Snap Judgment: "Jurassic World"

Bonsoir!

Husband and I are wrapping up the second half of an excellent European tour.  During a long-ish layover before catching our international flight, we decided to ditch the airport and pop into the nearby city to watch a movie and kill some time.  I thought this was a very exciting plan, because we decided to see "Jurassic World" (2015).

Snap judgment number four: commence!!

Snap judgment: my alternate title for this post was "Jurassic World": Like "Jurassic Park" on Opposite Day.

First off: remember how I re-watched "Jurassic Park" (1993) a few years ago and got all excited all over again because a) not only does the movie hold up really well but also b) the movie is just fucking awesome in the formal, inspiring-awe sense of the term?  Yeah I had neither of those reactions watching "Jurassic World."

Without further ado, my five bullet points:

• A brief list of things that apparently cannot save this movie:

--Chris Pratt
--Chris Pratt training raptors
--Chris Pratt riding a motorcycle through the jungle while hunting with raptors
--Raptors

You would think any combination of the items on that list could save a movie, but not "Jurassic World."  Because:

• This movie has literally the worst script in the world.

There was not one line that sounded authentic in the entire goddamn movie.  By the latter third or so of the film, Husband and I were both rolling our eyes or gesticulating in exasperation every time someone opened their mouths.  It honestly felt as if every single line was written to be a place holder until the writers came up with words worth saying on film, and then they either shat themselves or just forgot to actually write memorable stuff.  Either way, the attitude seems to be some approximate of "whateva, the CGI will distract you from the terrible sentences!"

This is especially disappointing/enraging/astonishing because, as you'll note in earlier my "Jurassic Park" post, one of the best things about the original movie was its eminent quotableness and delightful sense of humor.  There was so many great one-liners in that movie!  One-liners for every occasion!  One-liners for when you're afraid, one-liners for when you're being pursued by something that wants to eat you, one-liners for when someone outsmarts you, one-liners for when there's lots of poop.

Not ONE one-liner in "Jurassic World".  GOD IT WAS SO BAD.

To make matters worse:

• Prehistoric levels of sexism.

So remember how I picked basically the tiniest feminist bone with "Jurassic Park"?  Apparently I picked up on the tiny remnant of all the sexism that was stored up and saved for "Jurassic World".

First of all, there are literally no worthwhile female characters in the movie (although to be fair there are only 2.5/3 female characters in the first place, and there are literally no worthwhile characters in the movie).

Anyway, the main female character is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who was costumed in the most fucking ridiculous outfit ever, including spike heels:

Grade for practicality of wardrobe: F-

Seriously: when the majority of your character development is conveyed through what someone is wearing, you fail.  You could have illustrated that this character is perfectionistic, frigid, and uptight (thanks for not relying on tropes btw) in some way OTHER than clothing her entirely in blinding white.  You could have conveyed the character's evolution OTHER than by gradually tattering and discoloring said blinding white clothing as she endures relatively minor trials and running (IN SPIKE HEELS, ALWAYS IN SPIKE HEELS) and revealing that she's wearing a tanktop underneath her expensive flowy blouse.  We get it.  She's undergone a transformation, purportedly, but I can only base this conclusion on sartorial cues.

I guess I should be grateful that the costumers tried to pick up the scriptwriters' slack.

Secondly, Howard's character is subjected to the most cringe-y, clunky sexual tension ever.  These characters are so two-dimensional a gentle breeze would knock them over, but there is just enough to them to tell me with absolute certainty that there is literally absolutely no way that her character and Pratt's character would ever actually be remotely interested in each other.

As a sidenote, I don't know how, or more importantly WHY, they made Chris Pratt so horrifically uncharismatic and unsexy, but they achieved this end with gusto.  I wish I could unsee his scenes with Howard and just return to the gentle, wholesome, sexy days of "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014).

Okay... that helps a little...

Thirdly, Howard's character just kind of sucks at everything.  She is tasked with keeping tabs on her two (thoroughly unredeemable) nephews, and she delegates it to her assistant.  She is also apparently tasked with running basically every aspect of the "Jurassic World" theme park, and you can guess how that goes.

She shoots a dinosaur this one time, but other than that she's basically the worst.

Finally, Howard's aforementioned, unexplicably extremely British, lady assistant has by far the most horrific death in the entire movie--much worse than even the villian's death, which occurs largely offscreen.  Pretty much immediately after the two nephews, who have spent most of their time at the theme park with the assistant, watch her die terribly, they turn to see Howard and Pratt kissing (cringeeeee), and immediately somewhat blithely express curiosity about whether Pratt is their aunt's boyfriend.

WOW.  This movie cares so little about its characters--and in this case, specifically its women characters--that it can have one die by being meta-eaten by dinosaurs (yes, that's getting eaten by a dinosaur that is being eaten by a dinosaur) and just bop right along to some thoroughly conjured pseudo-romance stuff.  Because a woman dying is of much less interest to the audience than whether another woman is in a relationship with a guy with whom she has literally no chemistry.

I just can't with this bullshit.

• Four words: deux ex machina fish.

Apparently the strategy in crafting this narrative was: when all else fails, bring in the DeM fish.

Also apparently Great White Sharks aren't endangered anymore or we have just given up on conservation because why else would you use them as bait in your dino-Sea World performances.

And finally:

• Cynicism.

That, above all else, is what "Jurassic World" seems to embody.  With its unforgivably poor script, fake-looking special effects, and utter failure to inspire an iota of the wonder and excitement of its forebear, this movie is so bad it appears to have contempt for its audience.

To back up, the movie's premise is that bored park-goers and dwindling theme park attendance have led Jurassic World bio-engineers to concoct ever more "scary" dinosaurs to draw people back in.  The resulting "more teeth" strategy produces the mega dinosaur that then unleashes mayhem upon those same park-goers.  Therefore, to "Jurassic World" visitors and, by proxy, to the audience of "Jurassic World," the message seems to be: You asked for it.

So we're expected to eagerly gobble up poor writing, utterly unlikable characters, lame action, overly complicated and half-baked plots and subplots, and nowhere near enough dinosaurs and still walk away feeling excited and satisfied because at least we got another sequel?

No thank you.  I'll just watch "Jurassic Park" again.

Movie score: 1.

{Heart}