Jurassic World Review

Grade: C
One-Liner: This is not the Jurassic World that John Hammond envisioned.

Warning! Warning! We've got an asset out of containment, and it's this ridiculous plot. It's been 14 years since the last Jurassic Park movie was made, and boy, what a difference time makes. Jurassic World is set more than 20 years after the first Jurassic Park, which was dreamed up by John Hammond, failed in a catastrophic fashion. Decades later, a new set of progressives have managed to make it work, running a successful Seaworld-esque theme park with thousands of eager visitors (think Triceratops petting zoo and try not to vomit).

Naturally, mere dinosaurs are no longer enough. The crowds want the wow factor, so corporate execs try to up the ante by creating a brand new massive dino. It's clear these stats-driven business people don't know what they're doing, but the filmmakers failed to realize that in this analogy, they are the high-power execs trying to up amaze the audience with a bigger, badder dino and flashier special effects.

But that's not what makes Jurassic Park so beloved. At its core, the Jurassic franchise is about beholding the beauty and brute strength of these creatures that roamed the Earth long before our time. Jurassic World turned the series into a cheesy excuse from a dinosaur film, more akin to a crappy Godzilla flick than a descendant of the Steven Spielberg original.

Leading the pack was an incredibly underwhelming Chris Pratt as Owen. He clearly was meant to be a combination of Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ian Malcolm — both understanding of the wild creatures and providing the comic relief. Unfortunately, he was less jokester Peter Quill and more Channing Tatum. And I didn't come to see a Channing Tatum movie.

Opposite the lifeless Pratt was Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire. The most interesting thing about her was watching her flatironed bob transform into tousled beach waves as she went from an uptight workaholic to a motorcycle-riding wild woman.

Even my favorite dinos — the velociraptors — were watered down into trained monkeys, performing for Pratt's enjoyment. It was sickening to watch.