Jurassic World (2015)

Jurassic World (2015)

Claire: Corporate felt genetic modification would up the "wow" factor.
Owen: They're dinosaurs. "Wow" enough.
Claire: Not according to our focus groups. The Indominus rex makes us relevant again.

This is tough to write, because I know everyone loved Jurassic World, and I hate to take the unpopular view, but…I’ll just say it: I thought it was ridiculous. 

I should start off by saying that I loved the original movie.  It came out when I was 10, and was the scariest, most jaw-dropping movie I’d ever seen.  Watching what really looked like real dinosaurs on the screen thrilled me to the core.  I had to beg my mom to let me see it (after first making her tell me every little detail about the movie, and P.S. Gennaro getting eaten off the toilet was not as hilarious as when she described it –in reality, terrifying!).  Eventually, she acquiesced, with the understanding that I had to cover my eyes during the opening scene with the velociraptor.  Even with your eyes closed, that scene is scary.  Perhaps even scarier, because you don’t know what’s going on, but you hear those horrible Velociraptor noises and imagine what the hell could be happening.  I used to dive behind the sofa during the Dilophosaurus part because it freaked me out so much.  The effects were revolutionary at the time, and I have still yet to see dinosaurs as convincing as they are in Jurassic Park.  I have had more dinosaur nightmares than I can count, either involving being chased by a T-Rex in the woods, or by velociraptors in a house.  I read the two books and saw the original three movies (I liked The Lost World pretty well, the third one not so much).  So, to sum it up, Jurassic Park holds a special place in my heart, and I was pretty hyped for a new movie. 

In fact, I was so eager to see the new film that I went opening weekend, despite the fact that the previews made it look pretty awful (I’d heard Tyler imitate the “What kinda dinosaur they cooked up in that lab,” line so many times that I cracked up when I actually heard it in the theatre).  The plot, I thought, held promise: The park has opened at last, and then things go wrong.  I mean, who hasn’t wanted to see the park actually realized after first hearing John Hammond describe his vision? 

Jurassic Park Vs. Jurassic World

Unfortunately, the movie is just as unrealistic and goofy as it looked in the trailers.  I could pretty much tell from the first shot that it was going to be too slick and glossy for my taste.  Remember the egg hatching in the first movie?  It looked so real, with all the goo (scientific term).  My oldest daughter saw that scene (one of the very few scenes appropriate for her age group), and said, “Ew, what’s all that stuff?”  Icky, realistic, inside an egg stuff!  Jurassic World opens with two eggs hatching, and they’re all shiny and metallic-looking  –more like tiny robots than freshly hatched dinosaurs.  No grit.  No realism.

None of the characters are remotely interesting, deep, or worth paying any attention to, though Chris Pratt (Owen) is amusing.  In fact, to the movie’s credit, there are plenty of funny moments (some of them even on purpose), and it’s even entertaining at times.  The problem is the lack of believability.  Tyler always says that a good movie will let you get absorbed in the story to the point that you don’t even feel like you’re watching a movie.  When something completely lacking in credibility happens, you get pulled out of the moment and are no longer immersed in the movie.  This happens constantly in Jurassic World.  So many things cause you to furrow your brow in bewilderment.  How on earth does that technology work?  Exactly how far in the future have we gone, because those Gyrospheres look pretty futuristic, but Dr. Wu doesn’t seem to have aged that much…?  I thought this was modern day?  Why are they letting people kayak in a river full of giant dinosaurs?  The zoo doesn’t let us kayak next to the elephants and rhinos.  Even if they’re peaceful, they could accidentally crush those people.  Would the entire flock of Pterosaurs really head straight for the populace and go on a rampage?  No instincts to head for the trees and hide?  Nope?  Just blood-thirsty, people-eating rage?  Okay then.

A lawsuit waiting to happen.

There are obviously two major themes that the movie is going for, and they aren’t subtle.  One is that we live in a commercial world with people who are never satisfied and always want bigger and better things.  This may be true to a degree, but the movie takes it to such an extreme, in-your-face level that it becomes comical.  What I took from the movie is that the whole more-is-more thing is what the movie industry thinks people want, even when it’s not the case.  A great thing about the first movie is that you don’t see any dinosaurs full on (you catch the tiniest glimpse of the velociraptor in the aforementioned opening scene –unless, that is, your mother makes you close your eyes) until well into the movie, and you have to wait even longer to see any carnivores.  Suspense builds, making you increasingly eager to see the T-Rex and the raptors.  In this movie, they are in your face right from the beginning.  The T-Rex isn’t shy anymore, she eats goats on command now.  The animal big-bad, Indominus Rex, is shown right off the bat.  Killer dinosaurs everywhere!  Glitzy, flashy, tons of CGI.  It brings to mind Iron Man 3 (If one Iron Man suit is good, 50 are better!  I know, an even bigger suit!). 

Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire) says, “Our shareholders have been patient but let's be honest...no one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore. 20 years ago, de-extinction was right up there with magic. These days, kids look at a Stegosaurus like an elephant from the city zoo. That doesn't mean asset development is falling behind. Our DNA excavators discover new species every year. But consumers want them bigger, louder, more teeth.”

