Jurassic World - Roar but no awe

SPOILERS OF COURSE FOLLOW

Jurassic World is the fourth instalment in the series which began way back in 1993. As much reboot as direct sequel, it once again tells the story of a dinosaur-filled theme park gone awry. This time however the park is open, operational and filled with 20,000 prey guests. Man of the moment Chris Pratt stars alongside Bryce Dallas Howard.

Jurassic World is breezy and entertaining. It drips in nostalgia. Yet for all its aping of the first film, for all its sly references and call-backs, there is a fundamental void at the heart of it. There is no place for what was a key ingredient in the original – wonder.

It was not the idea of a tourist-thronged theme park that excited us in Jurassic Park [1]. It was the dinosaurs. The film treated them respectfully and the audience responded. Yet Jurassic World seems more interested in its monorail than its ancient inhabitants. Tellingly, the classic John Williams theme is deployed most notably not to revel in the majesty of extinct creatures reborn, but to show off a frankly tacky theme park. It kicks in when the boy is travelling up an escalator.

Because dinosaurs are boring now, we are repeatedly told. Yes, this is a winking reference to audiences apparently demanding bigger and bigger sequels. But how are we meant to feel about the creatures when the film treats them with such disregard? When the newly created Indominus Rex is slaughtering herbivores, the film reaches for emotional impact. A character even cries. But the film has spent the previous hour telling us how boring dinosaurs are, never letting us feel their raw power and majesty. So it is difficult to empathise with the characters’ grief.

Raptor Whisperer

This is not the only time an emotional beat falls flat. Time and time again the film forces moments it has not earned. One occasion sees the two boys leap into a waterfall to avoid the jaws of the Indominus Rex chasing them. Afterwards the elder brother exclaims in amazement that the little boy managed to jump. The pair laugh, seemingly bonding over this moment. Yet at no point has the film suggested the boy especially timid or scared of heights; it is a staging point on a journey we did not know we were on.

Nearer to the finale, we then have a kiss between the two leads. It wants to be an exclamation mark, the inevitable explosion of feelings developed organically over the course of the story.  But the film fails to do that groundwork. Their kiss instead is more of a semi-colon; awkward looking and little understood. Because the film has not earned the moment. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) essentially remains the same one note, not-so-borderline sexist depiction of a woman she always was [2]. And Owen (Chris Pratt) remains hunky Raptor A-Team man throughout. Sure, they are two good-looking people experiencing danger together but that is not enough for a believable romance to blossom.

Not pictured - believable romance

These are pay-offs without set-ups. Shorn of meaning in this way they only serve to lever open divides between characters and audience – if we cannot understand their actions we cannot empathise. And without empathy, the story is reduced to mere spectacle.

Not that the spectacle is entirely effective either.

Oh there are explosions and some good shocks. But each major sequence in this film only makes you realise what a master Spielberg is and just how much he brought to the material in the first two films. Even the imperfect The Lost World has wonder, action and suspense far excelling anything found in this film [3]. Think of the attack on the trailers by the two Tyrannosaurs. Or the raptors in the long grass. Each sequence masterfully built and delivered. Jurassic World however features no such memorable moments.

Its sequences are undermined by inconsistencies in pacing and tone. On numerous occasions frightening beats are punctuated by a return to the control room, where the guy from New Girl is cracking funnies or awkwardly hitting on his co-worker. The control room in Jurassic Park was a tense workplace where people made life and death decisions. Too often in Jurassic World it is a forum for jokes. It is not that the gags aren’t funny – the audience in my cinema laughed – but for me it is the timing of their deployment that is problematic. In suspense films, lighter moments act as pressure valves and can be enormously effective. But hit that valve too often and the pressure never builds in the first place. That is the case in Jurassic World.

Much like its main attraction the Indominus Rex then, Jurassic World is bigger and flashier than its forebears. But there is something unconvincing about it. And I’m not just talking about CGI [4]. This is a film with bite but no soul.

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[1] Jurassic Park was never going to be a theme park in the Disney-mode anyway – it was a highly exclusive luxury resort with dinosaurs. A great part of the film's appeal for me was that it was secret, hidden away so much that you could almost convince yourself could be happening, or have happened already.

[2] Much more has been written about this elsewhere. But it is troubling nevertheless and a strange misstep for a modern film.

[3] That being said, I still think Spielberg damaged the series forever with his San Diego ending to the second film. It required subsequent films to exist in a world with widespread public knowledge of the existence of dinosaurs. The sense of mystery, of disbelief-suspending secrecy, was lost.

[4] Isn’t it amazing how well the CGI from Jurassic Park stands up today? Some scenes look dodgy but the combination of practical and computer effect sold the existence of dinosaurs and the park so much more convincingly than Jurassic World.