By Clifford T. Hofferd
If there’s one thing that all Jurassic Park movies have in common, it’s that nobody learns anything. If you open a dinosaur theme park things will go horribly wrong. If you try and play god by creating your own dinosaur then things will go horribly wrong. That’s what happens in Jurassic World as a fully functioning and stable dinosaur theme park gets a new corporate mandate to make a bigger better dinosaur. And there’s also some other stuff that happens.
22 years after the first Jurassic Park movie the dream of a fully functioning dinosaur theme park has been realized. The park is stable and safe for the over 20,000 people who came to the island during the holiday season. Two brothers Zack and Grey are there to spend time with their workaholic aunt who helps manage the park. A new corporate mandate for a bigger and better dinosaur leads to the creation of Indominus Rex. A highly intelligent, cunning, and deadly beast that manages to break free from its enclosure. Despite the best efforts of the park wranglers to control it the beast still runs amok endangering the lives of over 20,000 people. Only a Raptor trainer named Owen can stop this beast.
Chris Pratt is a capable leading man who actually has his head on straight. Everyone else in this movie from Zack to Hoskins makes bad decisions and are clouded by greed and opportunity. Instead of trying to evacuate the island after the Indominus Rex breaks free they try to contain it. Even after all people are asked to come back to the entrance plaza Zack and his brother Gray go off into a restricted area and run into the Indominus Rex. Even when Owen’s hunting raptors turn against their human handlers Hoskins still tries to control them (he then is promptly murdered). We have seen this all before. The only difference is technology has gotten better and the dinosaurs can look bigger and better. If you wanted to you can find a message of hubris and massive corporate ignorance and greed but it’s been done better in other movies.
I give Jurassic World 5.5 Abominations of Nature out of 10
Clifford T. Hofferd is a university graduate living in Prince George. You can read his blog at thengpblog.blogspot.ca. You can also follow him on twitter @CHofferd and on Google+
