Jurassic World (2015): A Review

Jurassic World is a bloody masterpiece. It's the touch of saving grace the Jurassic franchise needed after Jurassic Park III butchered it. I was quite literally quivering with excitement watching it.

Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow have outdone themselves in a spectacular show of recreating nostalgia for old fans and unveiling a whole new prehistoric realm of regal fearsomeness and splendour for everyone in the Jurassic cinema.

With a volley of unforgettable scenes right out of anyone's nightmares, JW did not fail to live up to its predecessors' memory and hit home. 

Between drowning, getting eaten by a pterodactyl and devoured whole by an underwater behemoth (which someone told me is a mosasaurus), how about everything at once?

If you look closely, you can make out someone's hand and arm below the pterodactyl, which incidentally had napped her for itself.

The title of the film alone was a dead giveaway that its reputation was going to precede it. Think about it: The ambitious extension from 'Park' to 'World'. 

Obviously, the franchise was to revamp itself on a global scale to something of a world-class panorama, yet still retain the essence of the 'Jurassic', both within and outside the reality of the film. An innovation built on the legacy of its heritage. The best of the classics augmented into a 2015 adaptation. 

It's so much more relatable to the younger audience with the latest tech and gizmos, and of course, Jimmy Fallon's usual shenanigans. This talk show host guest appearance thing is really catching on, isn't it? With Jay Leno also landing a spot on Ted 2. Legit marketing ploys aside, it was a pleasant surprise and made JW even more awesome.

This expansion to the 'World' is also symbolically reflected in the nature of the Indominus Rex, the main antagonist of JW. It's artificially made from the base genome of the T-Rex and engineered into the strongest, fastest and most ferocious carnivore of dino history, according to the whacko scientist who oversaw it.

Dat jaws though.

With velociraptor genes, camouflaging abilities, thermal sensory perception, etc, it's basically a giant bio-weaponised chimera. 

The T-Rex base genome represents the base 'Jurassic' component that every fan wants, and the inventive mutation of it for commercial purposes shows a need for the 'Jurassic' to be upsized. Such was probably the producers' train of focus and they have illustrated this film as the epitome of their direction.

Or is it just me?

Give the audience what they want, but spruce it up a notch. A bigass notch. Stick to the classics, but give it a twist -- a value for our money. And damn, was it worth it.

Other things I fanboy over: Loving that the velociprators' notorious pack-hunting/ambushing classic is really pronounced here, a sinfully delicious trope in all Jurassic Park films, to the extent of giving them a pet-like sentient loyalty to human bonds, transcending instincts and self-preservation and turning them against their own in JW.

Owen (Chris Pratt) taming his wild pack of velociraptors.

Doctor John Hammond, the first face of Jurassic authority since the first Jurassic Park movie, aka "that bearded old dinosaur guy", was even referenced a few times, if you remember him.

Even better, T-Rex made a cameo -- a rather heroic entrance -- to challenge the Indominus Rex. As the old king fended off the I-Rex alongside a squad of velociraptors, it was like watching the dino equivalent of the Suicide Squad.

Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) as she risks luring the T-Rex out from its paddock.

The long-awaited showdown, dayuuuum.

The battle royal climaxes into a decisive leap from the water by a mosasaurus as it unexpectedly chomps onto the I-Rex.

And hubba hubba, Claire, as the red-headed, freckle-chested uptown-lady-turned-rugged heroine, is just positively glistening throughout the film. So how did she go from this?

To this?

Well, here's how: cue 'roll up sleeves'

The defining moment when Claire undergoes a major transformation when it was implied she wouldn't be able to handle herself.

 

Confident, witty, smart, determined and quite well-endowed, she has all the makings to suit Owen. 

I have to admit, he really pulled it off as the velociraptor tamer-cum-friend. How many people can say they raced velociraptors on a motorbike to track a genetically enhanced T-Rex?
 
Oops, sorry, I meant this.

I'm also relieved there wasn't much teenage drama between Zach Mitchell (Nick Robinson) and his clingy love interest(s). Please, no. I came to see dinosaurs tearing people's guts apart and wrestling the crap out of one another, not Twilight.

Overall, one of the BEST movies I've ever seen. And I'm rather picky. 4/5 because I'd wanted to see more of the I-Rex's abilities in action against the military or the T-Rex. And also the Mitchell brothers experiencing the full texture of Jurassic World close up and personal. It would have been nice to see them interacting with the creatures, feeling them and knowing them, getting their hands dirty in more intense escapades. Kind of like the siblings in Jurassic Park and Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.