A ChucksConnection Film Review

 

Nick Robinson wears black low cut Converse “Chuck Taylor” All Stars in the film.

 

Jurassic World

by Hal Peterson

 

Gray and Zach must escape from the attacking Indominus Rex when things start to go horribly wrong in Jurassic World.

 

As the storyline to Jurassic World begins to unfold, you realize that there is nothing in the storyline that you haven’t seen before. Rather everything has been repackaged into a new version of some familiar themes. It has now been twenty-two years since the demise of Jurassic Park, but instead of burying the idea, a new theme park called Jurassic World now operates on an island off the coast of Central America. This time the main kid characters are Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) Mitchell, two brothers on a holiday trip of a lifetime to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) who is the park’s operations manager. Like Zach and Gray’s parents, who can’t make the time to accompany their kids to the theme park, Claire is very self-absorbed into the business world. We see her dressed to the nines in corporate attire, busy ordering employees around, dealing with the park’s CEO, Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), and schmoozing potential corporate sponsors for their newest attraction that will feature a genetically engineered predator called Indominus rex. When the boys finally arrive, they are impressed with the park, (especially the very hyper younger brother Gray), but disappointed to find out that instead of spending their first day with Aunt Claire, they are to be taken around the park by Claire’s young assistant Zara (Katie McGrath). Zara is not thrilled by this either and she has trouble keeping up with the boys, who, encouraged by Zach, soon ditch her to go off on their own. After all, they have VIP passes to all the rides courtesy of Aunt Claire.

Gary and Zach are watching the orientation video in the gyrosphere.

 

Meanwhile, things are starting to go awry in the predator dinosaur compound. We are introduced to Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), who is an expert on animal life and is the trainer or alpha for the park’s raptors who always hunt in packs. Vic Hoskins is the head of security operations at Jurassic Park, but has another agenda: he believes that the predatory dinosaurs will make an excellent military weapon. Hoskins plots with Dr. Henry Wu (B. D. Wong), the geneticist who has created the dinosaurs at the park, to smuggle out some of their embryos so they can be sold to the military. Both Claire and Mr. Masrani ask Grady what he thinks about the preparations for the Indominus rex exhibit. Owen is very skeptical, pointing out that the beast has never socialized with any other animals on the island. When Owen arrives at the Indominus rex compound, the dinosaur seems to have gone missing, with claw marks going up the 40 foot wall. When they go inside to investigate, they discover that Indominus is capable of treachery, and it ambushes them, killing a couple of the park workers in the process. Owen believes that the Indominus should be killed because it is too dangerous to have around humans or any other species. But Masrani instead sends in a team to tranquilize Indominus. Tranquilizer guns are no match for the ferocious dinosaur, who quickly decimates the team. Now a general alarm is sent out to evacuate the northern regions of the park and have all guests return to the park compound.

 

As Zach and Gray are riding through the wildlife area, suddenly all the dinosaurs begin to run.

 

When the story returns to Zach and Gray, they are out in a wildlife area, and have just boarded a two-person, motorized plastic gyrosphere that guests can used to travel through the wildlife areas without having to get out and be exposed to any dinosaurs, although the dinosaurs in the wildlife areas are vegetarians, and not predators. When the evacuation order comes, they ignore it, thinking that it is not serious. They soon learn what a mistake that was when they wander into a restricted area and are attacked by the Indominus. After some very scary moments inside the gyrosphere while Indominus tries to break it apart and kill them, they are able to escape by dropping out of the damaged sphere, running away and jumping off a cliff into a stream below. For the first time Zach and Gray really bond as brothers. Now a true team, the boys use their wits when they come upon an abandoned building from the original park, figuring out how to repair a jeep that they can drive back to the resort area of the park. More action continues as Owen and Claire, who have been trailing after the boys, are attacked themselves and barely escape. One calamity after another follows, and as you might expect, everything leads a the ultimate conflict between the Indominus, Owen, and the other dinosaurs on the island.

 

Claire and Owen comfort a dying brontosaurus after it was attacked by the Indominus Rex.

 

Jurassic World does repeat the themes of the original film, corporate greed will always end in human disaster, genetic engineering can be a Pandora’s Box, and people who try to juke the natural order of things pay the ultimate price. In this series, that is the expectation, and to no one’s surprise that is what happens in the end. So why is this series of films so successful? First of all, it’s the special effects. The dinosaurs are amazingly realistic looking and all of the technical elements of this film keep you enthralled from start to finish. Stephen Spielberg knows how to direct an action blockbuster and this film is certainly packed with both. Two new adult characters, Claire played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and Owen, played by Chris Pratt, give believable performances as the self-absorbed executive who finally sees the light when her world begins collapsing around her co-workers and family and the bad-ass animal trainer who everyone should have listened to before it’s too late. The two develop a good chemistry during the film, especially in the scenes where the fighting becomes quite intense. Nick Robinson delivers as Zach, the somewhat, blasé older brother, trying to keep his cool while often annoyed by his younger sibling, who suddenly is called to action when a crisis occurs. Ty Simkins represents every young dinosaur fanatic kid as he delights in the features of the park, but then discovers the terrifying dangers of real dinosaurs. One of the ironies of the casting is that these two don’t look at all alike in their complexions, colorations, hair, and eyes. So it has to be no accident that they were convincing in their roles. The other main characters deliver what you would expect, a creepy Vic Hoskins played by Vincent D’Onfrio, an out of touch CEO who tries to do things beyond his capabilities played by Irrfan Khan, and the remorseless Dr. Henry Wu, (D.B. Wong) who accepts no blame for his DNA experiments. Everything is there for an enjoyable two hours of sci-fi action/adventure.

Best Chucks Scene

 

We get a clue to Zach’s personality as the camera pans up him relaxing in the transport vehicle starting with his chucks.

 

Throughout the hundreds of films with characters wearing chucks, we’ve seen them trek through the Sahara Desert, conquer the Amazon River wilderness, travel through the wilds of the Cascade Mountains, walk the streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, traipse through medieval England, raft down the Mississippi River, and time travel on the face of a postage stamp. So its only fitting to see that chucks are cool and practical shoes to wear when escaping from dinosaurs. Nick Robinson in his role as older brother Zach wears black low cut chucks throughout the film. There are a number of good close ups throughout the scenes with Zach and his younger brother Gray. Some of the full shot scenes are shown above. In this section there are two of the extreme close ups, when we first see Zach arriving at Jurassic World, and the camera pans up his body starting with just his chucks, and later as the boys are using their wits to escape from the Indominus Rex.

 

Zach floors the accelerator of the old park vehicle to escape from the Indominus Rex.

 

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