JURASSIC WORLD DVD (2015)

SYNOPSIS: 22 years ago, John Hammond envisioned a theme park where guests could experience the thrill of witnessing actual dinosaurs. Today Jurassic World welcomes tens of thousands of visitors but something sinister lurks behind the park's attractions: a genetically modified dinosaur with savage capabilities. When chaos erupts across the island, Owen and Claire race to restore order as a day in the park becomes a struggle for survival. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

What can we say about a movie that has earned over US$1.6 billion at the box office?

Dinosaurs-starved moviegoers and loyal Jurassic Park fans flocked to the theaters this summer to catch the fourth instalment in which dinosaurs ran amok in a Disneyland/Universal Studios liked theme park called Jurassic World. 

Despite four credited writers and countless others who have contributed in one-way or other, the story is nothing groundbreaking in the end. In fact, Jurassic World seems to recycle heavily from the earlier three instalments instead of establishing a brand new adventure spectacle to awe the audiences.      

A genetic modified dinosaur dubbed the Indominus Rex has escaped from its paddock. A raptor trainer, Owen (Chris Pratt) and the park’s operations manager, Claire not only has to find ways to contain the asset but also has to search for Claire’s missing nephews. This is basically the gist of the entire movie because all director Colin Trevorrow managed to do was linking up the various set pieces into an exciting, fast-paced flick about rampaging dinosaurs battling dumb humans. The simplicity of Jurassic World is glaring and even to the point of ridiculous. Raptors can be trained? Does it even make sense to let loose one dangerous species for them to track another?

Never mind it doesn’t sound logical, as you can always trust executive producer Steven Spielberg to be around to ensure it has enough dinosaur mayhem to go around. Trevorrow obviously has big shoes to fill and by that, Jurassic World sorely lacks a distinct memorable scene unlike the T-Rex attack scene in the original or the RV going over the hill scene in Lost World. Lacking Spielberg’s craftsmanship, Trevorrow apparently wasted his chance to showcase something unique for the pterosaurs attack scene for example.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are charismatic together. The kids on the other hand are annoying. Vincent D’Onofrio, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong and Irrfan Khan are mostly relegated to the background except for a few miserable scenes. Only Jake Johnson’s role as a control room operator contributes a fair amount of wisecracking.  

The story is set 22 years later and it took 14 years to develop this sequel. So much time is spent on this money-raking franchise for the record. Yes it still qualifies as a summer blockbuster if one of your requirements for a Jurassic Park instalment has CG dinosaurs chomping one another in the climax but because this is no ordinary franchise, we expect something more inspiring. At the very least, Trevorrow proves he is no Josh Trank. He is bound for a journey far far away.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

7 brief Deleted Scenes worth about 6 minutes are included here. Don’t miss a funny scene which has Owen and Claire covering themselves with dino poop.

Chris & Colin Take On the World is an 8 minutes interview segment between Chris and Colin. Nothing indepth pure fluffy stuff. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Spare no expense. The dinosaurs’ roar and stomp vigorously across the channels. The sound design as per any Jurassic Park sequel is thunderous and dynamic. Colours and details are brilliant though the opening CG shot of the park remains debatable on a large TV set. This is obviously due to the high standards of visual effects audiences are expecting nowadays. For a CG heavy flick liked Jurassic Word, this issue is unavoidable. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee