Summary: This movie takes place twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park (1993) and Isla Nublar features a fully operational dinosaur theme park called Jurassic World. This is a physical embodiment of John Hammond’s original vision. After a decade of operation and visitor rates decreasing, in order to fulfill a corporate demands, a new attraction is created to spark the public’s interest. As you can imagine, this results in many people becoming a dinosaur’s lunch.

I am going to begin with the overall feel of the movie. I felt that this movie was underrated in the sense that the 12 rating was too low. I believe it should have been a fifteen. The movie finds it feet from the get go and I was engaged from the very first second. I will skip to the scene at the airport in the very beginning. “If something chases you, run”. Let’s be serious. It’s a summer blockbuster. This is a Jurassic Park franchise movie. People are going to be chased and people are going to be eaten. This is common in a dinosaur movie. That predictability of any horror movie. Lines like “stay in the car” often follow with someone being killed or eaten in this case and normally a fat guy as well. Surprisingly, the black guy didn’t die this time. I am going to steer off topic a little and state that I feel really bad for Gray (Ty Simpkins) for having to shoot the whole movie with a Samwise Gamgee haircut. He looked like he belonged on the set of Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings.

This is the third movie I have watched this year that has tackled the topic of humanity and how we always have to be in control thus killing things that we don’t understand (being one example of humanity’s flaws). The first being Mad Max: Fury Road, then Avengers: Age Of Ultron and now Jurassic World. Next will be Terminator and surprisingly humanity’s war against the machines. Ant-Man & Fantastic Four will probably tackle some form of humanity’s flaws. Superhero films have developed a reputation for having political undertones which normally critique humanity on a psychological and ideological level.

The making of this genetically modified killing machine was down to the work of Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her team of scientists. The Indominus Rex being part T-Rex and part…well that’s classified. The leader of this team being Dr Wu (BD Wong). We watch movies like these and think that it’s only fiction. This could never really happen. Another similar franchise being the Planet Of The Apes series. I look at these films and then I see how fast science and technology is progressing. Then I think, this could actually happen. Humanity’s arrogance of maintaining the number one spot in the food chain is what will ultimately be our downfall. Our way of thinking being that we are so safe with our money, machines, infrastructure, order and countless numbers of systems. Watching this movie showed me how small we are. We are the neanderthal. We are no longer top of the foodchain and that’s frightening.

“Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We’re just used to being the cat.”

This film also showed how much we value money as a society. It’s ridiculous that we value it more than our fellow-man. The characters in this movie set phasers to stun. Sorry that should be firearms. They were shooting nonlethals at a dinosaur that was rolling over everything and anything in its path, purely because they pumped $26m into it. They prioritized material gain over the preservation of human life. “We have twenty-six million dollars invested in that asset. We don’t just kill it.” This is the unethical argument. Businessmen having something to lose. They’re feeling the pinch where it hurts them most, their pocket.

Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) seems to be playing this guardian. He fights for the people. He choses to follow his heart and his humanity. He does what is morally right. He wants to save as many lives as possible. The business people with the money don’t try to do what is right until it is too late. He has been employed by InGen to analyse the intelligence of the velociraptors and to see if a bond can be created between them and man. From his point of view, this is not about control but trying to establish a sense of mutual understanding between man and raptor. He respects them as living things, and acknowledges that they can be unpredictable. Owen is pretty much a certified badass. He was able to train the raptors to a certain a degree. They will always be animals but at the end of the movie they protect him like a child would protect its parent when in trouble. I won’t tell you how badass he is, I will let you determine in that for yourself when you see it.

“I don’t control the raptors, it’s a relationship based on mutual respect.”

Owen Grady

I will now move onto Claire. She is a workaholic and quite cold at the start of the film up until she goes with Owen out into the wild. She is what Spock would be like if he were female. Everything must be done to protocol out of fear of violating the prime directive. Claire’s feelings towards the dinosaurs  change as the movie progresses. She sees them as individuals rather than numbers on a spreadsheet or “assets”. Owen is persistent in trying convince Claire and her ilk that the Indominous Rex is killing a machine. It was made in captivity with nobody to socialize with. That is a recipe for disaster. He’s hooked on a feeling and he’s trying to get the others to believe him. It takes a team of men to be killed to make Claire see that this is very real and not just any dinosaur.

“These animals are thinking: “I gotta eat.” “I gotta hunt.” “I gotta…”. You gotta be able to relate to at least one of those things.”

Owen Grady

The cinematography of this movie is excellent and the score is flawless. Many thanks to Michael Giacchino (Star Trek). Very fast editing during high-octane action sequences which added to the wow factor, especially in 3D. This movie was rated 12 but it is enough to give the parents nightmares. The kids where I went to see it were petrified. I saw parents having to escort their kids out of the cinema early. There are parts of this film that I thought were for the 15+ audience like when the team of men were picked apart like cotton candy in the forest. They were gone in seconds. Lots of screams. There were great all round performances from Pratt & Howard but Vincent D’Onofrio’s (Daredevil) performance was good as well. He played this pro-war and pro-guns kind of character. He plays a douche bag very well. A very patriotic war veteran but he’s just a dick about it. This adds to my previous point about humanity. Humanity always tries to weaponise things. Anything that can be turned into a weapon, will be weaponised like when they use the  raptors to find and try and kill the alpha, though that’s only a tame example.

The other half of the main cast have to be commended as well. Omar Sy (X-Men Days Of Future Past), Ty Simpkins (Iron Man 3) and Nick Robinson (Boardwalk Empire). How could I forget Katie McGrath’s (Merlin) exit in spectacular fashion? How good is this movie you may ask? Well, it depends what kind of movie they cooked up in that studio. I absoultely loved this movie and would recommend it to people who have seen the predecessors or just want to be thrilled. Also to people who love films where they just shoot stuff.

Verdict: Predator On Crack