“Universal were preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should”.
It’s only been three years since the last disappointing Jurassic World film. I don't know if it's been long enough before they hit the reboot button but they have. The set up being that Scarlett Johannson plays Zara who is tasked by Rupert Friend’s Martin who works for a pharmaceutical company that wants genetic material from living dinosaurs and they rope in Jonathan Bailey’s Henry Loomis and Mahershala Ali’s Duncan. As they go to the island they come across a father, his two daughters and the elder daughter’s lazy boyfriend who are attacked by a dinosaur.
There are many problems with this film. Mainly the family is an annoying distraction. The boyfriend is so unlikeable that when the scene comes where the father accepts him, I just didn't care and was hoping that one of the dinosaurs would kill him. Another issue is that Martin wasn't the most trustworthy of people and it was hardly a surprise. Also the fact is that it didn't seem long before he got eaten so it just seemed like a rush job and that's the overall impression because despite being two hours a bit long, there seemed like scenes cut out to speed the whole thing up. Another reason is because the budding romance between Zora and Henry is sort of hinted at but never really goes anywhere and it's like the writers were saying to the audience that they knew that we knew where it was going so they didn't really need to put too much effort into telling the story. Also we are told that Zora lost someone close but aside from a scene with Duncan, very little is told to us about why she is the way she is. A little flashback scene would have done a lot to make this seem more important.
There are things I liked. I thought that Johansson was very good as Zora and it does feel like she has put Black Widow firmly behind her. The scenes with the dinosaurs are all well done, in particular the scene with the sleeping T-Rex chasing the family down the river. It was probably one of the most exciting parts of the film and one that felt like genuine peril. Mahershala Ali is always good in whatever he is in and whilst the character wasn't the strongest, he manages to make it likeable and the friendship chemistry that he has with Johannson was nice to watch. I even thought that Jonathan Bailey managed to get a lot more out of the character than most people would have been able to extract. Gareth Edwards was the main reason why I had a lot of optimism for this movie and whilst it's not up there in terms of Monsters, it is a lot easier to connect with than The Creator.
I also appreciated that they didn't try to shoehorn the previous trilogies in. The closest we got was an Alan Grant reference from Henry and the events of the previous trilogy seem to be what have led to most species becoming extinct. There is the possibility that they won't show the same restraint in future films because they won't have the bravery of not going to the nostalgia well. There is enough of the familiar stuff to make it feel like a Jurassic World/Park film but new enough to feel like a fresh story.
Whether this is the first in a new trilogy remains to be seen but I am hoping that they do better with future plots. This is a better film because of Gareth Edwards who knows how to get as much as he can out of the material but I am worried that if this film does well they will think that they can try so little in the screenplay department and get the maximum results. This isn't the worst in the Jurassic franchise but it probably won't be the one that most people (myself included) will be rushing to rewatch. If only the film didn't have the family then this would have been a much better film because it would have had a streamlined plot and time to tell a stronger story.
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