Over twenty years since the incident at Jurassic Park on the island of Ilsa Nublar, a Jurassic World theme park is fully operational on the same island.  Brothers Zach and Gary Mitchell go tot the island to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard)- who happens to be a workaholic who hasn’t seen her nephews in years (that she can’t remember their ages and decides to send her British assistant to watch over Zach and Gary).  Meanwhile, Claire is overseeing the development of a new dinosaur called Indominus Rex and the park’s owner Simon wants her to bring on Velopicraptor expert and trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to look for things they missed to make sure the new dinosaur doesn’t escape containment, but they don’t count on how smart the new creation is and the whole park come sunder danger.   Zach and Gray lose the assistant and go off on their own while Vic Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio)- head of InGen security- wants to exploit the raptors for military use and use the new situation to his advantage.

 

JURASSIC WORLD is an improvement over the last two sequels (THE LOST WORLD and JURASSIC PARK 3 which the producers have decided to ignore and make JURASSIC WORLD a direct sequel to the first film) that almost captures the magic of the first movie.   It has a few moments that act as a homage callbacks to the first movie along with good action sequences, but there are a couple of plot bunnies that annoy me like how the Indominus Rex escapes captivity and Claire wearing heels everywhere (as part of her vanity probably and the fault lies on director Colin Trevorrow listening to Bryce Dallas Howard’s reasoning to have her character wear them all the way through the movie).  Owen’s raptor posse (of Blue, Charlie, Delta, and Echo) is one of my favorite parts of the movie along with the surprise reveal of one of the most famous dinosaurs in the climax and Jimmy Fallon acting as a video informational tour guide.  They do leave open possibilities for another movie (which is likely given how much money JURASSIC WORLD made worldwide).

 

SPECIAL FETAURES:

The blu-ray has the following extras:

A few deleted scenes

 

CHRIS & COLIN TAKE ON THE WORLD- director Colin Trevorrow and star Chris Pratt interview each other about the movie and their first memories of seeing JURASSIC PARK plus learn that Chris Pratt made a joke of being cast in JURASSIC PARK IV years before he was cast in JURASSIC WORLD (with the clip to prove it)

WELCOME TO JURASSIC WORLD (blu-ray only) - a half hour behind-the-scene featurette with cast and crew interviews, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage

JURASSIC WORLD: ALL ACCESS PASS (blu-ray) - a ten minute video commentary with Colin and Chris on certain scenes on the movie and it feels like an edited down version of a video commentary of the whole movie

DINOSAURS ROAM AGAIN- a look at how they got the actors to interact with dinosaurs that weren’t there and the digital visual effects

INNOVATION CENTER TOUR WITH CHRIS PRATT (blu-ray)- Chris gives a tour of the Innovation Center set

JURASSIC’S CLOSEST SHAVES (blu-ray)- a shaving cream company Barbasol present a series of close shaves by characters in the four movies in the JURASSIC PARK series

 

Also in the combo set is the movie in standard definition on DVD with some of the above extras and a code to stream and download a Digital HD Ultraviolet copy of JURASSIC WORLD.

 

There is a bonus DVD available if you buy JURASSIC WORLD at Target and it features the following featurettes:

CLASSIC JURASSIC- cast and crew talk about their favorite moments in JURASSIC PARK and how the new movie has callbacks to the original

BUILDING THE GYROSPHERE- a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the gyrosphere and how they filmed in on set (along with some digital effects to enhance it and Steven Spielberg giving the suggestion to put lights on it for night)

YOUR HOST FOR JURASSIC WORLD…JIMMY FALLON- a look at filming Jimmy Fallon for the Jurassic World science videos that play inside the movie

JURASSIC PROPS- a look at the various props they created to make Jurassic World theme park be believable

THE EXPERTS- interview with dinosaur expert Jack Horner

THE SOUNDS AND THE FURY- a behind-the-scenes look at the sound effects and music of the movie

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:  JURASSIC WORLD is the sequel that JURASSIC PARK really deserved despite some of the great moments in the two other movies (JURASSIC PARK: THE LOST WORLD and JURASSIC PARK III).  There are some really great behind-the-scenes extras, but it is too bad that Universal Pictures made some them only available to Target.

 

This review is ©10-24-2015 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com