Jurassic World review

If you havent seen the movie yet, and you want to know as little as possible about the plot or any other aspect of this film, you should avoid this post completely.

You can however come back later and read trough my thoughts on the subject.

Spoilers ahead!
Proceed at your own risk!

22 years has gone by since Jurassic Park. 22 years man!! I'l never forget how I felt when a first fully shown dinosaur sailed onto the screen. Magnificent Brachiosaur. My eyes well up in tears. I was sobbing silently, watching this graceful sauropod propping up on it's hind limbs, grabbing couple branches and dropping down synchronous with the masterful score from John Williams. I've got goosebumps all over my body right now, as I'm writing, thinking about that moment.

During those 22 years, we've got one so - so sequel, The Lost World, and one pretty disastrous third sequel. Let's label it JP3, sort of like some code name for a failed lab experiment that it was.
Now after so many years and so many fails, You'd expect that there was a lesson to be learned in all this and it could quite possibly lead to something great?
Apparently not.

As much as I lowered my expectations, as much as I wanted it to win,(I wanted it to win big). Sadly, it did not happen for me.
Not to say that Jurassic Park movie from '93 was perfect. If you read the book you know it's not. But this...

Sadly, the best thing about Jurassic World was the creature that wasn't even dinosaur. Indominus Rex. This beast was awesome from the artistic design point of view.
It is a beautifully crafted cg character that I really enjoyed looking at. I did not like some of the directing decisions about it. It was too intelligent, too clever.
I had no other problems with it except the thing I mentioned of it being to smart. The part where it "talks" to Pterodactyles, to Raptors, that was a joke.

Someone said something like: "Why you have to invent anything else when you have T Rex. Is this not fantastic enough?" And I agree with that.
But the thing that should have been main attraction of the movie, the dinosaurs, they were collateral and gimmicky at best. There's not a single scene that comes even close to those Jurassic Park scenes with Brachiosaur at the beginning, the sick Triceratops.

There was a lame attempt to replicate that chemistry Sam Neil and Laura Dern had with Triceratops model. This time Chris Pratt and that red haired actress helped mauled Diplodocid ease into afterlife.
The rubbery animatronic head looked artificial and dead as a fckn' parrot. Design wise pale in comparison to Triceratops from JP.

This movie was all over the place. Exactly like my mind is right now. I cannot pick a point and go from there.
I'ts like Colin Treworrov and Spielberg did not completely agree whether they want comedy, parody, thriller, action movie?

There was a butt load of cliche. Butt load of poor attempts of homage to JP.
Characters were poorly written. Teenage boy and his younger brother were.. dont know what they were.
There's a scene where a Tyrannosaurus comes in front of the huge glass screen and chomps a goat. And this teen dude is on a phone with his mother I think?

And he's like bored. And his mother raves like a lunatic cos his aunt is not with them, instead this aunt, the red haired actress arranged a person to watch over them.. ahh.

You were invited onto an island with dinosaurs. You got WIP pass. You can spend a week there. What the hell? I dont see a problem there.
But seriously, why do movie directors have to turn every fricking subject into family issues.
Anyway, I dont want to turn this review into Dr. Phil episode.
For me, the acting and characters in this movie were dry and artificial. I hoped Chris Pratt could pull off some magic but it kind of did not happen.


To go back to dinosaurs. I think that this movie could not benefit from no level of plausibility in terms of how dinosaurs looked.
No amount of feather could help Tyrannosaurus Rex or Raptors cos poor direction is poor direction. And then after all the right and wrong and "how dinosaur might have looked like" You still have good design and poor design.

You can still have bald Tyrannosaurus that can be executed poorly or brilliantly. You can have fuzzy Rex that can look bad, or brilliant.
Jurassic World Tyrannosaur looked bad. Raptors looked ok-ish, other dinosaurs were barely there. Indominus Rex ruled the whole time and luckily looked great.

About the king of all dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus cgi model looked like an overly dehydrated fig ran over by a semi. Not sure why is that so? Maybe this is that Tyrannosaurus from the JP events. Maybe it's just 25-30 year old grandpa Rex?
Whatever it is it looked bad for me. The end where it fights Indominus is another one of those poor JP homages.

Raptors looked too muscled up. And I think they changed the way they walk and run. The scenes where raptors run after that mini truck with kids in the back. It's run associated me with jaguar or some large wild feline, only bipedal.
The Raptor design was beautiful as well. I love how their eyes moved and twitched when they were locked in those head-lock things. Anatomically, Raptors had nothing to do with reality. They might be better addressed dromaeosaur beasts.

But as I mentioned earlier, this movie suffers from lot worse symptoms then those of inaccurate dinosaur reconstructions.
There were so many points in this movie where I simply rolled my eyes in disbelief. Why oh why???

From a professional point, I'd be proud and ecstatic if I had the privilege to participate in the creation of this movie. To be able to say, you designed Indominus Rex, it would be fricking amazing!
As a fan of the original movie and the book. After 22 years, I'm still left wanting for something else, something that can replicate those feelings I had back in '93 or God forbid improve on that and bring more emotions to the table.
I know it's possible. I'm not too old, I'm not over it. Mad Max: Fury Road proved it can be done.

Anyway. I do not want to analyze all the tiny details of Jurassic World. Bottom line is that I did not like it. There were some highs and lots of lows.

I wanted to like it but I just couldn't. This doesn't mean it is a bad movie. It means I could not connect with it in the way I wanted.
It did not resonate with my core.
In my life, I enjoyed movies that were generally considered bad. So there's that. It doesn't mean a thing. If you liked Jurassic World I wont think nothing less of you. I hope you won't think nothing less of me either for sharing my disappointment

I hope next two movies in line are going to follow the Mad Max Fury Road route. Terminator Genisys and Star Wars.
Basically this year is a great year for me. It packs all the great movies that marked my childhood. I just hope those two end up being same as the source or better cos Jurassic World was a certain downgrade in my eyes.

I guess It's just down to the retarded hierarchy that rules the Hollywood. Too many decision makers when it should come down to one person. I believe that's why so many movies feel torn apart.

If you stop and think about Jurassic World, you'l realize it doesn't have a soul. Well, I realized it did not have soul for me, personally. And it's almost painfully obvious that it's made to make money.
All the product placement throughout the move in form of Samsung logos, samsung devices, Mercedes cars. Like a 2 hour TV ad. Jimmy Fallon pops in.. Could have squeezed in an entire SNL crew while they were at it.
I guess we will have a dinosaur movie in the next 22 years that won't be created with priority on making money. Making money will be the second thing, first would be to amaze and challenge minds of all ages.