Jurassic World is ferociously good fun.
If you’re after effects and jungle battles, Jurassic World will not disappoint
Jurassic World gives us something very old and something very new. One scene left me gawping: I hadn’t seen anything this amazing since the flying monkey invasion of ’39.
And that was just the pteranodons. The real star of the show is a huge meat-eater called Indominus rex. I know: The name is just asking for trouble, but as park manager Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) explains, it’s got the benefit of being easy to pronounce. Even while running from it.
The movie is set 22 years after the original Jurassic Park — conveniently, as it allows the one returning character, geneticist Henry Wu, to age in real time. The dino-park envisioned by Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond has become a success, so much so that tourists are becoming bored with it and demanding bigger, fiercer animals.
Wu steps up and delivers Indominus rex, which is to T. rex what a Hummer is to a Jeep.
Trouble is, only Claire seems to think the new beast is a good idea.
The park’s owner (Irrfan Khan) worries that profits are being put ahead of the well-being of the dinos, which are referred to as “assets.” Control-room nerd Lowery (Jake Johnson, rocking a classic T-shirt from the first movie) brings up the notion of chaos. Resident dangerous-animal expert Owen (Chris Pratt) muses: “Maybe progress should lose for once.” All that’s missing is Jeff Goldblum, chuckling and striking poses.
Of course the naysayers will be proven right. Otherwise, you’ve got no movie. And there are two yeasayers: Claire, whom we hope will survive because she’s got a good heart, and Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio), who wants to turn velociraptors into living weapons, and who’d better get eaten or I want my money back.
Then there are the requisite kids in peril. Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson play brothers Gray and Zach, sent to visit their aunt Claire and check out the park. Mom (Judy Greer) stays home and worries, a perfect role for an actress who somehow always looks to be on the verge of tears.
Most of the acting is a trifle onenote. In fact, I think the best performance might be from an injured apatosaurus, whose head is one of several animatronic (as opposed to computer-generated) effects in the film.
As villain, D’Onofrio goes from arms akimbo to hands behind back to arms crossed. And remember that producer Steven Spielberg has mused about casting Pratt in a new Indiana Jones movie. Clad in a leather vest and constantly rolling under gates just before they slam shut, Pratt’s performance is less a role than a screen test for Indy V.
Howard, meanwhile, gets the cliche girlie role, in a summer that has delivered great, original female parts in Mad Max, Spy and (one presumes) the upcoming Terminator Genisys. Told by Pratt’s character that she won’t survive in the jungle, her response is to rip off her blouse, revealing a revealing tank top.
Pratt looks her up and down and declares: “Just like taking a stroll through the woods — 65 million years ago.”
But to be fair, the film only sets feminism back about 50 years.
But you don’t go to Jurassic World for up-to-date gender politics — or even for scientific accuracy. (For starters, given the types of dinosaurs on display, it should really be called Cretaceous World.)
You go to see a giant mosasaur devour a shark, a summer blockbuster metaphor if ever there was one.
You go for the breathtaking shot of Indominus rex popping out of the jungle foliage like a de-camouflaging octopus.
Spielberg directed Jurassic Park and the first of its two lacklustre sequels.
He hands the keys to this one to the relatively untested Colin Trevorrow, whose only other feature was the low-budget Safety Not Guaranteed.
The neophyte handles things nicely, mixing tension and comic moments judiciously.
Behind the pseudo-science and bone-crunching sound effects, however, Jurassic World comes down to a fairly simple battle of loyalty and wits — and guns, tranquillizers, bazookas, flares, teeth, claws, armoured tails, helicopters, motorcycles, etc.
It’s the epitome of a summer popcorn movie. And your summer starts here.
There was a point in Chris Pratt’s career when he might have wondered if he were doomed to play a variation of his adorable dunce Andy from TV’s Parks and Recreation.
After all, the 35-year-old had been denied the roles of Captain Kirk in Star Trek and Avatar’s Jake Sully because he had been typecast as that fool on the TV show.
What a difference a few years make.
Pratt headlined last year’s surprise superhero hit Guardians of the Galaxy portraying Star-Lord, and will reprise that role in the upcoming sequel set for a much anticipated release in 2017.
Apparently, one franchise wasn’t enough, since he portrays raptor trainer Owen Grady in the Jurassic Park followup Jurassic World.
What does the former community college dropout think of all this?
“It’s hard to get my head around it, but I couldn’t be happier,” Pratt said in Los Angeles last August, hours after wrapping Jurassic World.
Here’s a look at where Pratt’s at — and where he’s headed:
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
In the fourth Jurassic movie, Pratt’s Owen is a researcher and trainer at the fully functioning dinosaur island theme park. When the park’s geneticists create a modified hybrid dinosaur called Indominus rex to increase business, things get complicated.
Also headlining is Bryce Dallas Howard. She’s the park’s operations manager who brings her nephews (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) to the park the day the rampaging begins.
“It’s 22 years later,” Pratt said, referring to 1993’s Jurassic Park. “Finally, the theme park is realized. It’s sort of like Dubai meets Universal Studios.
“And yes, the park has a new attractionthatcreatesproblems.And then things go horribly wrong.”
GETTING SERIOUS
The good news for Pratt was the timing of the Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World shoots. His extensive workouts to lose weight and get ripped overlapped both roles. Pratt had wrestled in high school so he was accustomed to the gruelling workout regimen. This time it was serious business with trainers and nutritionists for months at a time.
For Jurassic World, he also did research with movie animal trainers to understand the posturing of humans when they are threatened or attacked.
What Pratt didn’t do was the clowning around he made famous as the Parks and Recreation doofus and the Guardians of the Galaxy wannabe Star-Lord. The actor said his Owen is a deadly serious guy who has been through a few things, although there is some snappy patter between Pratt’s character and Howard’s manager in the movie.
COMING SOON
Pratt will soon return to the Louisiana set of another high-profile remake: The Magnificent Seven with Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio.
Pratt has also been linked to one of the new Ghostbusters films (there are a few in the works), an Indiana Jones reinvention (rumoured but not confirmed) and a Knight Rider film (speculative). That’s not too shabby for a one-time homeless dude who used to sleep in his van