Jurassic World

Jurassic World comes up short in so many ways, but wins us over with real dinosaurs.  To a jaded 37 year old who first saw real dinosaurs 22 years ago it is nearly impossible to recreate the experience of Jurassic Park, but the new movie is represents a worthy effort.  Let’s start with Jurassic World’s shortcomings, then I will focus on what it got right. 

I wrote the previous paragraph a few weeks ago, obviously I was in a relatively upbeat mood.  The truth is this; Jurassic World is a microcosm of the world in which we all live.  This film is a cynical commentary on the gratuitous idiocy that pervades our country today.  Is there anyone who would really go to a place called Jurassic World after having seen the events of Jurassic Park?  Let me suggest that millions of people would line-up to buy tickets, it would be bigger than Disneyland, the Olympics, and an Ariana Grande concert put together.  The people in Jurassic World sure are dumb enough to go there, whether for work or vacation, does it really matter? 

Here’s how the movie is a microcosm of the world today: everyone is an idiot, and the ones who aren’t idiots have made idiotic choices and are surrounded by idiots.  The guy who by all rights should be the smartest person in the movie crashes his helicopter into an aviary filled with pterodactyls.  The next smartest person in the movie creates a super-predator using an amalgamation of the deadliest animals ever, all based on a memo (from the guy who kamikazed the pterodactyl enclosure).   Would I go too far by comparing our country’s leaders to those of Jurassic World?  Might you start to see the same lemming qualities exist in the general population as were on display in the movie? 

Let’s overlook 50+ years of human rights violations because their cigars are nice.  Let’s just bomb them to hell via remote control, because human life is cheap as long as it doesn’t affect polling numbers.  As I think of more examples, Coptic Christians, unborn children, race relations… I start to realize that the comparison starts to fall apart.  Our leader isn’t some arrogant idiot who wants to fly his own helicopter, rather he is unabashedly evil.  What does that say about us?  How accountable are we for the actions of the “smarter” men? 

We are the people of Jurassic World; happy-go-lucky, excited about “coupon day”, checking our cell phones while T-Rex chomps on the goat.  Bad stuff is going on all around us, some of it caused directly by our action/inaction.  But there’s enough good stuff to keep us happy, the TSA is keeping the bad guys out, so why worry?  Ever since they stopped my grandparents from carrying nail clippers on commercial flights the world has been a wonderful place.

This review wasn’t meant to solve any of the world’s problems and I realize that it hasn’t.  Jurassic World isn’t a huge success because it’s a scathing criticism of our country; it’s a huge success because it’s good clean fun.