Genetically engineered bore?
If there’s an overriding message in this latest visit to the land of cloned dinosaurs, it would be: “If we remind you how much we loved Jurassic Park, maybe you won’t care about what’s actually here.” Worship of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 original is thick in the air, as director Colin Trevorrow’s follow-up posits an actual functioning dino-amusement park on Isla Nublar, where administrator Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), raptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) and 20,000 park guests face the consequences of genetically engineering an even more badass variant on the Tyrannosaurus rex. The action is perfectly serviceable and lively enough when it’s just time for prehistoric creatures to chow down on humans or on one another, and there’s a cynically accurate view of the theme park industry. But that same cynicism pervades the script, which provides constant reminders as to the bottom-line, bad-decision-based reason a thing like this exists at all. Loaded with half-explored subplots and gender politics that were retro when the original movie came out, Jurassic World simply shrugs its massive shoulders at trying to be anything but a nostalgia-pandering, occasionally fun product that will be appearing on T-shirts at Universal Studios this summer.
