Sometimes a movie mimics the qualities of its hero. If only that were the case with because animal researcher Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt, is a no-nonsense and fun guy to hang with, even under the kind of soil-your-pants duress a smart, super-predatory dinosaur might cause.
Instead, this overblown attraction — a narrative continuation of 1993’s highly entertaining “Jurassic Park” — shares the qualities of its antagonists: the aforementioned genetically tweaked hybrid with the ginned-up name Indominus rex and the island theme park’s head security contractor. It is an annoying assemblage of other movies (mostly by Steven Spielberg), and it is cynical and calculating.
Vincent D’Onofrio portrays security specialist Hoskins, who sees weaponizing possibilities in the work Owen has been doing with a quartet of Velociraptors. “What if we’d had them in Tora Bora,” he says wistfully at a point when things are starting to get hairy, ahem, reptilian.
This surprisingly predictable ride begins when brothers Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) are sent by their soon-to-be-divorced parents to Isla Nublar, the site of Jurassic World. Younger, wildly curious, Gray is thrilled at the prospect. Zach seems to be perfecting the teen pose of practiced uninterest. Though they haven’t seen her in years, aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is too busy for true chaperoning and assigns her assistant the task.
She runs the park for a pleasant-enough tycoon, Masrani (personable Irrfan Khan). When things go awry, she’ll discover what matters most.
If you detect a whiff of sarcasm in that comment, well, the screenwriters — director Colin Trevorrow among them — seem to have rummaged in the same closet Claire grabbed her throwback white skirt suit from for their ideas. Is there a metaphor lurking in the fact that the lone Indominus rex — raised in isolation and female — has been genetically concocted by Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) to be white, too?
Were it worth the effort, “Jurassic World” offers a bounty for deep readers of pop-cultural anxieties about gender, race, technology. It’s not. Although some intrepid thinker might want to take on what it means that the filmmakers so cavalierly and violently dispatch a couple of veterans from the war in Afghanistan.
In the film’s favor, we appear to be living in an era that might be called the Chrisozoic Period in which an abundance of Chrisses strides the big screen. The affable Pratt joins the equally likable Hemsworth, Pine and Evans. Bearded and weighing in with just the right balance of buff and heft, Pratt makes a convincing and updated graduate of the Indiana Jones/Han Solo school of smart tough guy.
Still, the rebooters of this franchise are either colossally cynical or not very good spinning a yarn.
Or maybe, benefit of the doubt and all that, this is a bad case of the anxiety of influence. Director Trevorrow was hand-picked by Steven Spielberg for the daunting assignment. Lest you forget who unleashed those dynamic dinos and has owned many a summer movie season, there are plenty of winks and nudges beyond Gray and Zach’s visit to the first park, now overgrown with jungle vines. For the 40th-anniversary of “Jaws,” a huge shark makes a cameo.
Yet, “Jurassic World” is ersatz Spielberg. It’s a knock-off that, even with the brand tag of the filmmaking titan as executive producer, makes the credit feel faux. Even John Williams’ bombastic score seems like a rebuff.
Early on, a character remarks that the theme park, with its “de-extinction” successes has led to hard-to-impress customers. Dinosaurs roaming the park just don’t cut it. Customers want more. It sounds like commentary. But then the movie proceeds to gives us more and more and more. And less and less and less.
Perhaps the movie should have been called “Product Placement World.” Sure, this has become movie-business as usual, but you can still get marks for subtlety. Instead, I think less of Mercedes-Benz — and IMAX for that matter — intruding on the screen with all the grace of a pop-up ad. “Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, lkennedy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bylisakennedy
