Jurassic World follows a slew of characters who are all trying to survive a weekend at an amusement park with a giant mutant dinosaur on the loose. If you don't already know the story, you should. Some rich guy builds a park, fills it with dinosaurs, something goes wrong and the humans start dying. Sound a bit familiar? The premise takes from the original Jurassic Park with the new idea that the park has been open to the public sometime and normal dinosaurs aren't cutting it. Kids just don't enjoy the miracles of science, so time to create a mutant dinosaur with more teeth. Caught up in the corporate scheme of Jurassic World is Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), the park's operations manager, her two nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray Mitchell (Ty Simpkins), Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), the park's Velociraptor trainer, and Vic Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), head of security.
Jurassic World is a very meta movie, but possibly a bit behind in the times in some aspects. The film criticizes theme parks for overusing sponsor ships, while each character blatantly throws out a smart phone or Lexus reference. The sponsorship portion is hard to grasp onto since nowadays it seems that you can't have a new attraction without being sponsored. This idea would have worked back in the 90's. The Jurassic Park references start building up until director Colin Trevorrow decides to just throw in the old visitor center from the original park. It's a cute nod, but really there for nostalgia than to move the story along.
The gorgeously shown park also seems to be rushed into existence both on and off screen. Attractions are rarely safe and the park doesn't have any safety precautions if something goes awry. So, of course, something bad happens and the park security can't do anything about it. Unfortunately, the only reason an accident does occur in Jurassic World is due to the audience of today. There are dozens of references to technology moving too fast, people wanting bigger, stronger, faster items, and kids just not being kids anymore. This audience is represented by a very annoying Zach Mitchell who decides that looking at his phone or teenage girls is more exciting than dinosaurs. In the film, this seems like the first time that the Mitchell brothers are heading to Jurassic World, yet Zach's not excited? It's pretty unfortunate.
The film suffers from a casually thin script that places basic characters on screen with basic personalities. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have the chemistry and charm to not bore the audience with an hour worth of exposition, and D'Onofrio is almost as scary as the mutant Indominus Rex. Of course this can't be a Jurassic film without some kids. Robinson and Simpkins are tremendous in every scene, even if those scenes are about staring down at cellphones.
Jurassic World jumps from one disaster scenario to the next, finally culminating in a climax that is only worth watching on the big screen. Even with the film's flaws, everything is forgotten within the last twenty minutes.
B+
Good Qualities: Great third act, strong cast, great special effects.
Bad Qualities: Poor script.
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