Review Roundup: Chris Pratt Stars in JURASSIC WORLD, Now Roaring Back to Theaters

Chris Pratt stars in the sequel to the classic 1993 movie JURASSIC PARK, now titled JURASSIC WORLD. Twenty-two years after the events of JURASSIC PARK transpire, the island of Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park called JURASSIC WORLD. After 10 YEARS of operation, JURASSIC WORLD's visitor rates are steadily declining, therefore, the park opens a new attraction to spark visitor interest. Unfortunately, this new attraction backfires horribly.

JURASSIC WORLD was directed by Colin Trevorrow who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and Derek Connolly. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver also wrote the story, with Michael Crichton having credit for character development.

JURASSIC WORLD stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Irrfan Khan, and Nick Robinson.

Let's see what the critics had to say!

Matt Tamanini, Broadway World: The major issue with JURASSIC WORLD is not that it's a bad film, the issue is that it is actually three or four different films competing for dominance; not unlike Isla Nublar's dinosaurs. At times, it is an earnest homage to the original, featuring a pair of young siblings fleeing for there their lives. At one point, Zach and Gray even take refuge in the ruins of the original Jurassic Park, trudging up some welcomed nostalgia. At other times, JURASSIC WORLD is a GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA-style monster film with extreme dinosaur-on-dinosaur violence. And yet, there are still times when director Colin Treverrow plays the action as a self-important allegory for the moral implications of our world's ever expanding scientific capabilities. When all is said and done, one version never fully takes control, and they never coalesce enough, to feel like one coherent film.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Blowing minds rather than, you know, telling a good story is the driving imperative in "Jurassic World," which takes place on an island turned luxury resort where thousands enjoy a very special kind of eco-tourism. There, the usual suspects convene, including a pair of bland young brothers (Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins), avatars for the sought-after demographic; the usual odd-couple cuties (Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt); and some standard-issue villainy that exists to feed the dinosaurs and our bloodlust. It's a measure of how dumbed-down this movie is that while the three heroes in "Jurassic Park" were scientists, Mr. Pratt plays Owen, an indeterminate animal expert, and Ms. Howard plays Claire, a corporate stooge whose idiocy is partly telegraphed by her towering heels.

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Trevorrow relishes turning tourists (read "us") into material for chomping. We get what we wish for. And we care because there's a humanity in the characters, even Lowery (Jake Jonson), a park techie who collects toy dinos and wears a tee from the original Jurassic Park that he bought on eBay. Lowery is a realist who sees things with childlike wonder. So does Trevorrow, who recaptures the thrilling spirit of the Spielberg original (name-check, T. rex) with fresh provocation: Is bigger always better, or is it an empty, soulless thing ready to bite us on the ass? Jurassic World will scare the hell out of you, and not just for the obvious reasons.

Scott Foundas, Variety: "No one's impressed by a dinosaur anymore," notes one character early on in "Jurassic World," and it's easy to imagine the same words having passed through the lips of more than one Universal Studios executive in the years since Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg's 1993 "Jurassic Park" shattered box-office records, along with the glass ceiling for computer-generated visual effects. Two decades and two lackluster sequels later, producer and studio have spared few expenses in crafting a bigger, faster, noisier dinosaur opus, designed to reclaim their place at the top of the blockbuster food chain. What they've engineered is an undeniably vigorous assault of jaw-chomping jolts and Spielbergian family bonding that nevertheless captures only a fraction of the original film's overflowing awe and wonderment. Which should still be more than enough to cause a T-Rex-sized ripple effect at the summer multiplex turnstile.

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair: Striking The Lost World and Jurassic Park III from the canon, Jurassic Worldassures its audience that it knows that Steven Spielberg'soriginal treasure is not to be trifled with. But it gently, engagingly insists that a new generation might need its own kind of dino thrill ride to revel in. It makes its case surprisingly well, a tale of new developments occluding old glories that we probably never should have stopped revering.

Kyle Smith, New York Post: Motorcycle, Chris Pratt, sprinting dinosaurs: If you require more than that out of a movie, you're being unreasonable.

Jacob Hall, New York Daily News: "Jurassic World" is frequently silly and self-indulgent, but it works more often than not. For better and worse, unlike previous "Jurassic Park" sequels, this one was at least made by someone who really loves "Jurassic Park."

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: Jurassic World doesn't have an equivalent of Samuel L Jackson's chain-smoking employee Arnold from the first film, or indeed anything like its all-but-subliminal reference to J Robert Oppenheimer. But this is still a terrifically enjoyable and exciting summer spectacular: savvy, funny, ridiculous in just the right way, with some smart imaginative twists on the idea of how dinosaurs could be repositioned in a consumer marketplace where they are almost commonplace, and how the military might take a sinister interest in weaponising these scary beasts.

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: These days we don't have much patience for those kinds of coy cat-and-mouse games. We want to see our dinosaurs rampaging fast and furious over and over. In that sense, Jurassic World is a blockbuster of its moment. It's not deep. There aren't new lessons to be learned. And the film's flesh-and-blood actors are basically glamorized extras. But when it comes to serving up a smorgasbord of bloody dino mayhem, it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do beautifully.

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: Intensely self-conscious of its status as a cultural commodity even as it devotedly follows the requisite playbook for mass-audience blockbuster fare, Jurassic World can reasonably lay claim to the No. 2 position among the four series entries, as it goes down quite a bit easier than the previous two sequels. The 14-year layoff since the last one may well have helped, in that the new film's perspective on antiseptic, theme park-style tourism and relentless commercialization, while hardly radical, plainly announces its makers' sense of humor about their own project's multifaceted mercantile motives. Although not terribly scary, and closer to PG than R in its frights and gore, Universal's big summer action release is sufficiently toothsome to make audiences everywhere happy for a return visit to a once-wild world that superficially looks as safe and domesticated as a Universal Studios tour.

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