God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat Man. Chris Pratt inherits the earth.

Jurassic World (2015)

7.6/10 on IMDb
70% on Rotten Tomatoes
THE PARK IS OPEN!

And actually has been for quite some time already, so our easily-bored Gen Z kids aren't really excited about it anymore. In fact, ticket sales have been steadily decreasing, and so corporate has decided that they need to up the ante and bring in a new attraction.

Bring in the Indominus Rex: a hybrid dinosaur that is not only terrifyingly terrifying, but also incredibly clever. So clever, that it, surprise surprise, outsmarts the humans and wreaks havoc on the park. I'm sure Ian Malcolm thought the same thing when he heard of the park re-opening: When will these people ever learn?

Other than the obvious, this film is pretty good. It's a good, enjoyable movie that I would say is worth the watch in theatres.

It's definitely better than Jurassic Park III, and heaps heaps better than The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but still (obviously) can't compare to the original one-and-only Jurassic Park.

In fact, if you haven't seen it already, do yourselves a favour and watch Jurassic Park on the biggest screen you can get your hands on (not a computer/laptop please; I know I always say this and I always sound like a complete grandma but come on, respect the film). Appreciate the CGI for what it was back in 1993 and appreciate how it still holds up in 2015!! Appreciate the magic of John Williams' soundtrack when you first see the dinosaurs. APPRECIATE IT!

Speaking of the magic of John Williams, this film has done the impossible: it made me disappointed when listening to the Jurassic Park Theme. It's not that the music wasn't good; I still had tingles when it reached its climax and I was still so amazed by the score, but the thing is... they completely wasted it! In Jurassic Park, the theme song comes at this magical moment where we first see the dinosaurs. It's beautiful. In Jurassic World, they played it when they were introducing the theme park, but there were no dinosaurs in sight! And it went on for so long! I thought surely it's going to come soon, the Brontosaurus and the Triceratops are going to come in and everything will be right again, but I was SO WRONG!

It was actually really disappointing.

~SPOILER: How I would change the beginning of the film
(It still includes plot arcs of the film so it falls under spoilers)

I feel like what they should have done was to just stick with the lab people in the beginning, then go straight to Jurassic World. While they introduce Jurassic World, they do it WITH THE DINOSAURS so that the epic theme has some epic scenes to accompany it. Then, while they are still introducing the theme park, they introduce the two kids, so that they are already in the theme park when we meet them. That way, we don't have to see any of these family issues and the divorce nonsense that becomes completely irrelevant. Then you can establish that Claire is their aunt through a simple phone call between her and the British chaperone.

It might be argued that the kids are not necessary, but if you look at it:
1) All Jurassic Park films have had kids in the main cast, whether for good or for bad
2) It's a family movie; it needs kids
3) They needed to show Claire's character growth, and it's a good homage to Dr Grant's in Jurassic Park
4) They needed an excuse to have some good, magical and positive scenes of the dinosaurs before the Indominus Rex becomes a killjoy

Other than that, though, the film was really enjoyable.

There have been three Jurassic Park films before, so you know what the plot is going to be like, you know how the film will play out, and you know that these people will not learn anything. However, the way they introduced some new elements was pretty good.

Chris Pratt was great in this, like you can't see him as the wise-cracking Star Lord in here and he does a really good job with his character, Owen. In fact, I can actually see him as Indiana Jones now.

Bryce Dallas Howard was great too but man oh man those heels are cray! Like in her interview with Clevver Movies, she said she had to specifically train her ankles so that she could run in heels to do this!

The kids were alright in this; they weren't amazing but they weren't terrible either. I think they did well with their characters, but unfortunately their characters were quite annoying. However, nothing beats the kids in Jurassic Park, like they are such good actors!

The special effects were great (and there is this one scene where they use an animatronic and it was so amazing!), the plot was enjoyable and it had its moments of intensities. Obviously, there were a few unconvincing plot elements, but I guess they weren't really plot holes. They just didn't convince me well enough and so the ending wasn't as great as it could have been. I also thought the ending was quite... stupid.

~SPOILER on the ending~

I was completely unconvinced at the raptors changing their allegiance. This is not How to Train your Dragon 2, you can't just change someone's Alpha like that. The Indominus Rex is not only part raptor, but it is huge and terrifyingly terrifying (and it even camouflages!!! Like that was CRAYYYYY!!). You can't have that as your Alpha and then turn on it for Chris Pratt. Like seriously, they're raptors. We learnt how terrifying they were in the first Jurassic Park. You can't negate that by making them all soft and loyal to humans and all that nonsense.

I also didn't understand that scene where they are chasing the scent of the Indominus Rex and Chris Pratt can just ride his motorcycle with them without them attacking him. Like if you are really hungry, you haven't eaten for days, and you are looking for a cow to hunt down, if a chicken is running alongside you, will you not at least CAPTURE THE CHICKEN?! You can quickly capture it and then continue hunting down the cow. Like you are not going to just let the chicken run alongside you without wanting to eat it.

Of course, this can be explained through the fact that the Indominus Rex is part raptor and so they might have realised that and were too focused on being united with another raptor. But still, they just expected that it would be okay for him to ride next to the raptors even before they realised this?!

Anyway, the part of the ending where the Mosasaurus comes and eats the Indominous Rex, like that was so stupid. I actually laughed at that because of how stupid that was. That was just ridiculous. After an epic Godzilla-like battle between the T-Rex and the Indominous Rex, I felt like we as an audience deserved better than that.

So overall, this is worth the watch in theatres. If you go in knowing that it's a sequel to Jurassic Park and thus it won't be anything spectacular, then you'll have a good time. If you expect a really great philosophical Jurassic Park-esque film, then you will be disappointed. It's not that, it's not going to be that, and you should know that by now. It's a good ole monster film with some good effects and monster moments. The only problem is that the ending is not convincing, and not spectacular.


A few side notes:

Jimmy Fallon; what a legend!

Pretty sure dinosaurs don't hatch out of the egg with their claws? I thought they used their heads?

I am so sick and tired of these InGen guys! Like how many times have we seen them!

There's this one scene where someone dies - and I won't say who or how but when you see the film you will know - anyway that scene was pretty cool

From IMDB trivia: As reference for the actors, dancers wore grey suits with fluorescent dots on them and bicycle helmets shaped like raptor heads. Can you imagine that?


Also, I saw the trailer for The Good Dinosaur, and I feel like it is going to do everything to reverse what Jurassic Park has taught us as kids.

Lastly, I’ll just briefly sum up how I felt about the other Jurassic Park films.

Jurassic Park (1993) – A classic must-see. You have the amazing music, the Ian Malcolm quotes, the water-shaking-in-the-cup scene, the raptors-in-the-kitchen scene; it’s great.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) – Critics praise this and say it’s a great sequel, but I really don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s a pretty terrible scene. Jeff Goldblum did a good job, but his character was weirdly turned from the cool guy to the boring guy. The last 30 minutes of the film were appalling. Also, none of the music fits with any of the scenes! I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie unless you are like me and want to watch everything in a series in sequential order. But if not, you really have no reason to watch it.

Jurassic Park 3 (2001) – Critics say this film derailed the franchise, but I think it did pretty good. It was enjoyable and they added some new elements into it. Of course, the raptor and helicopter scene is weird, there are several plot holes and plot conveniences, and the CGI is pretty bad, but if you liked Jurassic Park, then you can give this film a shot (because dinosaurs).