Joel’s review of Jurassic World (2015)

On Friday night, I drove up to Clifton, NJ to meet up with my friend Doug and to see Jurassic World (2015).  We had planned to see the 9 PM 3D showing at the AMC Clifton Commons, but the Ipes had an unplanned major leak in our hot water heater. As soon as I got home from work, I had to stop the leak, do some temporary clean up, change my clothes, and head up to Clifton.  I ultimately would not make it in time, but I was able to call ahead and leave a message that I couldn’t make it. We got to the theater, spoke to Customer Service, and they gave us tickets to the 10:35 non-3D show instead. Hey, fine by me. With some time now to relax, we went to a nearby Smashburger for a late dinner before the show.

Directed by Colin Trevorrow (best known for directing Safety Not Guaranteed), the film seems to be a direct sequel to the original Jurassic Park film, even though it’s actually the fourth film in the series. I only say that because they don’t mention anything about the events from the 2nd or 3rd film. Set 22 years after the events of the 1st film, Jurassic Park has been in operation on Isla Nublar for at least 10 years, but now known as “Jurassic World.” It’s a full-fledged theme park, with thousands of visitors at the park every day, resort hotels and all, much like a Walt Disney World real world analogue. There are rides, attractions, shows, and even a petting zoo of sorts where kiddies can ride baby triceratops.

The film stars Bryce Dallas Howard as the park administrator, Chris Pratt as a dinosaur wrangler who is doing a lot of work training velociraptors, and Vincent D’Onofrio as a sleazy InGen guy with some vague ulterior motive about training velociraptors for military use. Oh, and believe it or not, B.D. Wong is back as the original Dr. Henry Wu, the original geneticist from the 1st film. The plot of film is that while the theme park has been in operating for 10 years, attendance is dropping due to park visitors getting bored with seeing dinosaurs. The park management is running out of newly reconstituted dinosaurs, and is now inventing new dinosaurs, or you know, abominations. The newest is Indominus Rex, which is a combination of a few different dinosaur species that you know should never have been combined.

Indominus Rex gets away and starts wrecking uncontrolled havoc within the park, endangering park visitors, not to mention the other dinosaurs. The Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt characters go after the Indominus, and to rescue the two lost nephews of the Bryce’s character. There are a number of interesting callbacks to the original film, but the film is one big “ACTION!” film. It’s not the smartest film, and there is some cheese to the storyline. However, if you keep your expectations low, and think about how much you like to see dinosaurs in action.

Oh, and eat a lot of popcorn, and make jokes to laugh with your friend. Then you’ll be fine.

Jurassic World (2015)

Jurassic World (2015)

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