The eagerly anticipated fourth instalment of the Jurassic Park series hit UK cinema screens last week and it more than lives up to the hype.
Jurassic World is a fast-paced, captivating, can’t take your eyes off feast of action, adventure and the odd dinosaur to keep you on your toes.
Indie director Colin Trevorrow directs the film set on the same island that the first park so epically failed in the very first film back in 1993.
The park is now a fully functioning theme park style safari envisioned by previous owner John Hammond, played by the late Richard Attenborough in the first movie.
After ten years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfil a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor interest which backfires dramatically.
Jurassic World scientists create the world’s first hybrid dinosaur called Indominous Rex; a dinosaur bigger and cleverer than ever before, caging it up whilst it grows before public interaction.
However, as predicted, Indominous escapes prompting a park wide operation in an effort to contain the asset before anyone else dies.
Chris Pratt stars in the lead role as Raptor trainer Owen Grady along with co-star and on-screen love interest Bryce Dallas Howard as park operations manager and at times irresponsible Claire.
Claire invites her nephews, Nick Robinson and Ty Wilkins, to the park for the weekend who inevitably ride, almost literally, into the jaws of danger.
With Indominous on the loose and Claire’s nephews in jeopardy, it is down to the irresistibly tenacious Owen and his crew of trained Raptors to save the day.
Jurassic World finds the right mix between dinosaurs and the terrifying dangers a modern day dinosaur park would possess, and action blended with the occasional comedic wit.
Pratt plays Owen as though he was born to play the role, leading the salvage mission with impeccable ability and determination, not to mention the charm, muscle and devilishly good looks you’d expect of a leading dinosaur trainer turned hero.
Even amidst an imminent disaster Pratt finds the time to crack a charismatic anecdote and have you wonder how on earth anyone would stay so sane when people are getting ripped limb from limb by a creature with teeth a dentist would repulse from.
Unlike the first three movies, Trevorrow manages to portray the Pterodactyl’s as dangerous rather than as harmless Puffins, in a scene where they attack visitors of the park with frantic exuberance.
For once the sea creatures get a mention and even a heroic part towards the end marking another unprecedented event in the Jurassic Park saga.
The T-Rex, the same Tyrannosaurus as that terrifying colossus in the first film I am told makes an appearance but is less prominent due to being demoted by the much more monstrous Indominous, bred from the DNA of a Tyrannosaur.
The Raptors are portrayed with a more central storyline in Jurassic World and Trevorrow shows them as more like animals then as the mindless killing machines in the first instalment.
You sympathise with the Raptors and even feel sorry for them when any of them die, viewing them as more like a pet dog that Pratt has trained than a dinosaur from a lost age.
Trevorrow makes sure however that the Raptors’ threat persists with consistent influxes of danger towards the humans and he ensures their intelligence is duly noted. A Raptor is not just for Christmas!
Intermittent appearances from New Girl star Jake Johnson provide the movie with a fresh air of humour which runs smoothly throughout the narrative supported by Pratt and Howard on occasion.
For all its’ entertainment however, Jurassic World does suffer from a few rather major flaws. The inevitable fight scene at the end appears on the edges of plausibility and as epic as it is on screen, you can’t help but notice you are watching a slightly stereotypical Hollywood film.
Despite the obvious Hollywood plot ending and predictable narrative however, for the most part Trevorrow creates a very plausible film, allowing the audience to believe that a story like this could actually happen.
People die when they should die and people survive when it is just about possible for them to do so, despite the highly ridiculous fact that Claire seems to survive through the entire film wearing high heels in what can only be described as Bear Grylls terrain.
I cannot work out whether this inexplicable plot flaw is a tongue-in-cheek attempt by the director to pick fun at Claire’s character however, so you can almost forgive her for her naivety, especially when chased by a T-Rex armed with nothing but a flare.
Jurassic World then, is a brilliantly watchable film with all the right qualities that a dinosaur movie should possess. Action, comedy, big teeth, big stomping feet and bloodshed is everything you want from a Jurassic Park film.
As Owen fittingly puts it, Jurassic World is ‘like taking a walk in the woods… sixty-five million years ago’.
7/10.
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