Jurassic World 2015 Reviewer: Richard Tara Directed by: Colin Trevorrow Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Irrfan Khan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins

For those of you who have seen the first Jurassic park followed by the anemic follow ups, this should be a welcome surprise. The story actually is similar to the first Jurassic Park.  Two young kids visiting the park, ferocious animals getting loose and wreaking havoc, greedy men from the evil InGen Corporation who are bent on stealing the genetic secrets and putting the raptors to military use plus a love story developing on the side between two unlikely characters.


This is really like Jurassic Park, the initial movie again! Except it is done in a grander scale and thanks to superior special effects is even more interesting.

As the film opens, Karen (Judy Greer) who is on the verge of breakup with her husband, sends her two young sons, Gary and Zack, to spend a long weekend with her sister Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard,) who is the operations manager of a the new Jurassic Park in Isla Nublar off the coast of Costa Rica.

Karen’s sister, Claire, is a busy person and entrusts her nephews that she has not seen for over seven years, to a young emotional English nanny Zara (Katie McGrath.)
The park’s CEO is the extrovert Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), but InGen the notorious gene splicing company which has always been trying to use the scientific achievements for its own financial gains seems to have a big stake in it.

The two brothers, Zack and Gary arrive at the park and are disappointed that their aunt Claire is too busy to welcome them upon arrival.  Instead, the nervous nanny tries to chaperone them through the safe parts of the park. However, the two enterprising brothers soon dump her and move to the wilder parts of the park.

Claire is busy promoting the new creation of the Park, a huge ferocious dinosaur created from genes of several dinosaurs and even a fish.  Dr. Wu (B.D. Wong) who is the evil genius scientist at the park has created a new dinosaur. Claire and Dr. Masrani are trying to entice new corporate clients to sponsor the new dinosaur known as Indominus Rex.

Meanwhile, Owen Grady, who is an expert animal trainer is trying to teach four Velociraptors to obey his commands and has a difficult time of it since Vic Hoskins (Vince D’Onofrio) who is the head of security at the park, but really working for InGen is trying to steal the raptors and persuade Owen to help him train the deadly beasts for military missions.

Then all hell breaks loose. The deadly killing machine Dinosaur (Indominus Rex) gets loose from his pen and starts killing people and even other dinosaurs.  Zack and Gary are attacked by the Indominus and manage to barely escape.  Claire realizing her follies starts searching for her nephews with the help of Owen Grady. Simon Masarani tries to immobilize the Indominus using his helicopter but his helicopter crashes into the bird aviary and releases hundreds of deadly Pterodactyls who start attacking and eating the park visitors!  Vic Hoskins, head of security, and his InGen agents take over the park and try to control and smuggle the raptors to their waiting boats. Owen, Claire and the two kids try to save the day and the life of everyone by releasing the park’s resident T Rex from his pen and using the raptors to attack the indestructible Indominous but then they discover that Indominus has Velociraptor DNA as well, and can control the wild raptors better than Owen ever could. 

Therefore, we have over two hours of non-stop action!

This movie was expertly shot by a very new director; Colin Trevorrow (In fact it is his first real movie.)  It is surprising that the producers trusted him with a 150 million dollar project. The camerawork by John Schwartzman is first class. 

In a movie like this, special effects are the real actors!  Bryce Dallas Howard-who incidentally is the daughter of Ron Howard- as Clair, portrays an attractive woman who is supposed to be an experienced go-getter but is really not too sharp when it comes to handling people.  Owen as played by Chris Pratt is as the Australian song would say “a man full of muscle.”  Vincent D’Onofrio used to be much taller and slimmer when he was a detective in Law and Order.  Now, an overweight bully? 

Nevertheless, as we said earlier, this movie tells a very interesting and engaging story and is blessed with great special effects.  So, we will give it four stars for the whole family.   

Jurassic World 2015 Reviewer: edwinknc Directed by: Colin Trevorrow Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Irrfan Khan, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins

" Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and um, screaming."

Jeff Goldblum's steadfast mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm probably had some of the most iconic lines in the initial Jurassic Park franchise. Iconic because they always served as a warning against trying to control nature and the danger of wielding genetics like a kid who's just found his dad's gun. He explained all this to John Hammond during that little sit down discussion in the original, asserting the lack of discipline and irresponsible use of know-ledge they did not earn for themselves. "They were so preoccupied about whether they could they didn't stop to think if they should", he finally states. And as you may recall Malcolm was right; life found a way, and the dinosaurs became uncontrollable.

Twenty-two years after the original park opened, and fourteen years after the last impromptu rescue mission experienced by Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park 3, attitudes towards dino DNA, unfortunately, have not at all changed in Jurassic World. The only difference is the owner. Multi-billion-naire Simon Masrani bought out the late John Hammond's INGEN, and has, for the last ten years brought Hammond's vision to glorious reality.

We follow quite a deceptive, humorous scene just before watching Scott and Karen Mitchell (Judy Greer and Adam Buckley) going through the usual changes, preparing their two sons, Nick Robinson's and Ty Simpkins' Zack and Gray, for what was supposed to be a family vacation. The boys will be going alone. Jurassic World is the destination where their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is head manager. Regrettably, Claire is so frantically busy running the Park, her quality time with her nephews is extremely limited when they arrive.

Jurassic World's latest attraction, the Indominus Rex is the prominent concern. It's designed, according to old Jurassic vet Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong, the only original Jurassic Park cast member to return), to be bigger than the T-Rex, and therefore should bring in bigger crowds. The first genetically modified hybrid of it's kind, our park officials, including Simon Masrani himself, see that this new attraction has many talents. Including the intelligence to remove a tracking device from her body. When it disappears from her convenient artificial caged/habitat, it isn't long before they realize they've created a "Dinostein." It escapes, putting all 20,000 visitors in mortal danger of being eaten. Together with Zack and Gray. Once again, running and um screaming.

Chris Pratt,from the insanely successful Guardians of the Galaxy, is a grand addition to all the mayhem. As our resident hero/velociraptor trainer, Owen Grady, he must join forces with his ex "date" friend Claire to try to clean up this mess. It's a comical as well as rocky relationship at best, with the added complication of security head Vic Hoskins' (Vincent D'Onofrio) fervent desire to "militarize" dinosaurs for war purposes.

Equally fervent owner Simon Masrani (Life of Pi's Irrfan Khan) may have lucrative holdings in technology, medicine, etc., but it's quite apparent that his primary interest is Jurassic World. After all, he did fully succeed where the previous owner faltered. He's just as, if not, more determined to keep the park open despite certain assets that may skip out of containment. You definitely hear an echo of those words Malcolm spoke to Bob Balaban in The Lost World:Jurassic Park. "Now you're John Hammond."

For the second time since Jurassic 3, Steven Spielberg takes a back seat on directing duties, leaving this updated installment in the capable hands of Colin Trevorrow, whose "Safety Not Guaranteed" was a bonafide hit at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. His adeptness at handling a (at this writing) what is now a worldwide billion dollar hit, proves Universal made the right choice. Despite some of the lackluster character interaction (Claire consulting with Owen), Trevorrow always compensates by pushing the dinosaurs center stage, so you don't get bored or have second thoughts.

With it's massive box office take, a sequel is inevitable. We can only ima-gine what Universal will do next, maybe take dinosaurs worldwide like chimpanzees and gorillas in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. One thing's for sure. Prehistoric behemoths definitely have not gone out of style. At least for the time being.