Review: Jurassic World (Spoiler Free)

Last night Pastie Bap was at the premier of sorts of the newest film in the Jurassic Park series. Yelp held a free VIP screening of the movie at the historic art deco styled Strand Cinema Belfast.

For a lot of folk, Jurassic Park was the bee’s knees (do bees have knees?) and I’m one of them. Nothing will beat that first film as it felt like the first time we ever saw real convincing dinosaurs on the big screen. For this reason I think people were too hard on the sequel The Lost World. I was a kid back then so I loved it. Everything up until T.Rex took a holiday to San Francisco. The 3rd movie had no Jeff Goldblum and was a bit weak, so what about Jurassic World then?

Set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World is a fully fledged theme park set up on Isla Nublar. The island from the original. The name Jurassic Park has been dropped because of the events of the other movies. The park totally looks like somewhere you’d want to go. There’s a kind of Disney World magic to it. This sets us up nicely for the carnage to come.

Every few years the park has to create something new to attract the crowds, people want bigger and better dinosaurs, so the scientists at Jurassic World are making them. They have gene spliced a couple of dinosaurs and have done some tinkering to produce the biggest and smartest of all. The Indominus Rex. The purist in me can’t help but think that making up new dinos is a cop out but the way the film makes it seem totally logical as the next step and it is treated to a few scoffs by our main characters too, so it doesn’t become a problem. They are as cynical about it as we are.

Jurassic World doesn’t feel like a sequel to the other films, more like an homage, and this is actually a good thing. It doesn’t have the trappings of the other films or feel the need to explain what happened to it’s characters. Jurassic World is it’s own creature,iIt tips its hat to plenty of scenes from the first movie but not gratuitously. If you’re familiar with the originals you’ll get a kick out it, if you’re not then it doesn’t matter. It all feels fresh and new without forgetting that it’s still Jurassic Park.

There’s an early scene with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and his raptors that gets the heart pumping. You’re not sure what way it’s going to go and director Colin Trevorrow milks the tension for all it’s worth. Can you milk tension? I guess you can milk anything with nipples. Does tension have nipples? I digress, This scene helps alleviate any fears early on that this will be another CGI snooze fest as so many films have been lately. It shows off Chris Pratt’s character as one we want to watch. There may be no Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic World but I’m happy to have Chris instead. The Raptors in this scene are stars in their own right, they have personality and look as real as they can look. It’s so good to see them back.

I often think a movie can be measured by how many scenes you can actually remember after you’ve seen it and there are a lot of great moments in this film. There’s an uncomfortable moment featuring a couple of control room staff that gets a laugh and a lot of scenes between Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s daughter WTF?) that help break up all the dino terror. There’s actually scenes featuring the 2 kids that aren’t just obnoxious kid filler and that’s without mentioning the fact that we get proper dinosaur on dinosaur battles and some great stuff with the Mosasaurus splashing about in and out of the giant shamu tank.

The dinosaurs look convincing for the most part and the casting is great too as there’s no one here who isn’t pulling their weight. Chris Pratt is the obvious star but we knew that was always going to be the case. Bryce Dallas Howard does a good job as Claire, the career driven woman who’s too practical for her own good. Irrfan Khan is the new John Hammond, he’s a great choice for the role as he steals every scene he’s in. The first few scenes with Howard and Pratt feel a little clunky but as the film progresses they build up more of a chemistry. There’s a couple of odd moments where characters spontaneously burst into tears, they seem out of place and don’t really add anything but these don’t get in the way of all the fun and this movie is a lot of fun. From our tour of the park to Owen’s badass motorbike jungle chase with the raptors and on to the finale, Jurassic World is a fun movie. It’s everything a summer blockbuster should be and the perfect evolution of the original.