Numbers obtained from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes on June 14, 2015.
My rating IMDb Rotten Tomatoes
Critics Audience Critics Audience
7/10 59/100 7.7/10 70% 86%
I’m not a die-hard “Jurassic Park” fan, but I was looking forward to “Jurassic World” because they would finally open the Park that was envisioned 22 years ago. Apparently, judging by the record-breaking box office of over US$ 200 million in the U.S. during the weekend, everybody was also curious to see the movie.
With a new cast, the studio had a great opportunity to create a new story, but they decided to keep the same formula that worked 23 years ago. The difference, was I mentioned, is that now the theme park, now called Jurassic World, is open and receives thousands of guests per day. It really resembles the major theme parks, especially Universal Studios, where there actually is a Jurassic Park attraction.
However, Jurassic World is facing a problem: after 10 years of its opening, the guests want something new. To fulfill that wish, genetic engineers, design a new breed of dinosaur, mixing characteristics of all kinds of breeds. The result is very different from what they expected. As it turns out, the new dinosaur is exceptionally more intelligent than they thought. So Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), responsible for the park, calls Owen (Chris Pratt), who has been training velociraptors, hoping that he can help with this new dinosaur.
As expected, the special effects are the most interesting part of the movie, since the story itself is extremely predictable: the relationship between Claire and Owen, the family drama involving Claire’s nephews, the villain, who wants to use the dinosaurs as killing machines, etc. I felt like the studio didn’t pay too much attention to the storyline this time around and they were more concerned about product placements (the amount of merchandising is the movie is unbelievable), special effects, action and scary situations, which is a pity, since Steven Spielberg is the executive producer, so he could have done a much better story.
I was enjoying it until a certain point. After a very specific situation however, involving Claire’s assistant, the movie started to lose points with me (and with a friend who said at this point that they were basically trying to do “Piranha” again). I felt like I was watching the last “Godzilla” movie, especially at the end.
I also was a little annoyed at the beginning, when they kept playing the classic Jurassic Park theme song for any scene, as if something extremely important was happening. I wish they had saved it for other occasions. Moreover, the fact that Claire was able to run away from dinosaurs wearing high heels the entire movie was disturbing to me.
But, again, I’m probably one of the few people who had these problems with the film, since it was reported today that Chris Pratt has already signed a contract for sequels (yes, plural). Let’s hope the stories get better in the next ones.
