The apple falls very far from the soaring jungle trees in this summer’s “Jurassic World,” proof enough that a good pedigree will only get you so far.
As a betting man, I would have put money on star Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “The LEGO Movie”) not risking his status as Everyman royalty in Hollywood on a failed blockbuster, especially with two successful franchise tent poles planted firmly in his overconfident, screwball appeal.
But that’s just what we see in director Colin Trevorrow’s revival of the series: A film where the powers that be beg for “big,” “louder” and “scarier” and the film delivers just that without a hint of irony.
Gone from the 1993 original is John Williams’ triumphant score and the gobsmacked looks of discovery on Sam Neill and Laura Dern’s faces. In their place is a two-hour exercise in PG-13-rated disaster and death porn.
The excessive dinosaur battles are the stuff of your average monster movie slapped with a few broad strokes of the franchise’s ongoing theme of why we shouldn’t tamper with the primal forces of nature.
The intense focus on daring escapes, flashy CGI and shoot-’em-up action seems to be a product of this film simply lacking for character, much less character development. Pratt’s Owen Grady — an ex-Navy man brought to the now-revitalized theme park to train the raptors — is a mishmash of the brash, Harrison Ford-style men of action he’s made quite a living playing as of late. His main romantic interest is Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire, a dino-park maestra defined as much by her looks — Uma Thurman bob haircut and yacht-club brunch outfit — as she is by the trite comedy of her prissy, Type A personality being savaged by the muddying of her high heels and the shock of being thrust into the chaos of yet another mishap on the island.
But as pained as it is to sit through their burgeoning affections and macho-man/rich-girl banter, it’s not quite as scowl-inducing as when the duo is relegated to sitting by dismissively as Vincent D’Onofrio’s comically caricatured ex-defense man spews monologues about “war being a part of nature” as he attempts to conscript some of the park’s most-lethal attractions into use with special forces (“Imagine if we had these things at Tora Bora?”).
Despite these leads being sparse on likability and depth, there are still some bits of lineage we can trace back to “Jurassic Park.” B.D. Wong reprises his role as the R&D lab chief Dr. Henry Wu, this time sporting an unmistakably Steve Jobs-esque black turtleneck. There’s also kids in peril, this time a pair of brothers who are supposed to be under the watch of their aunt Claire: dino-obsessed middle-schooler Gray (Ty Simpkins) and girl-crazy teen older brother Zach (Nick Robinson), who don’t get along until they’re forced to because of the park falling apart and imminent threats of being consumed by one of the many species of carnivores on the loose.
But “World” can’t be bothered to pay too much attention to any of these characters. Even when Owen and Claire are out on a desperate mission to rescue the boys, they spend minutes mourning at a field of felled brachiosauruses taken out by the new big baddie dino, dubbed “Indominus Rex.” Don’t worry, the kids will be fine (they always are) while ample time is devoted to staring at CGI creations of mangled animals.
And the shock-and-awe isn’t simply limited to the animal brutality. “World” goes off the deep end in how it decides who gets pecked and picked apart by rampaging reptiles. This time out, park visitors get bloodied and worse, simply for buying the ticket and taking the ride. That’s a line that most films wouldn’t cross, treating random, everyday folks as relative innocents to be shielded from the horror and used simply to run away in terror.
Where once we had characters grimacing and darkly commenting on stepping across the entrails of a former colleague in “Park,” we’re now treated to a video game-style dispatching of a “Call of Duty” style paramilitary folk at the claws and teeth of the Indominus — no catharsis, simply flat-lining heart rates on a giant control room monitor.
Say what we will about Spielberg’s penchant for treacly endings, at least “Park” was something of a life-affirming film that explored real emotions and questions of ethics. Trevorrow has made a bad Michael Bay movie jam-packed with references and structure from the original “Jurassic” films that go well past loving homage and straight to fill-in-the-blank, Mad Libs-style filmmaking.
If you’re not bothered by these myriad cardinal cinematic sins, you’ll at least enjoy the special effects if you’re not too distracted by the endless product placements. But that would require you, dear viewer, to be as forgiving as the story is to its sure-to-survive main characters.
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“Jurassic World” is rated PG-13. Two hours and 10 minutes.