Movie Review: Jurassic World

         The latest addition to the Jurassic movie franchise hit the box offices with stellar numbers and lackluster reviews. Fans and critics agree across the board that the movie is good fun with steady pacing and it breaks the (not very high) bar set by the two previous Jurassic sequels. But with two and a half dimensions of character and plot, Jurassic World falls short of the cinematic heights achieved by its 1993 progenitor. 

         Perhaps the movie could have been better if the writers had put as much thought into the plot and development as they with the character interplay. At the level of character dialogue, the script has some very humanistic moments that the audience can relate to: like the romantic awkwardness between techie-nerd coworkers and the effect of modern day nuclear family dynamics on children. But that doesn't make up for the way the plot serves itself up on a platter. 

         In the first fifteen minutes of the movie, we already know which dinosaur is going to escape and how it will be dealt with,  who the villain is and what will become of him, and we already know how the protagonist interplay is going to go down even before the two protagonists meet on screen for the first time. 

         Regardless of lazy plot and character development, the movie is fun. The action sequences are well spaced out, and there are plenty of nods back to the original film for all the nostalgics out there. Even the plot themes smack of Jurassic Park's handling of gender issues, parental readiness, and corporate greed. All good reasons for parents from generations X and Y to introduce their children to the franchise. The body count may be a little high for a family flick. But if you, like many generation X and Y parents, watch Game of Thrones with your kids, then they can definitely handle the mild gore in Jurassic World.