Warning: Spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk.
In 1993, audiences were visually astounded when "Jurassic Park's" animatronic dinosaurs stole the show. Twenty-two years have passed since the quintessential film in the series debuted, and special effects have been brought into the digital age. Like every other summer blockbuster movie, critics surveyed the entirety of "Jurassic World" for structural weaknesses. The heaviest objection to their judgement is that "Jurassic World" is a movie, not a film, made for the enjoyment of the viewer, and more specifically, serves nostalgic purposes for the viewers old enough to remember the movies that came before it.
Executive produced by film god and director of the original, Steven Speilberg, "Jurassic World" was met with uneven praise for the most part. It received a rating of 71 percent from Rotten Tomatoes, a metascore of 59 from Metacritic and an A from Cinemascore. And let’s not forget the numerous records broken for its $1.47 billion grosses (so far). Reviews were appropriately mixed for a movie deemed “a goofy and fitfully entertaining summer movie” by the A.V. Club. While "Jurassic Park" was more film than movie for its groundbreaking progress in special effects, "Jurassic World" is more movie than film in this case, as its main objective is to be extremely entertaining.
The film is the ideal nostalgia movie for fans young or old. The original "Jurassic Park" was too interesting a concept to be a standalone project, which explains "Lost World" and "Jurassic Park III." We all know how much an ambitious first installment can make everything that come seem mediocre. "Jurassic World" was filmed to evoke that memory of being too young to watch it alone, when you could not believe how the directors put live dinosaurs on the screen and felt the terrifying thrill of the pack of raptors stalking you through the kitchen as you joined the adventure.
But, the movie is more than just letting an adult be a kid again. The year is 2015, those kids have grown up to be adults. And those adults who used to be kids have kids of their own. The nostalgic process does not have to be exclusive. Children can get a taste of their parents’ own childhood experiences. Parents can look back through the cultural fog of the past and open up a window for their kids to look through. It’s a possible bonding experience, unless those kids are already at those difficult teenage years.
Newspapers such as the Miami Herald and the Oregonian criticize "Jurassic World" harshly, forgetting it’s a summer blockbuster made to consume as much allowance money as it can. Both articles lightly make note of the obscene product placement that is predominantly stronger in Worldthan any of the previous Jurassic films. Mercedes, Beats, Starbucks, Verizon, Margaritaville, and even an original "Jurassic Park" t-shirt (worn by a park employee and noted to be in bad taste in context of the fictional history) were featured. Sure, it sounds like the dinosaurs sold out, but let’s allow "Wayne’s World" to remind us how comically genius it is to sell out. Did everyone forget about Michael Bay’s "Transformers" where the main characters were literally walking product placements? We know Hollywood sells out, and we love it. Try renting out an entire Costa Rican island so your location is authentic without selling your artistic integrity short.
Both critics placed strong comparisons onto Speilberg’s original films and his “jaw-dropping spectacle of showmanship.” How can anyone make a half decent movie while being eclipsed by Speilberg’s shadow? You can’t.
Now, aside from any emotional aspects associated with the intoxicating aroma of nostalgia, "Jurassic World" resembles "Jurassic Park": shots, characters and dinosaur species are reused. Not necessarily a bad thing
The genre of the film series makes a slight adjustment to science-fiction. To increase park attendance, Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Howard, manages a project to artificially create a new breed of dinosaur, the Indominus Rex, opposing past naturalistic messages and the franchise's tagline "Nature will find a way."
Chris Pratt plays Owen Grady, an ex-military raptor trainer, paralleling Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant from previous films. Two moody teenagers fulfill the roles of being helpless survivors. Vincent D’Onofrio reprises a role similar to that of Wayne Knight's character, selling or manipulating the dinosaurs for government/militarized purposes; they both become dinner for dinos. The only thing missing is the walking enigma that is Jeff Goldblum and the laugh he does when acknowledging his own cult fame.
Pratt is now becoming an element in creating fun and enjoyable box office masterpieces. "The Guardians of the Galaxy" star has reached action hero stardom fairly quickly, despite the unnamed discomfort many people surprisingly feel seeing "Parks & Rec’s" Andy Dwyer tame the series’ mischievous velociraptors. Just like Star-Lord, Owen Grady is there to remind us that humor can be found even in the most tense scenarios, and we shouldn’t take movies so seriously. We watch movies to have fun by escaping into another world, not to spend money just to sit in our seats, muttering, with a hint of sarcastic agitation, “That would never happen,” or “Sure, just go ahead, do that.”
Similar shots dating back to "Jurassic Park" are redone, paying homage to the film that remains a precursor for special effect innovations. The opening of the original Jurassic Park gates, close up of skulking dinosaur’s eyes, even a shot of a helicopter approaching the island in World is an exact replica from Park. (More so-called Easter eggs can be found throughout the film.)
Critics had especially odd expectations as far as character development was concerned. No one really cared about the two kids' parents getting divorced — they were actors pretending to get divorced — but it brought the setting to the "Jurassic World" island. And we can overlook how Howard plays the typical estranged blood relative that pushes off spending time with her nephews, forgetting their names in the process.
Pratt and Howard's romantic subplot was found to be unnecessary and unrealistic. But the same can be said for any romantic comedy with Ben Affleck and love interest X. He trains raptors for a living; she manages an amusement park with dinosaurs. They both survived an unrealistic disaster, of course anything to accompany the impossible adventure will not make sense.
"Jurassic World" served as a fan-service to fans, acting out scenes people would have died to see in the ‘90s. What if a dinosaur Sea World was made? What-if a T-Rex teams up with raptors to make the best tag team since Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage?
"Jurassic World" is not perfect. It’s a movie about dinosaurs living in an amusement park. If Colin Trevorrow wanted to go for realistic, he would have filmed the courtroom scene where everyone involved in making the park and directly responsible for the catastrophe is sentenced to life imprisonment. Try not to hold it to the same standard as everything else. Just super-size that popcorn with extra fake butter, sit back and journey back to "Jurassic Park." It was made to afford you the luxury of looking back with it, not forcing you to look through it.
