Hello and welcome to another review by the highly qualified expert critique that everybody wants to hear from, me! (Not :p) But you get the review whether you care or not so, let's continue shall we?
Today we're gonna be talking about Jurassic World! I cannot tell you how long I have been waiting for another Jurassic film. And the film industry definitely delivered, if I do say so myself. And here's exactly what I thought of it.
First off, lets discuss the enablers of the film, the cast. Starring is the one and only Chris Pratt as the raptor handler, Owen Grady, a former U.S. Navy officer and a total bad ass. You'd have to be those two things to tame velociraptors. Chris has a certain persona that he tends to show with some of his roles. That, or he is always cast as roles that have this persona. Said persona is what I can sum up as the rugged, bad ass, gets the girl, comedic, heroic kinda guy. There's no denying he plays that role very well. But he definitely is a great action film actor. I would love, though, to see him perform in films of other genres. That way I can give him a proper review of his acting skills.
Next, co-starring with Chris is Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing who is also an employee of the Jurassic company and is probably second in command to the park owner. Basically she runs the park and reports back to the owner. She starts off as the cold workaholic. Distant from her family and not very sympathetic towards the dinosaurs because she sees them as "assets". Fortunately she turns out to be a human being, and a cool one at that. When push comes to shove, she saves the day. Bryce's acting was not a first for me. I have seen her playing a villainous role in The Help and she excelled at it. I say that with confidence since she got me to genuinely hate her character. Based on he successful portrayal of a villain, she definitely pulled off being the heroine this time.
Moving on to Vincent D'Onofrio, who is one of my favorite actors, playing the role of Vic Hoskins, the main antagonist of the film, besides the monster dinosaur that is killing everything of course. He was the kind of villain that you see wanting to turn an incredible but highly unstable scientific creation into a weapon of war and sell it to the highest bidder. Vincent has recently gotten a lot of praise for his role as the main antagonist in the highly reviewed Netflix series, Daredevil, named Wilson Fisk a.k.a the Kingpin. He performed that role and the role of Hoskins perfectly. I say that with guarantee of his acting flexibility since he is also known for playing a detective in one of the editions of Law and Order.
Speaking of law and order, we see a familiar face in Jurassic World. It's B.D. Wong! He makes some appearances in the film as the scientist from the original Jurassic Park who is behind the un-extinction of the dinosaurs, Dr. Henry Wu. But, there's a twist with this film. He was bought. (no further details will be given to avoid spoilers). He is also responsible for creating the other main antagonist of the film, the monster! You'll have to watch the film yourselves to get some more detail on it. His role is small but he performs it well. It's also heartwarming to a 90's kid like me to see a familiar face from the first movie so props to the director for that.
The next cast member we talk about today is Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani the CEO of the Masrani Corporation and owner of the park. Irrfan has been seen definitely in Bollywood films and I remember him specifically from two films, Life of Pi and The Amazing Spiderman. I really liked his role in Life of Pi even though it was a small one. He successfully played the older Pi and was telling the story to a journalist who had come to get the true story of what had happened to him. He makes a great story teller. He conveys emotion in a way that you can see that when he tells the story its like it actually happened to him and it was like it happened last week. Brilliant performance. In The Amazing Spiderman, he also had a small role as one of Norman Osbourne's employees who was also Dr. Curt Connors' boss and he was urging human trials on the cross-species genetics formula but without telling people so they can use it to save Norman's life. The character was intimidating and as cold as a corporate lacky could be so Irrfan definitely played that persona very well. As Masrani, this character was both interested in the welfare of the dinosaurs and wanting to give the people the attraction they are looking for which is the big scary monster of a dinosaur they made in the lab. He is definitely not as good as his predecessor John Hammond, who the actor who played him unfortunately passed away (God rest Richard Attenborough's soul), but he did pretty well considering his character didn't last in the film.
