Jurassic World

The Gist: A new, more high-tech park is built on the island of the original Jurassic Park. Business is booming, with thousands of tourists visiting the park and big corporations interested in sponsoring new exhibits. To appease the demand for ever bigger thrills, the scientists toil with the dinosaurs' genetic code in order to "improve" them. Their latest creation is a highly intelligent, stealth killing machine. When it escapes confinement, it goes on a killing spree.

It's been 14 years since Hollywood last ventured in the land of the dinosaurs for what felt like an insipid third helping of an original concept that stunned the world with its revolutionary images when it first came out.

Jurassic World showcases much more impressive visual effects, thanks to ever evolving computer resources, and the latest incarnation of the prototypical action star, Chris Pratt.

Unfortunately, not everything smells fresh in this tropical paradise. While Irrfan Khan is somewhat credible, Bryce Dallas Howard and Vincent D'Onofrio play two-dimensional caricatures rather than credible characters.

On top of that, the screenplay simply pushes things to a too far-fetched extreme. Aside from the question of who in their right mind would ever venture in a similar park after what happened before, one wonders how wise and/or safe it is to put visitors in transparent pods that are supposed to circulate freely among the dinosaurs (I don't really care that they're not carnivorous; vegetarians have bad days too!!).

Then there are the really out there concepts like the "domestication" of velociraptors, or keeping a colossal mosasaurus in a tank whose top side is open like it would be for dolphins, or mixing genetic traits from completely different animals and coming up with a perfectly functioning new type of dinosaur. While the original Jurassic Park put out there some revolutionary ideas, Steven Spielberg (a producer here) had nothing on these guys...

The Bottom Line: If you enjoy action and/or sci-fi movies, than this one will not disappoint you. There's plenty of both, it's made with the utmost care on a technical level, and Chris Pratt is such a charmer (and super hot) he'd make any bitter pill go down easy, just don't expect too much serious science...

Grade: 7