Let’s face it: Neither of the two movies between Jurassic Park and
Jurassic World are particularly good.
They’re marginally entertaining, sure – I own them all and it is
with slight shame that I admit that I’ve seen each one at least a dozen times.
But they aren’t good – they aren’t well written, they aren’t very well acted,
and really, the plots are just a little too ridiculous to lend themselves to
good filmmaking.
That’s all what I’ve come to expect from sequels in general, so I
guess in that respect they’re about on par with other movies.
The bigger issue is this: Neither The Lost World nor Jurassic Park
III have the ethical questions built into them that Jurassic Park does; they in
fact barely even touch on them. They
aren’t as frightening or intrinsically precarious, nor are they as profound.
Jurassic World, however, is a step back toward the 1993
original.
I will note now: I’m going to try not to spoil anything in
general, and I guarantee I will not spoil the big twists of the movie. I can’t guarantee no spoilers overall simply
because I’m not sure what everyone would consider a spoiler, but also because
it’s been over a year since Jurassic World hit theatres. After that long, spoilers don’t count anymore
J
First let me say this: there’s no question that Jurassic World is
a successful movie. It made a disgusting
amount of money -- according to boxofficemojo.com, more than $1.6 billion
dollars worldwide. And while it has a 72%
on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, viewers gave it nearly 80%. That’s not amazing like Mad Max, but it ain’t
bad either. If anything, the numbers
indicate a stunning draw for the general public around the world.
Maybe it’s not the best movie ever, but the highest-earning, most
fun movies are never Oscar winners.
Fun is a big thing for Jurassic World. It’s reasonably well-written, lots of good
one-liners even if the characters aren’t exactly dynamic. And even though you
can predict the plot twists a mile coming, they’re still entertaining and fun to watch.
Bryce Dallas Howard isn’t great on her own, as most of us who have
seen The Village were already aware, but she sets up some of the best lines in
the film. The symbolic value of her
hair, straight and perfect at the beginning and curling gradually as she accepts
that she’s no longer in control of the park, gives a visual representation of
the themes the movie is trying to deal with, which I personally find
hilarious.
And Chris Pratt, a much stronger actor than I gave him credit for,
really carries the movie. As I watched,
I developed an appreciation for him as an actual ACTOR that I never had before
(though I can’t discount his comedic abilities on Parks and Recreation nor his
abs in Guardians of the Galaxy). He
gives Owen Grady just the right blend of seriousness and sardonic wit, so even
when he delivers that last super-cheesy line about staying together for
survival, you can’t help but smile along.
My husband and I quote Pratt’s “I was in the Navy, not that
Navajo!” line now whenever we’re trying to find something, and the clip below
remains one of my favorite Easter egg moments in film:
There is plenty here to pay homage to the films that came before it,
most especially the original, and that awareness of its origins showcases the
writers’ abilities as well as sets it up as a sequel instead of a complete
remake.
Really, the biggest problem with Jurassic World lies in its
theme.
The movie is littered with hints of depth – Chris Pratt and Bryce
Dallas Howard are constantly bickering about control, a throwback to the
ethical dilemmas of the first movie, and the dinosaurs’ genders are constantly
mixed up, hinting at the male normativity that infiltrates American
society. But Jurassic World never delivers on that depth, and that’s what
truly sets it as a worse film than the original.
The recurring quips and side remarks about control, for example,
are strong allusions to the conversations about control from the first
movie. But when they aren’t followed up
by that conversation itself, they lose some of their power. Plus, since most of those quips take place
between Howard and Pratt, who are also batting around a low-simmering if
obligatory sexual tension, that conversation about control becomes a commentary
about male and female dynamics; that’s infinitely less deep considering that
basically all romantic comedies have that exact same commentary.
And yes, the InGen guys are constantly messing up the sex of the
raptors. Everyone else – everyone who respects
the raptors, no surprise – keeps correcting them too, and that’s all great for
starting a dialogue on how masculine normativity is inherent and
problematic. Except that dialogue never
happens, and instead everyone who calls the raptors male instead of female just
gets eaten. Not exactly subtle.
Now: I realize that, in part 1 of this essay, I talked about how
being eaten serves those who want to exploit the raptors perfectly. That's pretty contradictory to what I said
here about Jurassic World, but hear me out:
If that conversation about ethics is built into the movie, as it is in
Jurassic Park, then it's fine to have the Rex eat them later. But in Jurassic World, the bad guys getting
eaten IS the conversation, and that's not nearly enough.
There is, again, the start of the conversation about extinct
animal rights, both as weaponry and as product placement. The sponsorship of the Indomitus Rex by
Verizon Wireless is only the beginning, as Lowery, the tech guy, notes to Claire
early on. And of course Hoskins wants to
recreate military tech into animal support, which is an interesting if
misguided thought, as Owen doesn’t hesitate to point out. All of these discussions again reflect the
original movie.
In both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, there is always someone
to remind us that these dinosaurs are actually animals. No matter how people – either us or those
on-screen – choose to look at them, they will remain animals. That includes their instincts and impulses, and
no amount of training can “suppress 65 million years of gut instinct,” as Grant
puts it. Humans can’t control them, no
matter how pretty the illusion might be.
But while Jurassic Park spends tens of minutes -- an eternity in movie-time
-- actually discussing this, long before the power goes out and chaos ensues,
Jurassic World never quite gets there.
It will forever be below its original for that reason, and even if I
understand that its writers weren’t trying to just remake the original, it’s
still a drawback.
The CGI nature of this film fits right into this issue. Where Jurassic Park used so many real-life
models, thanks to Stan Winston, Jurassic World uses almost entirely CGI, and no
matter how carefully integrated, CGI changes things. When the T-Rex headbutts Lara Dern and she
screams as she smashes sideways, when the glass roof on the car shatters as the
Rex dives after the kids, those moments are real in ways that the Indomitus Rex
biting the gyroscope in Jurassic World just can’t be.
Despite all this, I loved this movie.
It’s just so fun – and trying so hard to be deep that I have to
give it some credit. There are moments
where I had to cringe at the lack of subtext, but there are also moments where
I genuinely jumped or laughed. It’s
paced well, especially for a big-budget, 2-hour movie, and in fact I could have
used about 10 more minutes of Pratt
riding his motorcycle with the raptors. And the ending… sure, it’s predictable,
but it’s fun, and if a movie handles
something well, I just can’t argue that the mere predictability of it will ruin
the fun. :) It sure didn't here.
I've seen it probably six or seven times by now, and I’m sure it
has many more viewings to come in my household. Could it have used a
little pause for the conversations its writers clearly wanted to start and did
not follow through? Yes, definitely. However, and more importantly: it
does the first film justice, and I could not ask for a better continuation of a
story that I have adored since the start.
