Jurassic World

We went to see Jurassic World a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd write up a review. I'm fairly certain that the following contains no spoilers.I'll just clear the air, here. I LOVE Jurassic Park. It is one of my all-time favorite movies. I still remember the first time we saw it - at a drive-in... in the rain. It doesn't get much more realistic or terrifying than that. (For those of you who are confused, most of Jurassic Park takes place outside, at night, in the rain... and there are some frightening sequences with dinosaurs and cars...) Keeping in mind that I was 11 when the movie came out... yeah, it was terrifying. And awesome.Jurassic Park 2 was o..k. Again, the first time I saw it was at a drive-in, and again it was raining in real-life. I thought the movie itself got a little silly around the 3/4 mark. We did go see it again at an indoor theater and realized that we had missed rather a lot of the movie the first time.Jurassic Park 3... just got ridiculous. I could forgive them for Jurassic Park 2... but to ruin my favorite character and make Dr. Grant into a sort of sad, silly character... and WHY didn't he end up with Ellie?????So, it was with some trepidation and timid optimism that I approached Jurassic World. I mean, really, what could they possibly do that was worse than what had already been done? I had heard through the grapevine that this was not so much a sequel in a growing line of sequels, but a direct sequel to the original Jurassic Park, that sort of "sets aside" the events of JP 2 and 3. I had also heard that the director was a huge fan of the original (he's only a bit older than me, so he was in high school when the first one hit theaters) and that his goal was to recreate that sort of feeling and movie-going experience with this movie.In my opinion? He succeeded.I could just stop there. It's a good movie and if you liked Jurassic Park, I think you'll enjoy this one. If you never saw JP... you should... but if you like dinosaurs and movies like Jaws... you'll enjoy this movie. It's filled with action, adventure, nostalgia, and all the amazing dinosaur cinematography that the original Jurassic Park ushered into our expectations. There's a lot of violence, but it's not super gory. There were a few curse words, but no more than in the original. They did a good job keeping this movie family-friendly.This movie is a super fun romp and I really enjoyed it. The storyline was entertaining and to some extent believable (I mean, you've gotta suspend your disbelief somewhere... the story does start with dinosaurs cloned from teeny tiny bits of prehistoric DNA found in mosquitos trapped in amber, after all). When the original theme swelled to a crescendo, I started to get choked up, I'll admit it. I felt myself settling in for a fun ride through a familiar world and an all-new story. I jumped in terror at points. I laughed out loud. I tried to crawl into my husband's lap at several moments. The movie made my heart pound. It did everything I wanted it to.Except....Except for three major downfalls:1) I didn't connect with the characters. Chris Pratt's character (Owen) is the only person I felt any true concern for at all - and he was no Sam Neill (and I kept expecting him to introduce himself as Star Lord). Both of the kids in the movie (Gray and Zach) were little punks and I didn't care whether or not dinosaurs ate them. The "mom" figure (Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard) was a strange mix of uptight businesswoman who really doesn't care about her nephews or her sister at all, but who is forced to "feel feelings" by the breakneck saga of fear and destruction that she is subjected to as the world she has built for herself crumbles around her ears (it's stepped on by several large dinosaurs).In short, the characters just didn't pull at my heart the way the ones in the original did. They weren't horrible... they just weren't lovable, either. There was nothing sweet or wholesome about them. The lack of any kind of Jeff Goldblum character didn't help much, either (though they tried to split his personality into two minor roles... it just didn't work as well)I could go on about the characters, because for me, the lack of characters worth rooting for will ruin most stories, in any medium. But I don't want to kick a dead horse. The characters just didn't grab me, and I honestly felt that the acting ability was lacking - which detracted from the experience.2) It wasn't night, and it wasn't raining. Dinosaurs are scary... but they're scarier in the dark. And they're scariest in the dark when it's raining. Except for one random night-time sequence at the end (the movie time-jumps from broad daylight to pitch darkness with no explanation of events between, which I usually don't notice, but this was so blindingly obvious it was funny) this movie takes place mostly in bright daylight. This detracted from the "jump" scenes and made them not quite as effective. There was a lot less build-up to many of the jump scenes, and my heart never pounded in this movie the way it did (and still does) during the Velociraptor/Kitchen sequence in Jurassic Park.3) In my opinion, there were too many nods to Jurassic Park. I loved the nostalgia factor and the constant references to the Park that had failed 22 years earlier. But in the end it felt that the references crowded the movie and made it feel that Jurassic World simply didn't have anything of its own. It didn't have any of its own one-liners or quips or quotes. The only "quotable" moments I can think of are the ones where it was referencing the first movie. To me, it felt like they overplayed the nostalgia and prevented Jurassic World from being able to stand on its own. (And it takes a lot for me to say that, because I love nostalgia) In the end, it was a very good movie. It was entertaining. It was fun. But it just missed being a great movie.If Jurassic Park gets 5 dragon (er... dinosaur?) eggs, then I'd have to give this one four.