The past month has been filled with several fantastic movies, many of which are revamps of old classics. A week or so ago, I had the privilege to watch Jurassic Park’s revamp Jurassic World.
The movie started out similarly to how the original Jurassic Park did. They spent a lot of time establishing the characters and relishing in fantastic views of the dinosaurs.
The difference here, however, was the CGI. Technology has improved since the original, and the dinosaurs received visual upgrades that blew my mind. From the incredibly detailed eyes of the creatures, to the fine detail of their claws, every dinosaur in this movie was refined to perfection.
Admittedly, however, the same might not be said of its characters. While I didn’t inherently dislike any of them, there wasn’t really much development of the characters beyond what you would normally expect.
Besides the presence of Chris Pratt, who made my top five favorite actor list after Guardians of the Galaxy, none of the people were particularly interesting. While the large focus on the dinosaurs makes sense and is almost forgivable, it was still a minor disappointment that most of the human interaction seemed reactionary.
In terms of plot, I don’t want to talk too much to avoid spoiling anything, but I have to talk about the last half-hour of the film. If you watched the original Jurassic Park, you are required to watch Jurassic World, if only for the best climax in a movie I’ve seen in years of film. It hearkens back to the old days like nothing else, and even though I’ve watched that scene a dozen times, it gives me shivers every time, without fail. It sold the movie for me as a whole.
Despite a lack of character development, there were moments where the cast broke from expectations. On two separate occasions, a scene came up that seemed to lead to a typical action-romance kiss scene, but on both of those occasions, the mood was completely and unexpectedly ruined by something funny.
One of those moments was at the very end with Chris Pratt and his love interest. When asked what they were going to do now the park was ruined, instead of replying with some sappy line and going for the make-out scene, he made a funny comeback that may or may not have been an innuendo, and then they just walked out separately which really surprised and relieved me. They didn’t sacrifice his character even during supposedly cliché scenes. It was a refreshing change.
All in all, I loved Jurassic World. The suspense was real throughout the whole film, the CGI was very well done and really brought these creatures to life. There was even a hint at possible sequels at the end. While the characters were a little flatter than I would’ve liked, there was just enough humor between them to break the suspense every now and again. Jurassic World is, without a doubt, one of the best films I’ve seen in a while.