Lastly, we have the two child actors of the film, Nick Robinson as Zach Mitchell and Ty Simpkins as Gray Mitchell, who are Claire Dearing's nephews and are sent to the park to have fun as a distraction from their parents arranging a divorce. I am unfamiliar with Ty but I have seen Nick before in the Disney Channel original film Frenemies. Minor role, with not so bad acting. I'm glad to see he's not strictly a Disney kid. He did so much better in this film, however, as the older brother Zach, the rebellious teenager who turns out to be a caring big brother. His character didn't exactly require as much role playing as it did running which is I didn't see much of his skills in acting. As for Ty, he did very well. I think his performance in Jurassic world will set his career as an actor on the right path. He played the younger brother who was excited for the park and also covering up the fact that he is very upset about the divorce and needing his brother's support. Well done young actors, keep blossoming in the far future.
Next topic which is probably the most talked about thing in the entire movie is the graphics. If I could sum it up in a sentence I would say that they were absolutely amazing and stayed true to the original movies. They kept the original designs of all the dinosaurs except for the new ones, of course, but they just animated them so much better. I saw the movie in 3D so I could see just how good the animation was and it was excellent. I also loved that they made everything more realistic. The dinosaurs looked a lot more touchable. In the first movies they animated the far shots of the dinosaurs and up close encounters were done with the animatronics (which were also significantly better in this film). I give the graphics a thumbs up.
The storyline. It was both staying true to the problems that were faced in the original movies and keeping with the current time and generation of today. Basically, people were getting bored with the usual dinosaurs and wanted to see something new, scary, and awesome. So they decided to make a new dinosaur by blending the genes of other dinosaurs with existing animals. That produced a nightmare. A scary smart, skilled and lethal dinosaur that they couldn't control and ended up going on a killing spree. The same problem that was in the original films was still there and people still abused the power that science gave them. They still didn't grasp the fact that nature adapted to the extinction of these animals and that things will go wrong because of that. They also didn't grasp the same problem that when they play God and create something completely because of publicity and profit, it will turn on you. The new problem that we see today is people being bored with the old and constantly demanding more new. And when that happens with something as delicate as messing with genetics, all hell breaks loose and those same people get hurt or eaten. Overall, the plot was great; it wasn't predictable, because if it was I wouldn't bother paying to watch it in 3D. I loved that they were referencing the old films while being original at the same time. So the storyline also gets a thumbs up.
Lastly, the music. They played the music from the original films which I absolutely loved so much. It was so good it gave me chills. That and they added some new stuff with the action scenes and the really slow sad scenes which all blended together very well.
To shorten this long review, the movie was amazing. On a scale of 1 to 10, this one gets a 9. I would give it a 10 but the casting could have been better. I would have preferred to see more experienced young actors for the Mitchell brothers. I also would have liked to see a larger variety of dinosaurs and not just focusing on the new ones more. But it did blend old with new very well since not a lot of film industries can do that successfully. It also managed to entertain me the whole time and to get me invested in it. Any source of entertainment that can do that with me is rated Awesome in my book.
Well that's all for me this week, sorry that it’s a bit late. Time management is still not my forte. But thankfully I have managed to achieve a good sleep schedule so I didn't post this too late. It's also late because my week is filled with the internship and working on the projects for it so there is little time to work on finding something to talk about on this blog and then actually writing the blog post ahead of time. I really am trying to make this blog a regular activity for me. So your support is much appreciated. I also didn't acknowledge the fact that we hit 1,000 + views on blogger!!!!!!!!!!!! That is absolutely mind blowing. It feels like it was only weeks ago when we had just hit the first 100. Thank you so much to all of you, my wonderful readers. You are all the reason I still do this. Please continue to read my material, and I hope it pleases you and you all enjoy it. Subscribe to become an official Reader and to be told when I post new content. All my social links are on the website so you can see what I'm up to. Also don't forget to interact with me by leaving me comments. Feel free to ask questions, leave critiques, or suggest some topics to discuss. I would love to hear from you guys. It would honestly make my day. Hope you all enjoy this review, I will see you next Thursday for another discussion, and I love you all very much my awesome Readers. Hue Mann, over and out!! ;)