{"id":17605,"date":"2015-06-21T19:20:24","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T09:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17605"},"modified":"2015-06-21T19:20:24","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T09:20:24","slug":"jurassic-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=17605","title":{"rendered":"Jurassic World"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Colin Trevorrow
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vince D’Onofrio<\/p>\n

A<\/span>fter a fourteen year hiatus and a handful of false starts with other directors and screen writers, the much loved Jurassic Park<\/em> franchise returned to the box office in 2015 with Colin Trevorrow’s\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Just how beloved is the Jurassic Park\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0brand? \u00a0Well, despite receiving mixed reviews and following on from two lousy sequels,\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em>\u00a0had a record breaking performance at the box office, drawing a truly mind boggling\u00a0half a billion\u00a0<\/em>dollars globally in its opening weekend. \u00a0Turns out the appetite for dinosaurs at the box office is as big as ever.<\/p>\n

A fondness for\u00a0Jurassic Park<\/em>\u00a0and everything it represents lies at the beating heart of\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em>. \u00a0The opening act, in which two young brothers Zach and Gray Mitchell visit the Jurassic World theme park, is filled with nods to the original film. \u00a0The animated DNA strand from the original park is still teaching visitors about the science of extracting ‘Dino DNA’ and people in the backdrop can be seen reading the works of Ian Malcolm. \u00a0One of the employees dons a\u00a0Jurassic Park<\/em> t-shirt and \u00a0raves about how cool the original was.<\/p>\n

Not only does Jurassic World<\/em> want you to know how much it loves its\u00a0source material, it also leans rather heavily on it for inspiration when it comes to its cast. \u00a0Zach and Gray are pretty blatant facsimiles of Tim and Lex Hammond from Jurassic Park<\/em>\u00a0and the film also has its own version of Sam Neil, Dennis Knight and Samuel L Jackson’s characters as well. \u00a0Poor old Irrfan Khan is given the thankless task of trying to follow in Richard Attenborough’s foot steps in the role of an eccentric park owner. \u00a0Khan plays billionaire investor Simon Masrani – as wealthy\u00a0and wide eyed as Richard Hammond ever was but without any of the memorable one liners.<\/p>\n

The two leads in\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> are the park’s operational manager Claire Dearing (Zach and Gray’s aunt), an ambitious but soulless career woman, and Owen Grady, a charming, quick witted velociraptor trainer played by Chris Pratt who has selfishly claimed the best roles in all the summer blockbuster films of the past two years.<\/p>\n

Its funny to think that in three previous films, no one actually got around to opening the damn park and its here that\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> has some fresh material to work with. \u00a0The theme park in\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> has been open for ten years and it is everything John Hammond would have wanted it to be. \u00a0There are dino petting zoos where children can ride baby dinosaurs, vehicular pods that take visitors through fields roamed by gallimimus and a Sea World style attraction where you can watch gigantic sea creatures.<\/p>\n

The opening act where we get to see a functioning dino theme park filled with guests\u00a0provides plenty of material to riff on commercialism and the state of modern theme parks (there’s a hint of\u00a0Blackfish <\/em>about the pool attractions). \u00a0There’s a glut of Jurassic World merchandise everywhere\u00a0and the guests have stunningly low attention spans. \u00a0There’s a scene at the pool where Zach misses the moment that the mosasaurus leaps out of the water and eats a shark because he’s busy instant messaging someone on his phone. \u00a0It’s depressing how utterly credible that scene feels.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In fact, its the attention span of the park visitors that sets in the motion the latest disaster on Isla Nublar. \u00a0We learn from Claire Dearing that attendance is down at the park because after ten years, people have become used to the re-introduction of dinosaurs and they are beginning to lose their appeal. \u00a0To reverse this trend, the scientists at inGen (including Henry Wu of the original film) have created a new genetically spliced dino attraction – the Indominus Rex. \u00a0Indominus is bigger, faster and deadlier than the Tyrannosaurus Rex before it. \u00a0Only no one knows how deadly as inGen keeps confidential just what exactly they have mixed the T-Rex DNA with. \u00a0That’s for audiences and hapless park security to find out when Indominus invariably escapes his enclosure.<\/p>\n

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With Indominus Rex running loose in the park and pressure from investors to keep the venue open and the security breach under wraps, its left to Claire and Owen to try and contain the rogue dinosaur and ensure the safety of their friends and colleagues.<\/p>\n

