ridiculous nonsense about him being two days away from getting his pilot’s license? That’s all given such a momentous, heavy-handed set up, and then there’s basically no pay-off at all.
First of all, I’m with Masrani. If you’re only two lessons away from getting your pilot’s license, and your instructor expects that you will, in fact, get the license, then come on, you know how to fly a helicopter. Being two lessons away from finished is not the same thing as having had only two lessons. So why is this idea punched so much, this idea that he’s not actually licensed yet? He’s right. They don’t need anyone else to fly the helicopter because he knows how to fly a helicopter. In fact, nothing we see of his behavior early on gives us even the slightest indication that he’s in any way uncomfortable or incompetent when it comes to flying a helicopter.
And then, of course, when he’s called on to fly a helicopter—nothing really happens. I mean, stuff happens, but the things that go wrong have nothing to do with his lack of experience as a pilot and everything to do with the fact that there are a bunch of crazy dinosaurs (and military men) running around creating chaos. Nobody could pilot a helicopter perfectly under those conditions.
I just don’t get this part of the story. I feel like they created this really compelling, charismatic character and then totally wasted him. And the whole helicopter angle is just flat out anticlimactic. It would have been much better to make him either a complete lunatic who can’t fly at all or a total badass who ends up being a hero—anything but what they did with him, which was nothing! Now I will grant that going the first route (and making him an incompetent lunatic) would have been hard to pull off since he’s one of the very few major characters who is not a white American. You’d be playing into old, uncomfortable Hollywood stereotypes if you made him a lunatic. But make him more of a hero, then. Do something more with him. Honestly, I don’t understand why the character is even in the movie at all. They could have taken him out and lost nothing (which is a shame because he was a really cool guy who could have done so much more).
Actually several of the characters are not used to their full potential, but then, to be fair, many of them don’t have all that much potential to fulfill anyway. The first movie seems to be a pointed lesson about hubris, whereas this installment could have been subtitled Jurassic World: Bad Things Happen to Stupid People. (Hey, I have an idea! Let’s genetically engineer a terrifying monster that is stronger than any living creature! Oh no! The terrifying monster is too strong for us! Why rely on machines and technology to fight wars when we could use sentient creatures? Oh no! The sentient creatures are thinking for themselves and not doing what we say!)
It would be nice, too, to see some further resolution with the boys’ parents, to see what happens to the family, although realistically, such follow through probably would have ended the movie on a depressing note. (As it is, audience members are encouraged to give in to naïve fantasies like, Surely the scare of having their children almost eaten by dinosaurs resolved all of their marital problems.)
I suppose I ought to mention, too, that I did not notice Michael Giacchino’s score at all. I could not tell you one single melody that he scored. This is a bit odd because I’ve loved so many of his scores. He’s becoming like the new John Williams, too, scoring all the big action movies. But in this film, all I noticed were the moments when portions of John Williams’s original (and unforgettable) Jurassic Park score were played. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, but it seems a bit regrettable. I wish either John Williams had scored the whole thing or Giacchino’s contributions had been more memorable (but maybe they are for others).
Overall:
To me, the original Jurassic Park is like the triumphant end of an era in Spielberg movies. (Don’t get me wrong. Steven Spielberg still makes some great films and will probably continue to do so until his death, but as far as I’m concerned, the 1993 Jurassic Park is the last of a certain kind of 70s/80s kid friendly summer blockbuster that he used to do like no one else.) I was really excited to see Jurassic World this summer and (naturally) worried that I would find it a horribly disappointing trainwreck.
I am happy to report, though, that Jurassic World is a fantastic summer movie. No, it’s not quite as great as the iconic original, but as summer entertainment, it delivers everything it promises and was great fun to watch in the theater. Based on the crowd we saw it with, it will probably make a gazillion dollars. So then what will they do for the next sequel? How are they going to find something with more teeth than the Indominus Rex? (My daughter wants to know, and I’m right there with her.)
“They’re making another one, right?” she kept asking me as the end credits rolled. “They will make another one! They have to. This one was so awesome.”
Personally, I couldn’t seem to shake the thought that that poor T-Rex would ironically starve to death, unable to detect all of the readily available food lying motionless all around it. Maybe we’ll find out what happens to him in a sequel, too. I hope so.