Are you guys familiar with the Asylum? Yes? No?
Well for the uninitiated, the Asylum is
a film studio specializing in low-grade, direct-to-DVD genre schlock that’s
just cheap enough to guarantee a return on investment. They do sex comedies and creature features
(they're behind, among others, the "Sharknado" trilogy), but they're
probably best known for their “mockbusters”: blatant ripoffs of whatever’s
popular in theaters (e.g. “Transmorphers,” “Android Cop,” “Paranormal Entity”),
complete with D-list actors, amateur directors, and the promise of spectacles
so cheap and stupid they have to be seen to be believed.
“Jurassic World” feels like someone at
the Asylum won the lottery and used the winnings to make another creature
feature. It uses top-tier effects and
genuinely talented actors to tell a story that would feel at home being watched
on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” Also,
it’s one of the most dizzyingly stupid blockbusters I’ve seen in a long time.
Twenty-two years after the events of
“Jurassic Park,” the late John Hammond’s dream of a fully-functioning, living
dinosaur theme park has been realized as “Jurassic World.” The park is a success, but attendance numbers
are starting to plateau, prompting park owner Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) and
operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) to create a new
attraction: Indominus Rex, a genetically-modified hybrid dinosaur that’s
bigger, faster, and more dangerous than anything on the island. She’s also smarter, and very soon engineers an
escape from her pen and begins a rampage.
Luckily, Claire has Owen Grady (Chris
Pratt) on her payroll, a former marine and animal expert who has a pack of (mostly)
trained velociraptors at his side. Together, the two attempt to contain
Indominus while also rescuing Claire’s nephews (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson),
who find themselves in the I-Rex’s hunting grounds.
Not surprisingly, these characters are
about as flat as players from a 50’s drive-in creature feature, even though the
actors keep them from becoming complete black holes of charisma. Owen is the sort of rugged man’s man who
spends his free time fixing his motorcycle, flirting with his boss, and
generally not having any discernible flaws.
Similarly, Claire seems like she should be in a rom-com starring Meg
Ryan, and as for her romantic relationship with Owen, it makes even less since
than Owen’s bond with his pack of extinct lizard predators. Meanwhile, Vincent D’Onofrio’s on hand as a
greedy corporate slimeball who exists to threaten the audience with sequels
about dinosaurs fighting terrorists (yes, really) and the kids are
uninteresting, awkward stereotypes whose early scenes are only saved by the
fact that they’re interacting with the park.
That said, the film’s action sequences
save the movie from being a total farce…but not by much. I will commend “Jurassic World” for not trying
to ape its predecessor (this film switches the focus from Hitchcockian suspense
to grand-scale monster fights) and transforming Indominus into a capable
threat, but the scenes with her lose their luster too quickly. There’s only so many times you can see the
giant creature eat the other dinosaurs and puny humans before the shtick gets
old, especially when the park's security starts using live ammunition to bring
her down and it DOESN’T WORK, SERIOUSLY, WHY IS THIS THING BULLETPROOF?!
And then there’s the product placement.
I don’t normally talk about this kind of
thing, but it’s so in your face that it has to be mentioned. “Jurassic World” rails against the corporate
heads of the park for being more interested in figures and profit margins than
the well being of their animals or the miracle of their existence, but that
doesn’t stop the movie from screaming at you that products exist and that you
should totally buy them. Every shot that
can have a BMW logo or a Coca-Cola label or, bizarrely, a Brookstone sign, does
(for real though, why would there be a Brookstone at a dinosaur nature
preserve?). For all “Jurassic World”
wants to say about corporate greed and excess, it ends up being entirely
hypocritical.
For these reasons and more, “Jurassic
World” is a stunningly inept film. Watching
it, I cringed when I should have laughed; I laughed when I should have been on
the edge of my seat (more than once, a dramatic phone call is interrupted by a
bad signal, as if one of Idominus's many abilities is to short out cell
reception). If you’re truly interested
in seeing dinosaurs smack into each other like they’re action figures in the
hands of a four-year-old, then have at it. Otherwise, give this one a pass or wait until
its home video release.
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