A Movie Review: Jurassic World (3D)

Do you have a favorite dinosaur? My favorite dinosaur is the triceratops. I still remember the magical feeling that throbbed in my veins, as an eleven year old me sat in the cinema, starred jaw-droppingly at the sight of triceratops stomping on the silverscreen, in a movie called Jurassic Park. More than two decades later, Hollywood is once again bringing dinosaurs to the silverscreen. Only this time, these mighty creatures are supposed to be bigger, badder, and appearing in 3D.

Jurassic World is the fourth movie in the “Jurassic” franchise. It is not meant to be a sequel, but a film aiming to reboot the franchise. This movie opened in the cinema this weekend with a great buzz. The question is, is this movie worth a trip to your local cinema? Today, I would like to share my thoughts about this movie in a review that will hopefully assist your decision-making. Let me begin, by providing a synopsis of the movie.

Synopsis:

Twenty years has gone by since the events in Jurassic Park. An alliance of billion-dollar corporations maintained, and improved this theme park, renaming it “Jurassic World”. However, after a decade of operation, the public interest in the park began to wane.

In order to rekindle the consumer interests and maintain the business revenue, the board members of Jurassic World introduced a new attraction to the theme park. A new species of dinosaur the world has never seen before. However, this “new attraction” soon backfired and everything went horribly wrong...

My thoughts about this movie:

I enjoyed watching Jurassic World. But the question remains, does Jurassic World live up to the standard set Jurassic Park? My opinion is “Not really”.

Having said this, Jurassic World is still a lot better than Jurassic Park 2 and 3. And there are a few enjoyable features about Jurassic world. Let me start by sharing the things I didn't like about Jurassic World. Firstly, I think the biggest problem of Jurassic World is the characterizations. Every character in this movie is cartoonishly exaggerated with stereotypes. The dialogues sometimes try to bring comedic reliefs, but usually overshoot because they are too cheesy. The story, on the other hand, is fairly predictable. When I watched this movie, I already knew who was going to die and who was going to live, there were very little twists and turns in the plot. However, despite the predictable nature of the story, this movie managed to maintain a thin layer of suspense that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats.

Yet, as I have mentioned earlier, despite all these flaws, Jurassic World is still good entertainment. This movie knows what it is meant to be, a blockbuster. So this movie doesn't take itself too seriously. This also means, I think the audience can enjoy this movie, provided that they set the correct expectations. What I am trying to say is, Jurassic World is a monster movie. So as long as you keep this in mind, and don't walk into the cinema expecting to see a movie expounding the philosophical meanings of life, then you should be able to enjoy this movie for what it is, and for what it has to offer.

While the story in Jurassic World followed the formulaic ingredients of a Hollywood blockbuster,

but I thought the movie did (perhaps unintentionally) make an interesting observation about the relationship between “consumer needs and corporate mandates”. There was a scene in the movie, when a teenage boy stood in front of a magnificent dinosaur, but the boy's interest was occupied by his mobile phone instead. That was a captivating scene, because it relates to the central plot of the movie, where a company needed to rekindle consumer interests, by re-inventing a newer, and more extreme species of dinosaur which then backfired, causing a major catastrophe. I don't think the movie maker was trying to send any message at all, but I thought the scene about the boy and his mobile phone closely captured the current trend in our society, leaving rooms for further discussions.

The main attractions for Jurassic World, are the dinosaurs. And we can't really talk about dinosaurs without discussing the CGI. The CGI in this movie are ok, but they are not going to become the new benchmark for cinematic CGI. The dinosaurs do look awesome on the silverscreen. But for some reason, the multi-million dollar CGI just couldn't quite reproduce the magical feelings from the original Jurassic Park. However, it is still an incredible experience to behold the moment when the camera focused on a low-angle shot at a 40 foot tall T-Rex, charging to the front of the big screen in all its mighty bulk and reptilian ferocity. It is in a cinematic moment such as this, where I find the justification to watch movies at the cinema in the days of 3D HD TVs and blu rays.

The movie-goers have the options to view Jurassic World in both 3D and 2D format. So is it worth spending the extra dollars to watch this movie in 3D? I watched this movie in 3D, and I thought the 3D presentation for Jurassic World was pretty average. There weren't many “pop-out” moments in this movie. Meanwhile, the depth of the 3D presentation was also quite flat. I mean, for a movie like Jurassic World, I was expecting the 3D presentation to showcase dinosaurs running out of the screen into my face, or being able to stare into the vastness of the landscape, but those moments didn't exist in the 3D presentation. Therefore, if you are going to watch Jurassic World, then my opinion is the 2D version should suffice.

Jurassic World is one of the biggest blockbuster movies of 2015. I liked this movie. It didn't fully reproduce the charms of the original Jurassic Park, but it is still superior than both Jurassic Park 2 and 3. I think the greatest weakness of this movie is the cartoonish characters, and the cheesy dialogues. The story in Jurassic World is predictable but it does have its moments of thrills and fun. For a monster movie, I think most people will find Jurassic World delivers an entertaining, 2 hours long action adventure spectacle. That is, as long as you walk into the cinema knowing you are about to watch a monster flick.