Film Review: Jurassic World

Dinosaurs are cool. Dinosaurs are awesome. Jurassic Park was a good portion of my childhood, so this new film is going to be amazing. Right?

If disbelief is worth £1 per “WTF” moment I might be stinking rich, but eh, I enjoyed it.

Contains spoilers, duh.

The film starts off with a relatively cliched group. Grumpy rebellious teenage boy and nerdy little brother. One is excited to go on a trip to see dinosaurs, the other is being all angsty because he’ll miss his girlfriend. The parents are meant to go but don’t for some unstated reason but the mum’s sad face and tense interaction with the dad suggest they’re getting a divorce. Cue little brother picks that up and worries, gives him motivation to act up and run away.

Of course, the acting parent figure (Bryce Dallas Howard) also disappears due to work commitment, leaving the boys with a useless aid who conveniently of course loses the boys. Because the only way any excitement can be had is without adults being involved.

I don’t know how the creators based the dinosaurs — maybe it’s not based on reptiles as we’re getting more concrete theories on how they used to be (but they still don’t have feathers?!), so apologies if my knowledge is outdated or wrong. Feel free to point them out!

First question is: why is there a thermal detector for a dinosaur. I thought they were thought to be coldblooded. Or are they basing it on recent thoughts that they may be ectotherms or mesotherms? And, of course, if they can’t find the creature, the most logical solution is to actually go inside its den (where the creature isn’t, as far as they know), to… what?

Second question: Owen Grady, the navy vet, has Major Concerns about how the researches and park owners raised the new dinosaur: alone. Just by being a dinosaur meant it needs socialisation and the park’s lack of regard for that aspect has been detrimental to it? Again, if the Jurassic world is basing dinosaurs on reptiles: reptiles don’t even interact with others of its own kind except for breeding purposes; quite a few bird species don’t live in groups, either. Is it all down to the species’ intelligence we have to think of it as more of a human being?

And, of course, there will be one person intent on using it for war. Because ‘Murica. Even though Grady is literally the only guy with a hint of control over these things.

And hey! It’s Nick from New Girl! Being the exact same stuttering awkward bespectacled character but just in a different show.

The story goes crazier as time went on. The Indominus Rex escapes and goes on a rampage, killing for sport. It breaches several other areas and releases other dinosaurs, most notably the airborne ones, who then starts eating all the guests. War-blazing guy feels justified to storm in and take over (wait, how?? I thought he was just a guest? What jurisdiction does he have there? Is there NO vice-president of the place to take over after the president crashed his plane?!) and wants to use the raptors to take down Indominus. And bullies Grady into coordinating it ‘whether he likes it or not’ — I don’t see how that’s even remotely plausible. War guy has no idea how to control the raptors. They’ll tear him apart. Or Grady could just tell them to tear him apart. He has literally zero leverage.

But Grady goes along with it because Plot.

PLOT TWIST Indominus is part raptor, therefore she can communicate with them! Raptors do a one-eighty and turn on everyone else. I’m pretty enamoured by these giant puppies so I’m quite sad people start firing at them.

Story hypes up the craze soon after. Hoskins does his evil-guy-reveals-motivation spiel saying he plans to make miniature raptors to use as weapons of war (begs the question for a third time: how the heck are you going to control them?!) The kid gets a mad idea that the best way to kill Indominus is fight fire with fire. So the aunt takes the Tyrannosaurus Rex out for a stroll… with no means of controlling that, either. Tyrannosaurus and Indominus go head-to-head (and I can’t even tell who is who because they’re both huge and bipedal) and Tyrannosaurus wins by a bare margin. Three of the four giant puppies die. They only won of course the sea dino conveniently comes in and nabs Indominus when it’s backed to the shore.

Then the Tyrannosaurus just… walks away.

What.

It didn’t even eat anything. What happened to the killing machine from previous films?!

Film ends. People are alive and happy. Tyrannosaurus does a cliched roar against the sunset. Airborne dinosaurs continues to fly in the backdrop…

Verdict: one crazy ass plot-line with more holes than a freaking sieve. Glad I didn’t pay money for this. Who’s going to tidy up the airborne dinosaurs?! 2 stars.