Embrace the Suck, review #2: Jurassic World (2015)
Pre-emptive considerations:
- Chris Pratt. A poor man's version of Tyler Labine. I don't believe any line that he says as an actor; he is a strong deal breaker.
- Bryce Dallas Howard. Why, just why? Two deal breakers in one film!
- Counter-balancing the nausea caused by the choice of lead actors was the presence of much better actors such as Irrfan Khan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Omar Sy, BD Wong, and Judy Greer.
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Name: Jurassic World (2015)
IMDb: link to Jurassic World page
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| courtesy of The Movie Database (TMDb) |
Cast:
Chris Pratt as Owen, Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire, Irrfan Khan as Masrani, Vincent D'Onofrio as Morton, Omar Sy as Barry, BD Wong as Dr Henry Wu, Judy Greer as Karen, Nick Robinson as Zach, Ty Simpkins as Gray.
Directed by: Colin Trevorrow. Written by: Amanda Silver, Rick Jaffa.
The initial tableaux:
In modern day Costa Rica, the theme park Jurassic World has completely replaced the theme park Jurassic Park, which closed twenty years earlier due to a disaster involving multiple human deaths. The new park has bigger dinosaurs with more teeth and greater ability to do damage.
Claire has a position of responsibility at the park coordinating operations. She promises her sister Karen that she will show her nephews Zach and Gray a good time at the park. Claire provides them with bracelets that let them get on rides without waiting in line, and hires a nanny to oversee them. However, she does not provide them with more than a few minutes of her own time.
Owen is still bonding with the four raptors he has dealt with since their hatching. As an accident early on shows, the training and loyalty are a bit iffy.
Delineation of conflicts:
The animals at the exhibits would like to escape their jails; the owners of the park would like them kept in captivity. The makers of the film think that the viewers would like to see human beings slaughtered by the animals. Said human characters would like to continue living.
The owners of the park experience decay in attendance when there are not enough new attractions every so often. In order to keep profits high and push them higher, the owners fund the creation of 'new' animals made from dinosaur DNA plus other DNA. The danger in this seems to elude the park owners, who set up testing, but do not spend enough money or thought on safeguards.
Claire delegates her responsibilities for Zach and Gray to an English nanny, and the results are not good. Consequences here are many. Claire and Owen spend a lot of effort finding the boys then helping them survive.
Claire and Owen have some nebulous past relationship, and that seems to be going nowhere. Despite this, when the going gets tough, she calls on Owen for help.
The Morton character represents interests who want to make huge amounts of money by weaponising the dinosaurs, particularly the raptors. Chaos at the park represents an opportunity for Morton to take over the park and scoop up the full research on dinosaur redesign technology. This would circumvent dealing honorably with the owners.
Owen sets up a pilot project to see whether raptors can bond with humans. He has some success since he has interacted with them from birth. Later these raptors meet with the indominus creation, and are drawn to it, since it has some raptor DNA. The raptors have divided loyalties. How will that play out in the final battle?
Resolution: The dialectic of conflicts ends late in the film. Most of the resolutions end up the way one would expect, and take most of the movie and much effort. So the film at least goes through the motions of good storytelling, but fails chronically in delivery.
One line summary: Same plot as Jurassic Park with newer SFX.
Statistics:
Cinematography: 9/10 I rather liked this, despite the overabundance of CGI. The skill level and care in editing was high. In particular, the sequence where the indominus comes out of camouflage is just brilliant.
Sound: 6/10 I could hear the dialog clearly, which was usually a plus. The main score by Michael Giacchino would have been more at home in an historical costume drama, rather than in a high tech fantasy.
Acting: 4/10 The two lead actors are walking disasters, and the director did not do enough to blunt this weakness. Sam Neill and Laura Dern (the leads in Jurassic Park) outshine Pratt and Howard by orders of magnitude.
In contrast, I would like the fine actors Irrfan Khan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Omar Sy, BD Wong, and Judy Greer in just about any property in which they appear, including this one. However, I do wish that each of them had had more screen time plus better dialog.
Screenplay: 5/10 This was a rehash of Jurassic Park, but with more CGI and lesser actors. The 'new' elements were just excuses for more butchery of human beings by mindless, ridiculous, and impossible monsters.
There were natural (for a fantasy) conflicts aplenty, and the storytelling brought them to reasonable conclusions in most cases.
The dialog struck me as poor. Part of that was the lack of acting skills on the parts of the lead actors (Pratt and Howard), but not all of it. Even the much better supporting actors sounded terribly stupid here and there.
Final Rating: 6/10
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