No Way This Will Go Wrong (Jurassic World, 2015)

It has been 14 years since we saw a Jurassic Park movie.  And they opted to bring us one thing we had not seen.  A fully operational space station.  Wait, that is not it.  I meant a fully functional theme park.  Considering the last two film trod similar ground (small group of people stuck on the island running from dinosaurs) it makes sense that they went bigger this time around.

It is years later and the Dinosaur Theme Park has been running for at least a few years, successfully. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is preparing the most daring exhibit yet.  A genetically modified dinosaur, a creature that has never walked the earth before.  Nothing could go wrong, except that her nephews are visiting the park this weekend.  So Mayhem will ensue.

The plot is not really the point here (there are some big plot points that just disappear from the film entirely), it is cool dinosaur scares.  And the film delivers there.  There is a lot of fan service to the previous films (One I really liked was the return of BD Wong as Dr. Henry Wu, given a much bigger presence than the original film).

The characters seem all over the place, early on Chris Pratt’s Owen comes off as the stereotype of the charming misogynist.  I find this trope absurd.  Never have known a charming misogynist in the real world.  But this personality trait drops pretty early, and does not resurface the rest of the film.  Claire is introduced as the “Woman Who Is Sacrificing a Family To Have a Career”, but it is pretty clear when she realizes her nephews are in danger she considers them important, risking her life to save them.

From the minute characters are introduced, I started trying to figure out who was going to get eaten, and it is not to hard to tell.  Faceless guys with guns, random park attendees and a couple big names because they are over confident or greedy.  You can play this game in most Jurassic Park films, but the first film still invested in all the dinosaur food.  We knew a lot about those people who got chomped.  Little to no depth is provided here.

It probably sounds like I hated this film.  But I didn’t.  I actually enjoyed it.  It has a very likeable cast, solid effects, cool dinosaurs and plenty of adventure.  It kept me into the story, even when Claire ran super fast in high heels.  It is a fun adventure, but not a deep one.