Bad Geology Movies: Jurassic World, 2015

Jurassic World

2015

Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard

Premise: Twenty years later, they’ve created a Cretaceous monster. Is the world ready?

As a paleontologist, I was obligated to watch this. As expected, the science was pretty bad. The movie really had nothing to do with paleontology, and more to do with biology and genetics, and much of it didn’t make sense. Rather than picking apart the science, I watched it like any movie, with a critical eye on the story and characters. Hey, I’m working on a novel and a script, I might know a bit…

My overall conclusion is this, as movies go, it was pretty formula. It was a fun monster flick, but none of the characters were well developed, and much of them were very, very cliche. I struggled to care about any of them. There was opportunity to make the characters more compelling and interesting, but there was only minor references to their past, leaving me mostly uncomfortable. And some of the character arcs felt implausible.

The special effects were all right, but not extraordinary. Maybe it would have been better in 3D or iMax.

REVIEW: It’s an OK monster flick, but I’d wait for it to come to Netflix before seeing it again.

Highlights (no major spoilers) —

Best WTF moment: How does she run in those shoes?

Best developed character: Blue

Least likely to ever be bit by a mosquito: a mosasaur

Best human character: That guy with the Jurassic Park T-shirt.

Best scene to spoof: