Monday, June 15, 2015

Jurassic World Review

(Please read the following in an epic movie trailer voiceover guy type of voice)
...In a world, with way too many reboots and sequels... comes... another reboot/sequel....! /end epic voice.

WHY must some idiot in Hollywood dig up some franchise, that was popular many years ago, in hopes that there is still a shiny penny they can squeeze out of it?  In nearly every case, the remake/sequel has no heart and no soul, and can be rated anywhere from, meh, to sucks.  Why can't anyone do anything unique or create a new franchise... like Guardians of the Galaxy???  If you're curious, read my review for that here.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's review a movie.  Which one will we talk about today?  Wait, seriously... Jurassic World???  Ugh....

So many years after Steven Spielberg poached a lot of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (allegedly), someone again decides to make a theme park out of living dinosaurs... because it worked so well the first time.  And now that the public has become bored with the concept, a brilliant team of scientists, (led by the clear winner of the George Takei lookalike contest, B.D. Wong), they suddenly decide they need to make a bigger and badder dinosaur, that could never possibly escape from his pen.  From here, I think you can figure out the rest.

I was content on waiting for the blu-ray version of this, partly because of my rant above on sequels/remakes, and partly because this was just released in theaters, and the last thing I wanted to do was watch a movie with a bunch of people.  Because the one thing I hate more than remakes is... people.  But after being reluctantly dragged to see this, I'm really happy I spent too much money on it, because... it was good! 

One big concern I had, was the director.  Seriously, who is this Colin Trevorrow guy, and what has he done before???  Well, not much of anything really.  But he proved you don't have to be Steven Spielberg to make a good dinosaur movie, (and for the record, this is much better than Spielberg's sequel, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, by miles).  Trevorrow gave us some very nice homages to the original movie, and a few other decent visuals.  I particularly loved how you could read a lot of emotion in some of the dinosaur's eyes.  And for the win, he avoided my two pet peeves:  There was very little shaky cam, and there was plenty of good lighting/colors (even at night).  Bravo sir!  

It also helped that the entire cast was really good.  Huge thumbs up to Vincent D'Onofrio, and I'm eager to see the inevitable Wilson Fisk/Star-Lord memes from this movie.  But I think the success of Jurassic World, is largely due to Chris Pratt.  I'm not saying his performance was Oscar worthy, but I'm really starting to think he made a deal with the devil.  How else do you go from being the fat ass on television in Parks and Recreation, to suddenly being the guy many women swoon over, and starring in two of the biggest grossing movies of all time in less than a year.

I mean, seriously....

Okay, if I really nitpick, (and you know I do), some plot points are a bit too convenient and painfully obvious.  Don't expect the same terror or intensity as the original Jurassic Park.  At the end of the day, this is just a simple monster movie, and it doesn't take itself too seriously.  But it's easy to overlook because Jurassic World really is a lot of fun!  It does have a decent sense of humor at times, and seriously, how can you go wrong with a raptor posse???  

And lest you think I didn't notice, we also get our share of Bryce Dallas Howard...

Grrrrrrrr....
Deeesher

1 comment: