Jurassic World both met my lowest expectations and surpassed my highest expectations of what this movie would be: loud, thrilling, and emotionally vacuous. Overall, it speaks to the massive changes in popular taste since the first movie was released over two decades ago. 1

The overwhelming nostalgia for the first film was so constant, so blatant that even the most casual viewer could detect something was schmaltzy and amiss. Indeed, the numerous references to Jurassic Park also underscored the ways in which this movie is the product of the new millennium in which Hollywood has gone all-in on the mantra of the Age of Transformers and Iron Man: MOAR DESTRUCTION, MOAR LOUD, MOAR WOW.

The pacing in Jurassic World is essentially binary: slow for the first 20 minutes, then afterburner for the rest of the movie. There’s no respite; from the moment Pratt and Howard enter the Indominus rex paddock, the rest of the movie is a continuous edge-of-your-seat, run-for-your-life action sequence, with no time for reflection or contemplation. Gone are the scenes of moral wrangling or dinosaur-human communion that gave the first movie its depth of character; this movie is literally one uninterrupted escape from the I. Rex.

In this regard, Jurassic World lived up to my fears of what this movie would be after I watched the trailer. There’s no introspection, no rich billionaire or business mogul slowly coming to grasp with the fundamental uncontrollability and moral hazard in trying to wrestle science and technology to fit his whims. By the end of the first movie, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough, RIP), had experienced his “What hath God wrought?” moment. By the end of this one, both the rich billionaire (Irrfan Khan) and the bad guy (Vincent D’Onofrio) were effortlessly dead, with neither any the wiser.

The rest of my thoughts, starting with the positives:

• Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, velociraptor trainer. Man, does Chris Pratt look the part of “American male movie star”. He was a joy to watch, and he absolutely gets my seal of approval for Indiana Jones. He looks more Indy than Harrison Ford ever did (although, seeing either of them as university professors is a bit far-fetched). Plus, I love the idea of zookeepers “Chris Pratt-ing” in real life.
• Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, park manager. If I were to compile a list of unbelievable or unlikely things that happen in this movie, the first item would undoubtedly be Howard running around a volcanic island in high heels while being chased by dinosaurs. Yeah, right. But wow, is she attractive in this movie. There is something extremely attractive about a shock of bright red hair. She is like a doppelganger of Gemma Arterton as the drowned-in-oil MI6 officer Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace, or a twin of Jessica Chastain.

I think the claims of sexism that surround this movie are half-right 2. On the one hand, the complaints about Howard as a cold, unemotional bitch and Pratt as the charming everyman are a little disingenuous. I can easily imagine the criticism to be equally vociferous if the personalities were reversed, which is exactly what occurred in the first movie: Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) is the stiff, and Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern) as the compassionate, emotional (i.e. motherly) life-force. And besides, the events of the second half of Jurassic World ARE driven by Howard’s character’s compassion and protective instincts for her nephews, while Pratt turns more clinical as the situation gets more dire.

On the other hand, I do buy the argument that Howard’s character was a useless damsel-in-distress. Making her the park manager/Head Bitch-in-Charge wasn’t empowering whatsoever. It’s like the producers said, “Let’s make sure she’s a strong, important woman” in order to pay lip-service to female empowerment. Any superficial gains in this respect were obliterated when she became utterly useless from the moment things start to go even the slightest bit awry. She is ostensibly smart enough to achieve the most powerful role on the island, but then she stands in the control room completely speechless and feeble, unable to make any decisions or do anything other than watch the screens. At least in the first movie, Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) has the programming saavy to save the crew from a velociraptor by bringing the park’s security system back on-line 3. In other words, a teenage girl in 1993 is more capable, decisive, and quick-thinking than the park’s supposedly-capable CEO in 2015.

• The movie’s score and sound effects. It’s rare in the modern age to have a soundtrack so obviously great that you notice it while you’re in the theater, before you can go home and re-listen to the tracks on YouTube. But this movie did it. I didn’t even hate the unsubtle sprinkling of John William’s original theme music whenever a scene pined back to the first movie. Of course, you have one of the most iconic and frisson-inducing sounds in cinematic history as a bookend: the T. Rex’s roar. You can’t go wrong with such a raw and primeval sound.
• Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani, the billionaire owner of Jurassic World. Khan was charismatic and thoughtful, and it was a shame to see him killed off so easily and thoughtlessly.
• B.D. Wong as the returning chief geneticist, Dr. Henry Wu, and Brian Tee as Hamada, the leader of the soldiers of the Asset Containment Unit. In one scene in which Wong’s walking down the stairs smiling as he explains genetics, he looks just like my dad. I really enjoyed his cold and clinical character, but I thought his rushed departure at the end was a bit underwhelming. Hopefully he gets more screen time and an expanded presence in the next movie.