Yup, the kids will be bored.

What kids are these?  I don’t buy that people would be in any way bored of the one and only dinosaur park in the entire world so quickly.  On a sunny day, our local zoo is packed, and this is lions, tigers and bears we’re talking about, not frickin DINOSAURS.  I recently took my kids to Disneyland, which is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary, and it was still massively popular.  Dinosaurs (dinosaurs!) that can only be seen one place in the world are boring to people after only, what, ten years?  Really?  I mean, we may live in a commercial world, but people aren’t THAT jaded.

The second theme is clearly to do with the plan to use velociraptors for military operations.  Hoskins is the human big-bad, all greed and lack of respect for animals and nature, with a desire to kill and destroy using the newest, deadliest weapons.  Basically, he’s a caricature of a man, and a delusional one at that.  The idea of using the velociraptors in combat is so stupid that you’re not sure why he isn’t in a hospital having his head examined.  They are barely trained, vicious, ready to eat their handlers at a moment’s notice.  One of Tyler’s favorite lines to make fun of goes something like, “Imagine if we’d have had these at Tora Bora!”  Yes, they’d run wild, killing their handlers.  Then they’d probably go after civilians and decimate the local livestock population.  It would have been awesome.  WTF is he thinking?  Without even getting into the ethical issues, it’s just plan insane.

The Velociraptor training was one of the things I was most skeptical about going into the movie.  The first scene showing them being trained was actually better than I expected. Owen’s clicker-training them with food rewards to get them to move around their cage and stop on command, and he’s training them from a safe distance.  This actually seems quite practical.  It would make sense that they would train intelligent animals in this way to make it safer to feed them, give them veterinary care, etc.  When someone accidentally falls into the cage, they are quite ready to eat him, and Owen barely manages to saves the guy (and himself).  Believable enough.

Then the movie makes a huge leap out of the realm of credibility, and all of sudden, the raptors are running alongside Owen on his motorcycle, not trying to eat him, following commands, no problem, because he is their “Alpha.”  How did this transition happen?  What happened to him just barely staving them off, diving to safety as they chased him, snapping at his heels?  The raptors-hunting-I-Rex plan goes all awry, of course (predictability is key in this movie –every death is expected, which is helpful, because you don’t have to deal with pesky feelings of suspense), and the raptors team up with I-Rex (“Watch your six! Raptors got a new alpha!”  Groan.). 

If only someone could have predicted that letting the raptors out would be a bad idea.  I mean, “Damn it, even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor fences.”  Sigh. 

Claire, the dumbest Park Operation’s Manager of all time (when I-Rex gets out, she decides not to evacuate the island, because why cause a panic?), decides that the key to containing I-Rex is ignoring the advice of her best animal handler and releasing MORE dinosaurs.  We have a dinosaur on the loose.  I know, let more of them out!  Let the raptors out!  Let the T-Rex out!  Why, my ten year old nephew is right, we DO need more teeth.  “Open Paddock 9!”  Hell, let’s just open ALL the paddocks!  Fences schmenzes.  Free the dinos! 

The most unbelievable moment of all involves Claire leading the T-Rex to the I-Rex to get them to fight.  She leads it like a puppy, luring it with a flare, in her high heels, running three feet in front of it without it ever gaining ground.  I thought Hammond “clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles an hour?”  Can Claire run 32 miles per hour?  Is it just taking its sweet time getting up to speed?

No worries, these heels are turbocharged.

Tyler was laughing so hard during the subsequent raptor/I-Rex/T-Rex fight that he was crying.  He later provided voices for the dinosaurs in this scene.  The lead raptor, staring down I-Rex: “I don’t think so.”  Then, when the raptor exchanges a knowing glance with Chris Pratt: “Run.”  Later, when you think the raptor is dead, and it reappears to help T-Rex: “I didn’t hear no bell.”  If you listen very closely, you can almost hear Eye of the Tiger playing.  It’s all unintentionally hilarious.  They were clearly going for a repeat of the moment in Jurassic Park when the T-Rex appears at the last second and kills off the raptors (saving the humans), but in this case, they went way too far.

My favorite part of the movie, the part that actually felt relevant and made me think, was when Dr. Wu pointed out that what they created were never really dinosaurs: “You are acting like we are engaged in some kind of mad science but we are doing what we have done from the beginning. Nothing in Jurassic World is natural! We have always filled gaps in the genomes with the DNA of other animals and if their genetic code was pure many of them would look quite different but you didn't ask for reality; you asked for more teeth!”  It was an interesting point, and explained why the dinosaurs wouldn’t necessarily look/act exactly how scientists believe they would.

Like I said, it is entertaining, if you can completely suspend all disbelief.  The effects are good.  There are some funny moments (Claire: “So, you can pick up their scent can't you? Track their foot prints?” Owen: “I was with the Navy! Not the Navajo!”).  But if you loved the first movie, and are hoping for some of the same realism, this is going to be a big disappointment.