Review: Jurassic World

I finally got the chance to see Jurassic World on Friday with my cousin Wendy. We were both pretty excited, being big Jurassic Park fans. I was also a little worried about it, especially when I think about how the third one disappointed me. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the third one, but I wouldn't miss it if they had never made it. So this movie had me really hoping that they would make up for the third movie. It didn't disappoint at all.

The story picks up 20 odd years after the events of the first movie. The park has been opened for a while. It was rebranded as Jurassic World and gets 20,000 people through the gates a day. In order to maintain numbers the scientists at the park cook up a hybrid dinosaur in their lab. It quickly becomes obvious that this was a huge mistake because the dinosaur they created is highly intelligent and vicious. It breaks loose in the park and wreaks havoc. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howards star in the movie as park employees trying to bring the dinosaur down and save the day. Bryce Dallas Howard plays park executive Claire, who originally oversaw the creation of the dinosaur and who is desperately trying to track down her nephews amongst the chaos. Chris Pratt plays Owen, the Velociraptor wrangler. He has trained the Velociraptors to view him as their alpha. Owen teams up with Claire to track down her nephews and bring down the dinosaur.

Right off the bat the movie’s storyline is far better than that of the third movie. The third movie’s storyline was fairly weak and it relied too heavily on making the big bad dino scary. The storyline in Jurassic World is strong and the scariness of the big bad is more an added bonus than the saving grace. I especially loved that this movie didn’t rely on the T-Rex and Velociraptors to be antagonists. They took these dinosaurs in a different direction and gave them protagonist-type roles. It was a refreshing change from the other movies. I think if they had of followed suit with the other three movies with those dinos it would’ve been old and uninteresting.

Despite the fresh take on the dinosaur storyline this movie took, it still managed to retain the classic style that the first two movies had. The banter, dino interaction and filming style all seemed to reinvigorate that 90’s style that I and many others loved so much. The creators of the movie clearly had a lot of respect for the original movie and made sure they didn’t bastardise it in any way. I will admit that it still isn’t as good as the first two, but it comes pretty damn close. It’s a bit slow at the beginning of the movie, but it picks up quickly and is pretty much non-stop for the rest of the time. I don’t think they could’ve have got any closer to the original movie quality-wise as they did.

All-in-all this movie was everything I was hoping it would be. It completely made up for the third movie and I’m so happy that everyone who worked on it seemed to carry a great respect for the original movie because it’s what made the movie so enjoyable. Huge thumbs up from a loyal Jurassic Park fan!