Monday, November 14, 2016

Jurassic World

Jurassic World; science-fiction adventure, USA, 2015; D: Colin Trevorrow, S: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Vincent D'Onofrio, B. D. Wong, Irrfan Khan

Two decades after the incidents around the Jurassic Park, a new crew managed to bring order and establish it as a popular dinosaur Zoo on the island. Two teenagers, Zach and Grey, are sent to the park to visit their aunt Claire, who works as a manager there. She is also friends with Owen, one of the employees who is training four Velociraptors. However, a genetically modified hybrid dinosaur, Indominus, breaks free and thus alarm bells are sounded for the 22,000 visitors on the island. Several people are killed, but Claire releases the T. Rex and it manages to defeat the Indominus, thanks also to Owen's loyal Velociraptors. Zach and Grey are saved and evacuated with other guests from the island.

14 years after the last installement, against all predictions that it would be just a cheap rip-off of the franchise, reboot "Jurassic World" actually proved as a pleasant surprise, giving freshness and vitality after a long pause in the series, even surpassing the last two films, "Jurassic Park II" and "Jurassic Park III", by a nose. Director Colin Trevorrow crafts the film with stylistic elegance, whereas screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver manage to construct it to be simply fun: numerous moments are amusing (a "giant" lizard leg proves to be just the leg of a small sparrow when the camera zooms out; the ironic comment of a chief technician upon hearing how new, simple names of hybrid dinosaurs are given: "Pepsi-saurus") or just plain clever (when the vicious Indominus gets out of the cage, Owen hides under a car and cuts a hose in order to pour gasoline over himself, whose smell thus repents the dinosaur), the necessary explanations as to what happened between the events of the last film were neatly interwoven into the story thanks to unobtrusive dialogues, the good characters are a pleasant company, the action and chase sequences are set up with a lot of spirit whereas the new main "villain" dinosaur Indominus manages to live up to the hype. The weakest link is the last third of the film, which slowly causes the story to lose its concentration and regress into standard, repetitive action, exacerbated by a rather vague ending, whereas a few 'boastful' moments stick up like a soar thumb, yet the movie manages to stand on its own, justifying its existence thanks to further exploration of the stimulative concept.

Grade;++

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