Dr. H Reviews Jurassic World, Flawed Entertainment at its best (Still in Theaters).

Jurassic world, is a victory of exhilarating CGI’s over the old-fashioned and somewhat mundane art of solid storytelling with relatable characters.  Sadly, it appears that these two factors are like East and West– the two will never meet.

Don’t get me wrong—Jurassic World is a thoroughly enjoyable popcorn summer flick that for the most part will keep you engrossed if not spellbound. But director Colin Trevorrow’s attempt to project the movie as a struggle against corporate and media excess is a bit over-the-top.

The fact that there are two credits for the story and four for the screenplay and that the script was revised about 5 times and the movie took a decade to materialize makes you wonder about the screenplay standards of today.  If this is the final product of a professional screenplay exercise written, rewritten, and revised for audience response, could an amateur writer do any worse?

If this sounds harsh, please consider the following: here are a couple of dramatic moments that needed some creative punchlines.  Two brothers are lost in the wilderness of the park being chased by a rogue dinosaur (and yes this concept is something that the movie has successfully contributed to the dinosaur genre).  Finally after a 20 minute chase outwitting the dinosaur they manage to reach safety only to find a lukewarm reception or perhaps scenes chopped at the altar of the editor’s proverbial splicer.  Ironically, the brotherly bond is the only redeeming chemistry that the movie could successfully portray.  The distant second being the affection between the smaller dinosaurs and their trainer-feeders.  The other, almost criminal, omission was their inability to logically develop the character played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who represented the big arms industry and the Indian actor IRFAAN KHAN (representing the theme park owner with higher ambitions) both of them versatile and talented actors. Henceforth the story takes a childish turn and the protagonists lacked gravitas.

Despite the movies flaws there were some rousing scenes, the most memorable was copied from the master Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds where flying dinosaurs attack the hapless theme park tourists enjoying themselves and pecking them on their heads as the larger beasts lifted them into the air and then dropping some to their some to their deaths and others to serious injury.  Not to give away the climax the most we can reveal is that the director’s final sleight of hand was if you can’t beat them, join them.

Watch the movie for its unadulterated fun but don’t count on remembering the story after a week.  I had to get this review out within 24 hours of watching this film or major omissions would have crept into the review.