It’s here that the film has copped most of its criticism from the initial screenings. \u00a02015 has been a year that has drawn heightened attention to the roles played by women in film. \u00a0Avengers:\u00a0<\/em>Age of Ultron<\/i>\u00a0drew some ire from fans for sidelining The Black Widow and giving her little to do. \u00a0Meanwhile\u00a0Mad Max Fury Road<\/em> has attracted plenty of praise for its unexpected cast of strong female characters.<\/p>\n

Claire Dearing (played by Bryce Dallas Howard) is a rather antiquated caricature of a successful career\u00a0woman. \u00a0She’s a humourless corporate shill who is devoid of any real friends and she struggles to connect with her family. \u00a0Her stiff demeanour is juxtaposed by Chris Pratt’s everyman character Owen Grady. \u00a0Owen is laid back, intelligent, the only person to truly understand the dinosaurs and the man to bring the vigour back into Claire’s life thanks to a little bit of romancing. \u00a0There’s a scene in\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em>\u00a0that is evocative of the cinematic trope where a nerdy high school girl ‘finds herself’ and sheds her glasses and transform into a beautiful woman. \u00a0After a narrow escape with a dinosaur, Claire realizes the absurdity of running around in high heels. \u00a0She throws down her designer jacket and then…proceeds to continue wearing the heels\u00a0for the rest of the film. \u00a0I’m not quite sure what happened there.<\/p>\n

Regardless, for a film series that has had such great roles for\u00a0Laura Dern and Julianne Moore in the past as characters who are just as capable as their male counterparts,\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> is a disappointing step backwards.<\/p>\n

Films should be judged on their own merits but\u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> seems to continuously invite comparisons to\u00a0Jurassic Park<\/em>. \u00a0Time and again, characters, one liners and props from the original film pop up. \u00a0It’s to the film’s detriment as\u00a0no one in their right mind would think that Owen, Claire and Simon Masrani are more compelling characters than Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler or John Hammond.<\/p>\n

So after a promising start where the film really shines as it shows off the theme park, things start to creak and buckle a little as we keep the company of some light weight variations of much loved characters from the original.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the film picks up immensely in its closing chapter. \u00a0Given that director Colin Treverrow has directed just one prior feature film – the indy hit\u00a0Safety Not Guaranteed<\/em> – few people could have foreseen what a solid hand he would be at\u00a0putting together and shooting action sequences. \u00a0Treverrow would has done Spielberg proud with the exhilarating PG-rated carnage that unfolds in Jurassic World<\/em>. \u00a0There’s a real art to constructing action sequences that are suitable for all ages. \u00a0Since you have to cut away before any bloodshed, the trick is to ratchet up the tension in the lead up. \u00a0Treverrow really delivers on this front. \u00a0I can still vividly remember the ‘oooohhhh’ noise that the audience I watched the film with made when\u00a0a poor woman had the misfortune of falling into the\u00a0mosasaurus pool. \u00a0It’s all about building that suspense and letting the audience use their imagination for what happens next.<\/p>\n

The film finishes just as it starts, shining a light\u00a0onto a much loved character from the original film who has been somewhat neglected in The Lost World<\/i> and\u00a0Jurassic Park III<\/em>. \u00a0Its a rather shameless piece of fan service and yet I was completely taken by it. \u00a0Jurassic World<\/em> has its share of shortcomings and rough edges but that last thirty minutes really restored some lustre to the film. \u00a0The final scene was a crowd pleasing cherry on top.<\/p>\n

Is Jurassic World<\/em>\u00a0the best of the sequels? \u00a0By a country mile. \u00a0But thats damning the film with faint praise. \u00a0It’s an uneven film to be sure but upon reflection, I think the positives comfortably outweigh the negatives. \u00a0It’s proven to be so popular that Universal have scrambled to secure the services of Chris Pratt for a sequel which is all but assured now. \u00a0Dinosaurs are back in vogue and should become a regular fixture of the silver screen in the next few years. \u00a0That’s a pretty big positive if you ask me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help reverse declining visitor rates at their dinosaur park, scientists create a new genetically modified dinosaur with disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2245,1845,2227,2244,2246,902],"class_list":["post-17605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-bryce-dallas-howard","tag-chris-pratt","tag-jurassic-park","tag-jurassic-world","tag-michael-crichton","tag-steven-spielberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17605"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17643,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17605\/revisions\/17643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}