Finally, I was able to go out and see Jurassic World as my summer exams are finally over. I am not a die-hard fan of the original Jurassic Park movie, but whenever I watch it I am still in awe at some of its greatness. Before I dive into a very negative review for Jurassic World, the franchise's fourth instalment, I want you to bare in mind that the reason I am hating on this movie is not because I am comparing it to the original, its because it didn't entertain me or satisfy my needs as a summer blockbuster.
Jurassic World as a film draws a lot of similarities to the Indominus Rex, the movie's monstrous villain; it's cold, sterile and an abomination. Much like the scientists who genetically engineered the creature, the formula which made the first film so successful, this constant sense of wonder and adventure, had just been tinkered with way too much by the director and the rest of the filmmaking crew, and the result was an absolute disaster.
The biggest issue I have with Jurassic World is that it doesn't properly grasp human emotion. Films like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Mad Max: Fury Road which came out earlier this summer knew how to blend action with drama and with comedy. This film tries to unnaturally mesh them all together which creates a film with an incredibly wavering, un-focused and inconsistent tone. For example, during a scene where Chris Pratt is riding on a motorcycle with velociraptors surrounding him, the focus should have been on the intensity of that one action scene. However, we immediately cut back to Bryce Dallas Howard's character and her 2 bland, generic and uninteresting nephews who say "wow, your boyfriend's a badass". Its moments like this where humour is so forced. There will be other scenes where one actor decides to break down crying in a moment which doesn't even remotely merit that much drama, and then all of a sudden someone's trying to pull some banter. It's immensely frustrating.
The movie also has pacing issues in that it drags on for so long with characters which simply aren't that interesting. At times, the slow pace drags the movie down. Instead of watching the Indominus Rex eat something, we have to watch the older nephew creepily stare at girls and the younger one crying about their parents getting a divorce. This subplot by the way, is only eluded to once in a scene which sticks out like a sore thumb as the script trying to flesh out the boys in some way. It doesn't have any acknowledgment or resolution towards the film's final scenes. The film has many other subplots which majorly detracted from my enjoyment of the film.
One of which was the "military" subplot. To summarise, Vincent D'Onofrio's character wants to use the velociraptors for military purposes. I don't know what's worse, the stupidity of this idea or the fact they wasted such a talented actor on such a generic and atrocious character arc.
The other major problem I have on top of the inconsistent tone, the slow pace, the lack of human understanding on an emotional level and the forced subplots, are the characters. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Claire, an up-tight business woman who is obsessed with her job, has no understanding of how to interact with a human being and who runs away from T-Rex's wearing high heels. She's not an interesting character at all, and neither are her 2 nephews who the film decides to spend most of the opening half an hour on and keeps on jumping back to them. The 2 boy's relationship doesn't work because they simply don't have one, and when they tried to force in the whole "our parents are getting a divorce" subplot, I didn't buy into it.
With the exception of Chris Pratt, every other character in this film is a moron. The reason why everyone is praising Chris Pratt above every other actor in the movie is because he is the only one who is likeable, charismatic and who has a sniff of logic and common sense. The rest of the characters make some really stupid decisions which, if you're like me, will make your head hurt. For example, after the Indominus has freed itself from its confinement, the park security decide that they should go after it and take it down.... with tasers. I'm sorry, but something which is as powerful as a T-Rex, as smart as a raptor and something which can camouflage into it's surrounding environment will not be stopped by a fucking taser. Almost every character in this film is a moron, and with the exception of Chris Pratt, I wanted to see die horrifically.
The film doesn't have the same feeling of wonder as the first one did, and is rather a monster film, which they make perfectly clear. The beast itself has a cool design and at times is very intimidating. However, during a monster film you should want the human characters to survive, which only escalates the tension making it a more effective film. While sometimes the cinematography and editing does make the Indominus Rex an imposing creature, I felt that they should have spent more time on these particular scenes with the intention of making it more intimidating. There were a few intense scenes, but they could've been magnified to the level the filmmakers were envisaging with better cinematography and of course characters who don't have a combined IQ of a cheese string.
Chris Pratt was enjoyable to watch in this film and I bought into how he could control the raptors and his relationship with them. In fact, the best relationship between any characters in this film is with Chris Pratt and a CGI dinosaur. The rest of the human relationships and interaction they try to develop are just awful, emotionally all over the place. Pratt is a naturally funny man with great charisma and star power, and I enjoyed watching his character who actually had a shred of common sense.
The fight scene at the end was the best "summer movie scene" of the entire film, enjoyable in the most guilty of ways. However, my favourite scene in the entire film was when Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were nursing a Brachiosaurus to death after the Indominus Rex had killed it for sport. The use of animatronics and not CGI (which by the way is worse than what they used in the original 22 years ago) made for an emotionally impactful scene, the one and only time the movie understood how to illustrate drama and emotion.
There were some aspects of Jurassic World I admittedly enjoyed, but from an acting, script, directing and character standpoint this movie failed miserably. It didn't give me interesting characters I could route for and even when I was starting to get invested into some of this movie's scenes, which mainly revolved around Chris Pratt, the film would just shoot itself in the foot again with its incoherent emotional tone. I go to summer films to have a good time, and the worst thing I can say about Jurassic World is that I was bored throughout the vast majority of it. And for people that will argue that you're just supposed to turn your brain off and enjoy it, I respectfully disagree. No matter what time of year or genre of film being released, if you don't have compelling characters, a good handle on human emotion or an interesting story, then I won't be invested in your film and I won't enjoy myself. Jurassic World was one big mess.
Rating - D+
No hate pls
Thanks for reading,
Matt
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