Let's begin with a reality check: when the first Jurassic World trailer appeared online last November, I was apprehensive. Excited yes, but the rather cheap look to certain proceedings didn't fill me with hope for what had already become a franchise with 'generic' written all over it. I may have a minor soft spot for the B-movie charms of Jurassic Park III, but only a lunatic would hold it in high regard.
Much like JJ Abrams' toe-dip into the Star Wars universe brings with it a weight of expectation to right the wrongs of George Lucas's lukewarm prequel trilogy, the unveiling of a new Jurassic film was, if nothing else, a chance for the virtually unknown Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) to offer up the sequel that Speilberg's masterpiece (and it is a masterpiece) has long deserved.
But sequels can be tricky at the best of times. By his own admission, Speilberg's The Lost World is inferior in almost every way. That's not to say there's no fun to be had with what's on offer - the clifftop truck-dangle is a masterclass in Hitchcockian suspense, with its single pane of slowly cracking glass - but taken as a whole, it's a messy beast. The elegant simplicity of 1993's Jurassic Park was a tough act to follow: a touchstone of 90s action cinema with effects that truly were revolutionary (the dinosaurs were originally planned to be stop-motion, until at the 11th hour advances in CGI changed filmmaking forever). The Lost World wraps interesting ideas in a somewhat darker-hued husk, with largely by-the-numbers action replacing the original's jaw-dropping set pieces; a noble misfire from Spielberg's usually on-target canon.
By the time the third picture came around, the excitement may well have been still there - but replacing Spielberg at the helm was Joe Johnston. With only the Pteranodon adding a sense of 'new dino' excitement to proceedings (the rather pitiful Spinosaurus proving you just can't beat a good old T-Rex) it again had moments of fun but largely felt like a cash-in vehicle, both for its stars (William H. Macy readily admits he did it for the money) and for the brand as a whole. In the same way that The Godfather Part III sullied a critically spectacular legacy (though I've never liked any of them - go on, sue me), Johnston's third entry placed a headstone on top of the grave the second film had started to dig for the franchise.
Risky shoes to fill? Definitely. But Trevorrow may well have pulled off some astoundingly deft cinematic sleight-of-hand; 14 years after the trilogy's ungainly demise, he's both reinvigorated all things Jurassic whilst - in many ways - remaking the first film. I know, I know - bear with me. To rebuild something that has become beloved for a generation in the same way that Star Wars and Raiders were for their respective audiences could be tantamount to sacrilege. But it's testament to Trevorrow's decision to focus on story and character - no matter how thinly-scripted - with the dinosaur action filling in the gaps, that Jurassic World stands on its own two feet while doffing a Hammond-shaped panama hat to the 22yr-old original.
The teaser and subsequent trailers have actually been red herrings, to this reviewers' eyes at least. Some poorly-rendered CGI and dino-attack money shots are entirely different in the finished film (as Trevorrow had promised), giving rise to the passing thought "did they deliberately make the trailers a bit shonky to lower expectations?". No matter, because Jurassic World delivers solid action, comedy asides, stock characters with neat twists and a whole new raft of dinosaur chaos that works on both a nostalgic level (for those of a certain age) and for an entirely new audience. Put it this way, you don't have to get a kick from seeing the remnants of the 'When Dionsaurs Ruled the Earth' banner to enjoy this film. But your heart may sink a little when one of the characters sets it alight to use as a makeshift torch. He'd have made a fortune with it on eBay, the fool.
To take us back to Isla Nublar, we follow brothers Zach and Gray Mitchell (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins, elder and younger respectively) as they visit the now functioning theme park to see their aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), operations manager at the park, who has a nice line in immaculate white clothing you KNOW is going to be John McClane'd come the film's conclusion. Claire Dearing is no John Hammond, but two nephews visiting a park to see a rich relation dressed in white? Definitely familiar. As is Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, a kind of younger, spunkier Robert Muldoon, who has upgraded his skillset from velociraptor handling to velociraptor training (not so daft when you consider the wealth of trained ferocious animals that populate zoos and circuses the world over). Hand-picked by the park's owner to inspect a new enclosure built to contain a genetically-modified hybrid dinosaur known as Indominous Rex (basically a big bastard with too many teeth), it's not long before the beast shows off some hitherto unknown capabilities they seemingly didn't notice when it was growing up; it escapes, and shit hits fans at gale force.
Cue a few familiar tropes: InGen are still around (this time headed up by a distasteful Vincent D'Onofrio), a company ever-ready to fuck things up at the point you think things can't get any more fuck-up-able; the two kids survive scenarios that would have resulted in death for 99% of other peeps their age; a fraught romance between the two leads simmers without boiling over.
The action is big and bombastic without being absurd, carefully running the 'darker, scarier' route of a family film that The Lost World struggled with (a stunningly-staged death-by-Pterodactyl/Mosasaurus attack is a welcome blast of real terror). The stirring John Williams themes are also present and correct, but not free to run rampant. It's a film that respects its origins and is reverent to them, without being slavish or overbearing (you'll find no Alan Grant or Ian Malcolm here, except maybe on the back of a book if your eyes are quick enough).
Making this fourth film seem fresh was seemingly the impossible task that saw it languish in development hell for over ten years. Hence Trevorrow's decision to basically rewrite the first film as an open operational park, as opposed to one with a giant 'opening soon' banner strapped across its gates. Whether that translates into 'fresh' or not is up for debate, but it undeniably injects a sense of spirit and wonder into a franchise that had become a shadow of its former roaring self.
It's far from a film that reinvents the wheel - though in some ways you could say that's exactly what it is doing, reinterpreting a classic for a whole new audience without alienating those who made it a success in the first place. In a world of safe bets - often Marvel-shaped these days, Ant-Man and Fantastic Four looking about as safe and factory-churned as cinema can get - it's nice to see a blockbuster handled with due care and attention; doing nothing out of the ordinary, but neatly sidestepping the one-size-fits-all approach that Marvel appear to have constructed for themselves in their endless quest for multiplex domination.
Final thought: I never thought a Jurassic Park film would make me want to cuddle a raptor come the final scenes. For that feat alone, Jurassic World is worth the price of admission.
