Welcome to Jurassic World, sponsored by Starbucks
SPOILERS. Please do not read unless you’ve seen the film, don’t intend to see the film or just really hate surprises.
Towards the end of 1997’s ‘The Lost World’, the second film in the ‘Jurassic Park’ series, there’s a terrifying scene in which a decidedly miffed T-Rex arrives in the city of San Diego and proceeds to go flipping mental. Traffic lights are vandalised, buses thrown through shop windows, family pets swallowed whole. We’ve all felt like that after a long journey. I figured it was entirely plausible that the people of San Diego might not be mad keen on this sort of thing happening again. It seemed like a pretty significant event at the time. But this is just one of several iconic moments from the early ‘Jurassic Park’ films that you will need to pretend never happened in order to fully appreciate ‘Jurassic World’. Health & Safety, accountability, and learning from your really obviously rubbish ideas are not concepts that have ever existed in this franchise. Progress, it seems, is changing the name of the park and ordering a shiny new sign.
The film begins with half an hour of foreplay, almost exactly mirroring the plot of the original. We all know where this is going, we’ve seen it in the trailer. So we nod and we wink, and we waltz down the path that director Colin Trevorrow is guiding us. Paper-thin human personalities are introduced (Bryce Dallas Howard’s workaholic & Vincent D’Onoffrio’s power-hungry security boss are particularly one-dimensional – made all the more disappointing by the latter’s phenomenal turn as Wilson Fisk in Netflix’s recent ‘Daredevil’ series), and we’re given time to get to grips with the new park, which in contrast to the original is incredibly clean, spacious and overbearingly corporate - although on the plus side, the toilet block looks a little more secure. The path leading to the new Visitor Centre is lined with recognisable chain stores, and there are more than a few instances of the camera lingering on a popular motif (like when Chris Pratt’s ex-Marine Owen decides to leave the rest of us on hold while he finishes that ice cold bottle of Coke). The dinosaurs too, are overwhelmingly CGI constructs, and are rarely as terrifying as the original’s largely animatronic stars. If I’m being unkind, it’s ‘Jurassic Park’ for the iPod generation. The various exhibits are all introduced in turn, and we get a very clear idea of which ones are going to play the biggest part later on. Generally, the ones with the most teeth.
It very quickly becomes apparent, following this brief state of equilibrium, that DIY dinosaur-building is still not all that good an idea. Shocker. Turns out, the newly-created Indominus rex, cooked up in the labs to revive flagging interest in the park, is a bit of a scoundrel. There are numerous reasonably interesting discussions surrounding the idea of what makes something ‘natural’ throughout the film, although discussions are of a more whimsical nature this time around, and there’s not a Dr Malcolm in sight. Admittedly, any potential ethical outrage surrounding the addition of tree frog and cuttlefish DNA to the new breed’s basic T-Rex lineage quickly disappears, once you accept that this is essentially what’s been going on since Day One. There’s a convenient moment for one of the lab guys to comment on the loose scientific accuracy of the creatures in the park too, as if to second guess criticism from the audience, who by now appreciate that Velociraptors may have looked very different to how we have come to visualise them in the ‘Jurassic’ quadrilogy. No, still no feathers here.
As things go South (and, oh, they do), the screen is filled by the kind of chaos you can only really achieve by letting a 50-foot dinosaur run rampage in an enclosed space. Things start to get more and more ridiculous plot-wise. Questions concerning plot holes in common sense, logic and continuity present themselves and are frequently left inadequately addressed, or even completely unanswered - an unfortunate result of the complicated writing process. About halfway through though, there’s a key moment where the two lost kids stumble into a building shrouded in vines. There’s a red and black banner on the floor, and a pile of bones in the centre of the room. Almost symbolically, the older kid picks up the banner and ties a rag to a bone. He sets it alight. It’s a symbolic moment because, although it’s not explicitly stated at this point, we’re in the old Visitor Complex from the first film, and fans will recognise this. The burning of the banner, for me, represented a moment where I was able to divorce myself from the memories I had of the first film and allow myself to start to enjoy this one for what it is – bigger, louder, breezier, sillier.
Chris Pratt is ‘Jurassic World’s Dr Grant, with just a sprinkling of Robert Muldoon. He has somehow managed to form a precarious bond with four Velociraptors that reminds me of my relationship with my dog, and it’s these contentious creatures that emerge to steal the show yet again. Pratt, true to the lighter tone of the film, is not as philosophical or enigmatic as his predecessors, but he’s really the only human character in the film with an ounce of charisma and he gets all the best lines. One thing I noticed was how surprising it was that in such a slick, 21st Century picture, there was very little by way of a female viewpoint. Howard’s character half-heartedly attempts to subvert the ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype towards the end, but her interpretation of toughening up is essentially rolling her sleeves up, flashing a bit more cleavage and resolutely sticking to her high heels. I would have liked to have seen a more balanced portrayal of gender relations.
The film ends, rather predictably, with one dinosaur roaring into the distance, stood dramatically atop one of the park’s buildings, overlooking the rubble that remains following the events of the last two hours. It’s a great shot, very dramatic, but it almost accidentally captures the soul of the film perfectly. There is no logical reason as to why that dinosaur has ascended to that position. There is no real indication that anything is even under control. The equilibrium, fragile as it was, has been restored to a point – but dinosaurs are still roaming the island. There is no real end game. No resolution. Just a crescendo and a fade to black.
‘Jurassic World’ can be a lot of fun in patches, if you can divorce yourself from all rational human thought and stop comparing it to the still-to-be-beaten original. But ultimately, it’s all roar and no bite - a crying shame for a film featuring so many teeth.