Jurassic World (2015)

Genre: Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Writer: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong

Summary: "Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitors' interest, which backfires horribly." (IMDB)

  Spoilers past cut, be ye warned

I'll admit it, I just wanted a picture of Jeff Goldblum in my post.

I had a weird experience walking into this movie. It was equal parts excitement (Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies ever!) and trepidation (Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies ever). I wasn't expecting the same level of quality as the original movie - that would be a tall order - but on the other hand, if they'd fucked this up, not even Chris Pratt and his awesomeness would quell my anger.

Well, the movie wasn't perfect. It was, however, entertaining as hell, and I had a great time watching it. It was leagues better than The Lost World, and better than Jurassic Park 3 as well (so much so that this movie basically handwaved the other two away). Mission accomplished!

To be sure, nobody broke any new ground with this movie. It's sort of the film equivalent of a paint-by-numbers: it doesn't require a whole lot of creativity, but it's still a fun way to pass the time. I'm not trying to sound disparaging - it's a great popcorn flick, which is honestly all I was hoping for going in. It has a cohesive, if not altogether compelling, storyline, and some really great action scenes (along with a couple of unintentionally hilarious moments, which would usually annoy me but not so much this time around). The key is not to walk in expecting the first Jurassic Park, because you're not going to get it. But they put together a good action flick, with a lot of nods to both the original movie and the book.

One of the things that I really wish they'd touched on a little bit more was how they got to the point where the park had been opened in the first place. I know we're sort of disregarding the other two sequels and treating this as a direct follow-up to the first movie, but I kind of felt like even that had wrapped up to a point where the idea of a dinosaur theme park had been abandoned completely:

Dr. Alan Grant: Hammond, after some consideration, I've decided, not to endorse your park.

John Hammond: So have I. 

So what changed in the years in between? They even went so far as to bring back Henry Wu, the original geneticist, to complete the project. They gave us little glimpses of it, but it was just enough for me to have more questions about what brought us here. (And they do mention specifically that it was Hammond who resurrected the park in the movie, so it's not as if he passed away and someone else picked up his work.) I'm not asking for Shakespearean levels of writing or anything like that, but this was a loose end that kept nagging at me after I'd left.

One of the smartest things Colin Trevorrow did was not bringing any of the original actors back, even though it meant a tragic lack of Jeff Goldblum.

Last one I promise.

I read an interview from Trevorrow after I saw the movie, in which he said, "I know a lot of fans want to see the original characters back. They're iconic. But I respect these actors too much to shoehorn them into this story for my own sentimental reasons. Jurassic Park isn't about the bad luck of three people who keep getting thrown into the same situation. The only reason they'd go back to that island is if the screenwriters contrived a reason for them to go." (IGN.com)

BRAVO SIR. The script and the movie itself are not without their issues, but I applaud the fact that they opted for veering into new territory, rather than retreading old plot points. Not all of the new concepts were successful, but I can appreciate that wanted to branch out, while still paying homage to the original:

• Bryce Dallas Howard wearing all white, as a tribute to John Hammond
• The Jeep the boys take being 29, the same Jeep Hammond was riding in at the beginning
• A book by Ian Malcolm - God Creates Dinosaurs - appearing in several scenes
• The hologram of the Velociraptor in the lobby is taken from shots of the kitchen scene
• The scene in the original visitors' center, with the old banner lying on the ground
• The Gallimimus scene being filmed in the same location as the original chase scene in Jurassic Park 
• A cameo by Mr. DNA
  

I couldn't help giggling a little bit during the big fight scene at the end. First of all, we were getting down to the last twenty minutes and I thought, Man, we're going to go through this whole movie and not show T-Rex? And then onscreen they said, "Open paddock nine!" I KNOW WHAT'S IN PADDOCK NINE. That made my day. Obviously, any T-Rex fight scene is a good fight scene, but then you had that shot of the raptor charging in like she's the last action hero, and I sort of lost it for a second. And then the fight itself was a bit anticlimactic, wasn't it? The whole movie is spent chasing this dinosaur that is just too powerful! Nobody can defeat it! Run for your lives! And then she's taken out by this dinosaur fishy who said, "Fuck you." (I know dinofish has a name. I choose not to use it.) AND THEN you think raptor is going to come after them, but Chris Pratt shakes his head and she says, "Velocipraptor ain't got time for this," and off she goes.

I'm paraphrasing that last scene, but that's basically how it happened.

I have to eat my words a little bit here, because one of the things I was bitching about the most before this movie premiered was the fact that the dinosaurs were all CGI, as opposed to a combination of CGI and the animatronics used in the first three. I apologize to everyone who's had to listen to me, because animatronic dinosaurs were, in fact, used this time around, though this is the first Jurassic film to use animatronics not created by Stan Winston, who passed away five years ago. (Interestingly, the effects were handled by Legacy Studios, which was founded by some of the staff from Winston's workshop, so in a way, he was still present in this movie.) In fact, the same T-Rex from the first movie was used in the climax, and apparently if you look closely enough, you can see scars on the neck from that first fight with the raptors back in 1993. Motion capture was used for the raptors, though, except for the shots where they're in their pens with their heads stuck in that muzzle contraption, and it did veer into uncanny valley a little bit for me, particularly in the wide shots. The way that the raptors move in this film would have been difficult, if not impossible, to nail with animatronic dinosaurs, but the CGI just didn't look all that great either, not all of the time. I think it's one reason you don't see a lot of the whole raptor in the first movie, particularly in the kitchen scene. Watch:

You see the entire raptor when they walk into the kitchen and when it jumps onto the counter top, but other than that it's mostly a head, a tail, or a claw that you see. And the shots that are CGI are noticeable, too, which is probably why they were kept to a minimum. Not showing the whole raptor also serves another purpose too, in creating tension. In a scary movie (and I would argue that Jurassic Park has some very scary scenes, like the one I just posted), it's always more frightening to get just a glimpse of the monster and let your mind fill in the rest. It creates a great effect. Look at the one good scene in The Lost World, where they're running through the grass while the raptors chase them. You hardly see the dinosaurs, but you don't have to. You know they're there. And that's scarier than anything else.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm old-school and practical effects trump CGI every time. CGI should be a tool used for enhancement, and not something your film depends on entirely.

Overall, an entertaining if not entirely solid movie. I wanted dinosaurs and Chris Pratt, I got dinosaurs and Chris Pratt, so I'm a happy woman. And hey, for anyone who was maybe disappointed, just remember: we once watched a movie where a T-Rex attacked San Diego. It could always be worse.

No really now I'm done.