Jurassic World (2015)

Does every kid go through a dinosaur phase? It was something I was thinking about when watching the new movie in the Jurassic Park franchise. Initially I could not remember ever having a collection of plastic dinosaurs, but after further reflection, I remembered that I did make a report about it in elementary school. This was in the eighties, so it was still a time when you had to go to the library for information, write everything by hand and go to the supermarket to make copies of pictures to paste in your report. The reason that I still remember it wasn’t so much the report itself, but the way it was checked. Because I went to a Christian school (even though I’m not religious) the teacher held tightly to the story of the bible and its timeline. That meant he had put question marks when it said that the dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. That did not fit into his conviction.

So there was a brief period in which I was interested in them, but it did not last long. The first Jurassic Park I do remember though, especially because (just like today) there was a lot of marketing for the film. There were TV specials (which showed how they made the water vibrate in the glass when the Tyrannosaurus Rex arrives), and the effects in the film were breathtaking then. Those effects might not wow us anymore and a movie really needed to do something special in order to excite us. Does Jurassic Wold manage to do that?

The gates of the original park may be closed, but two decades later Jurassic World has become a reality. Visitors can see a variety of dinosaurs, a Seaworld-like attraction, but also see the dinosaurs roam free during a canoe trip. The amusement park is a great success, but the management thinks that innovation is needed (or literally “more teeth”) to ensure that visitors keep coming. Two of these visitors are the brothers Zach and Gray Mitchell whose aunt, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), is in charge of managing the park. She’s supposed to meet them, but she’s busy preparing the new attraction, the Indominus rex, a new genetically modified dinosaur which is bigger than a Tyrannosaurus.

In order to ensure that the cage which holds this super monster is safe enough, dinosaur expert Owen (Chris Pratt) stops by to look at it. However, the Indominus rex seems to have disappeared, and the safety of everyone on the island is in danger.

In terms of story, the film delivers exactly what you would expect of it: Dinosaurs who attack people. If that’s the only thing for which you want to see Jurassic, then you will get what you’ll expect. That part of the story works and the new dinosaur appears to have several special properties which makes it a dangerous opponent. However, the different characters and their storylines are hardly developed. Therefore it regularly feels that parts of the film are. An example of this are the two brothers. They are sent to the island so that their parents can arrange their divorce, but this is only mentioned once and I almost missed it. This applies to multiple characters. The end result is that viewers will not always sympathise with them when they are in danger. There were no actors that really stood out. The film has several nice nods to the original film and the world has been realised in much detail.

As a whole Jurassic World is entertaining, but not remarkable. Just like my report from my youth, I will still remember it a bit, but it won’t really make me feel much, just like the original film did.