The Jurassic Park franchise returns with its fifth installment in its new trilogy, "Jurassic World." I'm not going to lie, I was pretty excited for this movie; however, I was expecting heavy dinosaur action and little to no plot.
And that's exactly what happened, the main plot in the trailers cover the characters saving the dinosaurs off the main island due to an erupting volcano. The plot exists solely to get our heroes back on the island filled with rampaging carnivores. I won't be spoiling anything in the movie, because the trailers did a good job of that already. After watching the movie, I realized about 90% was already shown in the trailers...never a good sign.
The movie is such an absolute mess, I don't even know where to begin.
The opening really draws you into the movie ready for more dinosaurs, but they do the same effect over and over again. When a light flashes and you see a dinosaur, it flashes again and it gets closer only to repeat until the dinosaur has gotten to where it needs to be. Happens about five times in the entire movie.
The characters feel thrown in for the sake of having new characters. There's one who has no business being in this movie with the other doing one thing that any other person could've done. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howards characters don't really go anywhere, it seems they're the exact same as when the movie started. The plot isn't that good. In fact, the more you think about it, you tend to realize it has more plot holes than a fishing net. There's a "big twist" in the movie that my friends and I figured out 20 minutes before the actual reveal (and it serves nothing to the actual plot) unless they're setting something up for the third one.
Now the part everyone comes to the movie for, the dinosaurs. The action is great and they look marvelous! I could spend all day watching these dinosaurs just interact with the wildlife around them. If you're just coming for dinosaurs eating people and other dinosaurs, you shouldn't be disappointed. However, there are a few people who should die that don't. There are a lot of jump scares and thriller moments in this movie. Not to mention the times when a character makes the dumbest choice only to result in their demise. This movie is a bit more serious than its predecessors, with only a handful of jokes trying to balance everything out. Turns out there's one scene in the movie that is scarring adults more than children, you'll know it when you see it.
Another thing, the score for the film absolutely sucks. Michael Giacchino usually does a great job, but this time it seemed he dropped the ball. You hear a piano rendition of the main theme once and it was only halfway through the track before we moved onto something big and loud, which made no sense. I was very disappointed in the music department.
Every sequel, since the original, just seems to just be trying to cash in on the success of Spielberg back in '93. "Lost World" was alright, "3" was a complete snooze, "Jurassic World" was decent, and this movie seems to just be doing the same as the others.
Should the Jurassic Park franchise die after this movie? I say it might be about time. Let them finish this trilogy of films, and then let it die. I don't want another Jurassic Park movie for a very long time. It'll be rebooted eventually, but they need to let the movies live peacefully in our memories. Like the characters in the movie should learn not to keep creating dinosaurs to exploit for money, the studios should learn the same lesson with creating the movies.
I'm going to start a rating system for my movie reviews and it'll be 'should you see the movie in the theater, red box at home, or just not worry about it.' This is a movie for the theater if you want a fun time with your friends freaking out at jump scares and watching people get eaten or Red-Box if you cover the previous without paying the high price of movie tickets. If you do not cover any of those, I would just avoid it all together.
We're halfway through the summer, with several more movies to enjoy. Maybe "Ant-Man and the Wasp" will get the bad taste out of our mouths...