Dateline Boston — Disclaimer: When I do a movie review, there are Major Spoiler Alerts. It may not be an entirely accurate recollection. I don’t get the quotes exactly right. I forget the names of the characters. I go with my gut feelings rather than cinema-speak. My recollections are condensed. If you have seen a movie that I have seen, you will get the picture, so to speak.
Last weekend I saw Jurassic World with Husband, Stepsons, and a friend who had not been to a movie theatre in such a long time he didn’t know how to order tickets online. We got to the theatre early, sat in deluxe seats, and prepared for a movie for which I had no expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
The last Jurassic movie I had seen was the original, Jurassic Park. I didn’t even know that Jurass
ic World was the fourth in the series. Thank goodness it doesn’t matter if you never have seen a Jurassic movie before. The plot stands alone. They made several references to the original movie, which was cute. “Twenty years ago, people were excited about dinosaurs! Now they want something bigger and better!”
The plot was pretty simple. The theme park was crowded with visitors, but the number of visitors actually had gone down recently. So they had to come up with an attraction that would really grab their attention. The dinosaur had a name that was so special I can’t even remember what it was. Gotta look it up. Be right back. Indominus Rex. They were going to name it something else. Four-year-olds couldn’t pronounce it, though. This dinosaur is a hybrid of a T-Rex and a few animals. A little bit of frog here, some chameleon there. It’s huge, nasty and can blend in with its surroundings. Oh, and it’s very smart. And mean. It has its own enclosure that hasn’t been opened to the public yet.
Meanwhile, Chris Pratt has proven that he can train raptors as if they’re dogs. Remember the raptors in Jurassic Park? They were scary! These ones hiss a lot, but when Pratt pulls out the training clicker, they curb their wild instincts. Enter Bad Guy, who sees this as an opportunity to use dinosaurs as weapons of mass destruction during war. Pratt takes objection to this. “They’re not weapons, they have feelings!” Various other dinosaurs are shown, including some enormous thing that lives in water and eats sharks during a water show.
Who Are These Boys?
The director of the park is played by Bryce Dallas Howard. She is uptight and cares more about revenue than the dinosaurs she produces. Her two nephews are coming for a visit, and she can’t even remember the last time she saw them. Throughout the entire movie she wears a white silk blouse, a white pencil skirt, and high heels. The only thing that was attractive about her was her hair, which was killer (and so were the dinoaurs).
The nephews visit, Director is too busy to hang out with them, so she sends them along with her assistant, who promptly loses them. They are going to stick together through thick and thin because their parents are getting divorced. “No, they’re not! Yes, they are! I looked up the name of their divorce lawyer!” says the 13-year-old genius little brother. The actor looked a lot like the son of a friend of mine, which was distracting. Anyway, they go off on their own, where they get trapped on a ride with Indominus Rex running loose after it escapes its enclosure. The dyno finds them and cracks open the sphere they’re riding in, but somehow they manage to escape! By running and jumping off a cliff into water!
Indominus is wreaking havoc, and Chris Pratt sends his pack of raptors to attack it. They all meet at a corner of the park, screech at each other, and…don’t attack! Turns out that Inominus is part raptor! They’re communicating! As one who rarely figures out plots during a movie, I thought this was a good twist. The raptors waste no time in running along with Indominus, leaving Bryce Dallas Howard to come up with an alternate plan, which is to sic the T-Rex on it.
There was so much product placement in Jurassic World that my stepson started counting how many times the Mercedes logo was shown. He came up with 21. Some of the other brands that were mentioned or shown included Samsung, Pepsi, Pandora, Starbucks and Verizon. It was really over the top and made me sick. So blatant. I will never buy a Mercedes now; I’ll just charge up my subway card.
Back to the movie. Chaos reigns, it’s now dark, and all the visitors manage to get out of the park and off the island, leaving the main characters behind, of course. The raptors come face to face with Chris Pratt again, but this time…they’re not sure. Is he their trainer? Is he their dad? With one look into his soulful eyes and hypnotized by his soothing voice, they turn on the Inominus and attack. And get helped by T-Rex, who eventually pushes Indominus over the edge of the park into a body of water, where…it gets eaten up by the water dinosaur. The end.
My family and I left the theatre as we usually do, processing the movie, talking about which parts we liked, and which parts were silly. One of my stepsons noted the scientific inaccuracies of the film, while I just kept thinking, “Man, that kid looked like my friend’s son!” My rule of thumb when going to the movies? Have no expectations, and you’re sure to have a good time.
Ms. Vaillancourt may be contacted at snobbyblog@gmail.com
