Nothing makes you feel older than being on the wrong side of 25 and watching every commercial property you were raised on be branded as antiquated and in dire need of a state-of-the-art nip and tuck. Such follies typically yield the bitterest of fruits and fans of whatever the original in question is can lick their lips as another Hindenburg combusts.
Miraculously — and mercifully — Jurassic World is a very satisfying watch. It wisely ignores the inferior sequels and acts as a direct — if belated — continuation to the original film, 1993’s groundbreaking Jurassic Park.
If it lacks the visionary firepower of last month’s Mad Max: Fury Road, it is at least head-and-shoulders above Spielberg’s disastrous Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Longtime fans (and really, who isn’t?) can breathe easy and know that they have a film they can take their children to and find genuine mutual enjoyment without having to endure hours of Harrison Ford proclaiming “I’m too old for this!” Indeed.
Jurassic Park‘s wildly inventive use of computer imagery combined with animatronics drew international praise for changing the way movies could be made. Though, it was met with heavy criticism over its poor characterization and sentimentality. A very similar appraisal could be made for Jurassic World, which at least has its predecessor to bear the brunt of tongue-in-cheek jokes.
The last park was never actually open for business, but now the fun is having an island full of pedestrians to liven up the frantic chaos.
Howard’s foil is Chris Pratt as a slightly ludicrous dinosaur trainer. A contentious battle of gendered stereotypes ensues and you know it won’t be long before they start kissing.
The advent of a new unstoppable super-dinosaur based on a cocktail of mysterious genetic traits (including the fearsome Cuttlefish) is quietly being engineered to boost sagging park attendance.
So it is only a matter of waiting out the clock until the fearsome Indominus Rex (truly the stupidest term in a science fiction film since Avatar‘s Unobtanium) eviscerates the patrons and more lowly creatures of Isla Nublar.
During the pre-show, a ROM pundit explains how the franchise’s depiction of dinosaurs is arguably the most accurate in film.
Not exactly high praise, when your competition doesn’t extend much further than creaky Ray Harryhausen contraptions and didactic Saturday morning cartoons.
The initially languid narrative gives fans plenty of time to savour the myriad references to the memorable images they grew up with: ominous footsteps echoed in liquid, precocious children trapped within a vehicle as crunching jaws close in, etc.
The film’s main strength is that it is so completely self-aware and downright post modern at times.
A chain of brilliant lines about product placement nearly break the 4th wall, culminating with Howard chiding a tech employee for wearing an eBay-purchased t-shirt depicting the original Jurassic Park logo. “Nobody needs to think about that right now!”
And the captive animals take revenge on their (mostly) cruel captors. A scene involving an awesome aquatic creature in a show tank inevitably makes one think of the current bill against Marineland. Though, this is considerably more fun to sit through than Blackfish.
The melee crescendos into a climax that is so corny it could elicit the forced laughs of a million art house movie patrons, but is simultaneously so fun to watch it will have even the most jaded of critics (“hello!”) cheering in the aisles.
See you next month for the new Terminator film!
Jurassic World — Official Trailer
All photos courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, Inc.
