When I describe Jurassic World as a pile of shite, I don’t do so to be snobby or elitist. I don’t twirl the edge of my moustache and make unfavourable comparisons to Citizen Kane. I love the original Jurassic Park. I saw it at the cinema when I was five, I watched it with my niece ten years ago, and I showed it to my nephew last year. Obviously I wouldn’t consider it amongst the finest films ever made, but it belongs to canon of great children’s films of the 1990s, along with Hook, Home Alone, Jumanji and a fair few more, that were well-intentioned and well-crafted enough to remain extremely watchable now. But Jurassic World stinks on every conceivable level. It’s morally bankrupt, disgustingly lazy, and treats the audience with such utter contempt that it makes a mockery of its record-breaking opening weekend takings.
Mercedes. Twenty years on from the events of Jurassic Park, the island is now a successful tourist centre with over twenty breeds of dinosaur. Starbucks. With their audience becoming more used to the idea of the creatures, the park’s owners are pushed to genetically manufacture more ambitious hybrid breeds to keep attendance and interest in the park up. Verizon. But they obviously take it too far, shit hits the fan, people get eaten, and dinosaurs fight. More Mercedes.
You can only assume that the constant nods to the original films were intended to invoke some feeling of nostalgia in the audience, rather than reminding them of how good Jurassic Park was, and making this mess look worse by comparison. There’s absolutely zero tension and nothing at stake once the dinosaurs start chomping their way through a thoroughly unlikeable cast. In 1993, we had Richard Attenborough, Sam Neill and Jeff fucking Goldblum. Now we have Chris Pratt. Rightly heralded as this generation’s Harrison Ford, because for all his charisma, he has the acting range of Terry Schiavo. I almost felt insulted that where once we had such a beautifully watchable cast, we are now expected to be content with this handsome idiot. I knew Jeff Goldblum, and sir, you’re no Jeff Goldblum.
The rest of the cast don’t fair much better, with a weird-looking Vincent D’Onofrio somehow being more depressing than when he brushed his teeth with the business end of Charlene in Full Metal Jacket. He’s the semi-bad guy that becomes the actual bad guy before, inevitably and uninterestingly, getting eaten. Remember how great that was in Jurassic Park, when the fat dude from Seinfeld is running in the rain and gets the poison sprayed in his face? This is nothing like that. Just instantly forgettable, mindless garbage. And the scene where the kids are eating in silence in the kitchen, quietly smiling to one another as they finally think they’re safe? We felt their anxiety and their tension through that brilliant direction and pacing. That’s gone too, replaced with two anonymous looking, run-of-the-mill zilches. I can’t ever remember wanting two children to die sooner in a film.
CGI and 3D only further help polish this monumental turd, demonstrating yet again that just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should. The limitations of technology in 1993 ensured a far more realistic and engaging portrayal of the dinosaurs. Now we see them constantly from every angle, playing football, eating and swimming. It’s too much. It’s the same with horror films: as soon as you are exposed to what it is that has been hidden, the majority of its power is removed. Seeing the dinosaurs do absolutely everything just makes them seem ordinary and uninteresting. We’re just served with mindless, uninspired direction of truly terribly written dialogue. It’s almost impressive that they can make a film about dinosaurs fighting each other just so fucking dull.
The incessant advertising and product placement rife within the film verges on parody. Another film made about twenty years ago, Wayne’s World, had a scene mocking such product placement. Mike Myers’ character would relay the virtues of Pepsi whilst holding a can and looking straight at camera. Two decades later and the characters of Jurassic World are doing it for real, with no sense of irony whatsoever.
What is even worse, is that this has done so well at the box office that they’ll make another. And then Chris Pratt will become Indiana Jones, and probably James Bond, and the kid in Home Alone when they finally remake and butcher that film. Hollywood has become the depressing Uncle who repeats himself every time he talks. That’s great that you were Player of the Year in 1986, but that’s still the story you’re telling. Originality is being smothered in the crib and the same shit is being churned out time after time, with each incarnation slightly less interesting than its predecessor. But the numbers don’t lie; this is clearly what audiences want, so we all may as well buckle up and look forward to Jurassic Galaxy.
Jurassic World is showing in Nottingham cinemas now.
Jurassic World Official Site
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