Friday, June 19, 2015

Jurassic World—Movie Review

by Peter J. O'Connell

Jurassic World. Released: June 12, 2015. Runtime: 124 mins. Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.

A possible conversation: There's a whole lot of stompin' and chompin' goin' on! Where? Down at Jurassic World. Is that the same as Jurassic Park? Nope. Jurassic Park is an old part of Jurassic World, which is a big, high-tech theme park, where people can go to see genetically engineered dinosaurs. To keep the crowds coming there, they've been working on developing some big, mean new dinos. Sounds cool. Why don't we go!

If you should go to the movie Jurassic World, you'll definitely see a whole lot of stomping and chomping going on at that imagined theme park. The fourth entry in the Jurassic series of films has bigger and better CGI (computer-generated imagery) with which to depict those dinosaurs, particularly that big, mean new one, when they run amuck. (And you just knew that they would run amuck, didn't you?)

Although you'll experience plenty of eye-filling CGI action—and ear-splitting roaring (by dinos), screaming (by chompees) and a bombastic score (by John Williams)--in Jurassic World, directed by Colin Trevorrow, you won't experience a whole lot of appealing characters or very good acting. Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson play a couple of annoying youngsters sent by their parents to vacation in the theme park (which is in Central America) under the guidance of their aunt (Bryce Dallas Howard), an official of the park. The Howard character apparently is intended to be obnoxious at first but become appealing as the movie goes on. She doesn't. (She is, however, very good at running through jungles and other places in stiletto heels without losing either her balance or a heel!)

Chris Pratt plays the hunky hero, a dino trainer. Pratt is apparently intended to be a kind of Indiana Jones character or Michael Douglas character from Romancing the Stone, and his relationship with Howard's character is supposed to remind us of Harrison Ford and Karen Allen in Raiders of the Lost Ark or Douglas and Kathleen Turner in Romancing. Note to Hollywood: Pratt ain't no Ford or Douglas, and Howard ain't no Allen or Turner. Vincent Donofrio's character—who wants to put the dinos to military use—is obnoxious, but is supposed to be, and Donofrio, as usual, does a good job, although he has only a one-note role.

So is Jurassic World worth a visit? Sure! Watching those dinos  stompin' and chompin' provides a whole lot of fun, even if the main humans on view don't.


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