Well, I expected nothing, and that's
what I got.
Like every child of the 90's should, I
love Jurassic Park. I think that I can objectively say that it's one
of the best films ever made, certainly one of Spielberg's greatest
works, and it changed the way movies were made and seen. The combined
use of practical and computer generated effects hold up to this day,
which is remarkable considering CGI was still in it's infancy. Yes,
Jurassic Park is a great and important film to myself and pop culture
as a whole. But it's also 23 years old, so it must be time for a
sequel!
I knew how I was going to feel about
this right after I saw the trailer, and I wasn't optimistic. There
are few film franchises old enough to drink that can effectively be
reintroduced into today's audience. An example of such a success
would be Mad Max: Fury Road, which was a damn near perfect film for
what it was. Jurassic World is...not that. I understand the desire to
cash in on aging films by repackaging them as fresh ideas, especially
considering when we ask for original genre films we get Jupiter
Ascending, but the fact that many efforts to do so fall flat saddens
and confuses me. But for whatever reason, the magic that these
original films once had cannot be conjured up again a couple decades
down the road, and Jurassic World is another card carrying example of
that.
Now that I've sufficiently buried the
lede and given up my general feelings towards the film at the same
time, let's actually talk about the damn thing. We jump to a time in
a world where Jurassic Park was a thing, and the park actually
becomes a success despite multiple instances where horrible death and
mayhem proved this to be a bad idea. In and of itself, a huge problem
solely based on the lack of common sense possessed by what appear to
be even remotely intelligent people. At some point between the events
of Jurassic Park III (shudders) and Jurassic World, a group of smart,
resourceful and obviously wealthy people got together and decided to
throw a fuck ton of those resources and wealth at a project that has
claimed literally dozens of lives. And you can't tell me that no one
died horribly while this new theme park was being constructed, but
that's not important.
So we have this new park, and it's a
hit. But as the market is wont to do when your attraction is hundreds
of miles from literally anywhere, the popularity fades. The solution,
as concocted by said smart, rich people, is to INVENT A NEW SUPER
DINOSAUR. In this, I find two glaring problems. The first is that
Jurassic World is, for all intents and purposes, a zoo full of
creatures that this one place in the entire world has rights and
access to, because they have been extinct for however many millions
of years. That's pretty bad ass for a zoo. I don't know if you've
been to a major zoo lately, but they're still pretty popular. There's
no way that the money and time you'd need to dedicate to creating a
brand new species of life could
be justified by bring up the average number of visitors per day.
 | |
| "Sure looks dead to me." - An idiot. |
The
second problem is mostly a reiteration of an earlier point that any
progress made on this island up to this point has been bought with
the blood of many, many people, and that was just from plain jane
Raptors and Tyrannosaurs. They didn't have the benefit of being
genetically altered or created from scratch. My point is that we
obviously have a hard enough time dealing with the bastards that
we've known about for 20+ years without adding a new challenger
appearing at our own behest. But I guess this all falls under the
genre trope of “smart people make bad decisions” leading to the
plot of a movie. It's been done before, it'll happen again, and
that's fine. Just, the fact that it happened once in this context 20
years ago, on this same island, AND THEY KEEP MAKING THE SAME
MISTAKES. Somewhere, Jeff Goldblum is awkwardly laughing at these
asshats.
It
doesn't help that 99% of the characters in the film do not inspire a
whole lot of sympathy or respect. Many of the characters exhibit the
stupidity I remarked upon above throughout the events of the film,
making it hard for me to not root for Rex and co. But there's a
silver lining to every lackluster film out there, and it's clear who
that was here: God Damn Star Lord. If the only thing that comes of
this film is the further rise in stock for Chris Pratt, then I'm
willing to shut the hell up and see it again. If you enjoyed his
performance in Guardians of the Galaxy (be real, who didn't?), then
by all means go see this. He basically transfers the same attitudes
and inflections over to Jurassic World as local badass who trains
Raptors for what I can tell is literally no reason. He is the funny,
brave, handsome prince who is also somehow the voice of reason that
no one listens to. He's, like, an ensemble cast all by himself and
it's amazing. It's just sad that he absolutely has to be, because
everyone else sucks and is stupid. Truth.
So
I've said a lot of not nice things about this movie, but for what is
clearly an attempt to cash in on nostalgia and the 3D gimmick, there
are far worse out there. Jurassic World is a shameless high-intensity
popcorn flick designed for a generation that can't possibly
appreciate the original because they weren't alive. And normally I
can look past the flaws in films like this objectively because I
understand who these films are designed for. It's how I got through
the new Ninja Turtles movie. If there's one unforgivable element that
Jurassic World has for me, it's that last week I watched a film that
is 23 years old with the premise upon which Jurassic World was based,
and it looked SO MUCH BETTER. 23 years have seen a lot of advances in
visual effects in film, many of which started with Jurassic Park, so
there's no reason on this earth that Jurassic World should look so
much worse than its predecessor. It's weird, but as you watch the
Jurassic Park series of films (I don't recommend it), the visuals
seem to get worse and worse. The practical effects that were used were few and far between, hardly making up for the heavy use of CGI that I've come to expect these days. Another mark for Fury Road over
this.
Clearly,
I'm in the minority in not gushing over this movie, as JW is
destroying records left/right/centre. That's fine, it's not the first
time the majority disagrees with me, but even objectively this film
is not good enough to be making the money it's making. And because of
this, we will surely see JW2 before long with T-Rexs dual-wielding
shotguns or some shit. And I'll see that too, because 1) that sounds
awesome, and 2) pure nostalgia. Nostalgia is a monster in pop culture
right now. It's why nothing is original. There are less and less
original films in the top 10 grossing films each year. Nintendo
hasn't had to make an original game in years because they're on Mario
Kart 17 or something. Sony just announced the re-release of Final
Fantasy VII, a game nearly 20 years old in its own right, and it's
breaking the god damn internet. I get it, things were better then and
our generation is more and more able to make that which is old new
again. Just make better movies with it is all I ask.
Or
maybe I'll just shut the fuck up and watch some dinosaurs.
Knight
Owl
