Movie Review: Jurassic World

In short: I loved it.

Lightning has struck twice this year, my friends. I often complain about how action sequences haven't done it for me in a long, long time. I'll watch an elaborate car chase, explosion-heavy war scene or tricked-out superhero vs. villain battle and just feel bored. It's all like "been there, done that" for me at this point.

Until last month with Mad Max: Fury Road. And again this week with Jurassic World. Two totally different kinds of films—the former having truly changed the game and the latter being pretty much the definition of a popcorn movie—but all that matters to me is that I loved every minute of watching both of them, and that's something I can't say about any other recent action/adventure titles. I should probably mention here that I have no nostalgic feelings about the original trilogy, so there wasn't any of that factoring into my enjoyment of the film. This isn't the Star Wars franchise to me, by any means.

Having said all that, does it really even matter if I tell you what Jurassic World is about? No. Plus, you already freaking know what it's about: people being stupid (again) and dinosaurs wreaking having on those stupid people (again). It's a great combination, even though the dino mayhem far surpasses the idiotic human stuff in terms of entertainment value. And I'm not ashamed at all to admit that I was rooting against mankind for the majority of the movie.

Almost nothing of importance has changed plot-wise when comparing Jurassic World to 1993's Jurassic Park, except that this time it's 22 years later, the rebooted theme park has been operating successfully for years, and there's a guy named Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, in full "Hire me as the next Indiana Jones" mode, not that there's anything wrong with that) who's been attempting to train four Velociraptors with "positive reinforcement" techniques, much in the same way that I tried (and miserably failed) to train my black lab years ago.

Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the park's head of operations, and she's all business. Some people may say that Claire's character is one dimensional because she's so uptight and unemotional, but I actually know women like that so whatever. However, I was annoyed by the fact that she ran around in heels the entire time, even after the inappropriateness of her outfit was actually mentioned by Owen. But I got over it because 1) running around barefoot would've probably been worse in this case, 2) you can't run in heels after the heels are broken off, so that wasn't an option, and 3) I was rolling my eyes even harder at the fact that all of the characters stopped to chat, hug, kiss, joke or do anything other than run their assess off or look for places to hide when there were LOOSE DINOSAURS NEARBY WHO HAD ALREADY NEARLY KILLED THEM.

So I truly had no issue with Claire overall, but the character I thought was most ripped out of the Movie Character Stereotype Handbook was Vic Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio, who I still can't believe is the same guy who played Thor in my beloved Adventures in Babysitting). Vic is the head of security and is all about weaponizing the dinos. He relishes the death and chaos when things start going horribly wrong. In other words, he is the Evil War- and Violence-Obsessed Villain.

There of course must be kids' lives in danger again, so Claire has two nephews who are visiting for the weekend... who she promptly hands off to an assistant... who the brothers find a way to ditch so that they're totally alone right before things go south. I was freaking out about the older one (Zach, played by Nick Robinson (The Kings of Summer)) for most of the film, because I thought he looked so much like another actor... but I couldn't put my finger on it. By the end I realized that it was a young, Goonies-era Sean Astin that he resembled. Anyway, the brothers had a go-nowhere subplot about their parents' divorce, but otherwise they only served as a device to bring Owen and Claire together to have someone to save.

And that's all fine and good, because watching these people (plus many other minor characters it's pointless to mention here) deal with the repercussions of humankind's greed, arrogance and inability to learn from the past was absolutely thrilling. The dinosaurs looked great, they sounded great, and everything about them was incredible. They're what's worth the price of a ticket, and thankfully you won't have to sit through too many human-only scenes. Michael Giacchino's spectacular throwback score and shots of the gorgeous island of Oahu (specifically Kualoa Ranch) are worth the cost admission, too.

So if you're looking for some deep statement about man vs. nature or a thoughtful debate on the ethics of bringing extinct creatures to life or cooking up hybrid creatures, this is not the movie for you. (Try Splice.) But personally I don't always need fully formed characters or Big Ideas or even a well-thought-out plot. Really all I want to do when I go into any movie is forget about reality. I want my mind to be so absorbed by what's going down on the screen that for two hours it completely empties of everything that's stressing me out. These days, there is a lot stressing me out. Director Colin Trevorrow's previous film, Safety Not Guaranteed, was one of my two favorites of 2012 (along with Looper). Jurassic World is a very, very different kind of movie, but Trevorrow succeeded in once again hooking me from the opening seconds and making me forget about the real world, which is probably why I broke into applause at the end. And since everyone's looking for a little escapism, I can only hope you enjoy it even half as much as I did.