With B.D. Wong in Jurassic World, Claudia Kim as yet-another geneticist Helen Cho in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Will Yun Lee as Dr. Kim Park in San Andreas, I really do feel like we’re slowly on the roll towards an Asian breakout in movies. It’s still a problem that all three are brainy scientists, but it definitely struck me while I was watching the scene in which Khan and Wong are discussing the latest genetic experiments in the middle of Jurassic World that I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see an Indian man and an Asian man having an extended dialogue with no white characters present. We’re getting closer to normalizing Asians on the big screen in which they’re not the novelty (Indiana Jones), the enemy (James Bond), or the hero (Jackie Chan movies), but acceptable enough to be ANY character, significant or minor, good or evil.

• The special effects and the visuals. What did you expect? The island is as lush and gorgeous as ever, and the artificial units like the theme park and the dinosaurs were spectacularly rendered. It captured the wonder of the first movie, which pulled off the miraculous feat of making something as improbable and awesome as a T. Rex seem natural, ordinary, and lifelike.
• The climax of the movie, although it could have been even better with some more dramatic music and better delivery by Pratt. “The raptors have a new alpha!”
• Mosasaurus, velociraptors, pterosaurs, and the Indomitus rex were HYPE. By the way, how does the Mosasaurus sense things above the water, like at the end of the movie when it vanquishes the I. Rex? And what will happen to it now that the island is abandoned?

Now the negatives:

• The romance between Howard and Pratt was absolutely unnecessary, an obvious concession to the perceived demands of the public. The only context we have for the relationship is the throwaway comedic jabs when Howard meets Pratt at his bungalow. The romantic tension is built so sloppily that I think everyone was surprised when they first kiss, because Pratt looked absolutely disinterested before that point. It reminds you of how deftly and smartly the first movie dealt with it: ignoring it because they’re freaking running away from raptors, my God! I don’t think anyone felt disappointed because Dr. Grant and Dr. Sattler didn’t get it on by the end of the first movie.
• The stupid plotline of Vincent D’Onofrio character’s private military contractors’ thing. It’s like the producers decided, “We need to update this for the ‘drone’ era. I know, let’s throw in a militarization plotline!” It becomes even stupider because Hoskins doesn’t do much and isn’t very threatening. He just loiters in the control room, standing there speechless with everyone else. I mean, if you’re going to make a human villain, at least make him do more villainy things or be more aggressive. He doesn’t react at all when Pratt punches him in the face.

It’s as if the producers didn’t learn the lesson of the failed second and third Jurassic movies, which was, you don’t need a traditional human villain at all. Aren’t huge Cretaceous dinosaurs terrible enough? How can any human top 25 tons of carnivorous man-eating machines? You can’t, so don’t even try.

• The terrible chemistry and character development of the two brothers. I didn’t buy the older brother’s supposed indifference, and I didn’t buy his sudden caring later in the film, either. The younger brother is an obvious rip-off of the boy in the first movie, but less charismatically dorky.
• Vivian (Lauren Lupkus), the female control room operator. Actually, both of the operators were pretty boring and useless, but at least Jake Johnson’s character had a BIT of character (nowhere near Samuel L. Jackson or Wayne Knight in the first movie, though). Vivian literally does nothing in this movie except parrot commands.
• Judy Greer’s line in the beginning of the movie to her sons, “If something’s chasing you, run.” This is so obviously a line purely for inclusion in the trailer that it hurts.

Final thoughts:

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite films ever. The scene in which the visitors first encounter the brontosauruses on the island is one of the top-three movie scenes and movie moments ever 4. It’s almost impossible to describe the wonder of that scene; combined with John William’s music, I nearly tear up and collapse to the floor like Dr. Grant watching replays even twenty years later. It is the epitome of Hollywood filmmaking: grand, visually stunning, spiritually moving. I don’t know if this is an apocryphal story or not, but I think my dad said this was one of the very first films he saw in America. I can’t imagine what it would be like to come from communist China and see the utter magnificence of this scene after a lifetime of blandness. The most adequate way to describe it would be a secular revelation.

Jurassic World can only hearken back to the wonder of the first movie. It substitutes thrill in droves, and it’s mostly successful. Overall, it gets a 7/10 in my book. Go watch it and let me know what you think.