A Year in Film: Jurassic World

Jurassic Parks and Recreation

A Year in Film is a series of ongoing articles that take a closer look at some of the most anticipated films coming to cinemas this year. First on the docket is Jurassic World, the fourth instalment in the Jurassic Park series, starring Chris Pratt as some kind of rootin' tootin, raptor wranglin' park ranger.

Now, I understand that the sight of Burt Macklin tearing it up with a posse of clawed killing machines is pretty exciting, but in order to succeed Jurassic World is going to need to offer more than mere spectacle. Luckily, the films's plot sounds pretty interesting, revolving as it does around the meta-sounding idea that humans, fickle creatures that we are, no longer feel awe at the sight of dinosaurs. Obviously, this feeds into real world audiences' desires for bigger, better, busier CGI - a mere two decades ago, the sight of a scaly-CGI raptor was enough to get us all hot under the collar, now we barely lift an eyebrow when presented with scenes of earth-shaking spectacle that would have been unimaginable a few decades past.

Much like us, the visitors to Jurassic World have become inured to the sight of these living, breathing prehistoric marvels; dinosaurs are played out, a fad that's passed, sort of like the hula hoop or jeans with pockets in the knees. To combat peoples' waning attention spans, the genetic tinkerers who breathed new life into the dinosaur decide to use their scientific know-how to engineer bigger, badder more dangerous specimens. This culminates in the creation of the Idominus Rex, a beastie that looks a bit like the unholy offspring of a T-Rex and a Rancor.

Like the original film in the series, World takes a look at what happens when human hubris meets the chaos and unpredictability of nature. This time round, however, we didn't just bring back the tools of our destruction, we engineered them to be even deadlier and more dangerous than before! Judging by the trailer, the only one who thinks this is a bad idea is security guard Owen (Pratt). Sadly, the powers-that-be don't share Owen's concerns --what's a few dead bodies when there's money to be made?-- and go ahead and grow their very own Indominus Rex. Predictably, ol' Rex springs the coop and starts wreaking havoc.

The plot will be familiar to anyone who has ever had the misfortune of watching schlocky ITV CGI-fest Primeval, whose first season also ended with a storyline in which genetically engineered creatures duked it out with a group of ragtag dino hunters. Unlike Primeval, though, Jurassic World is being helmed by Colin Trevorrow, whose charmingly eccentric debut film Safety Not Guaranteed was the first rom-com I've seen in the last decade that didn't make me want to poke out my own eyes.

Admittedly, he's a bit of an odd choice for a tentpole franchise like this, but evidently Spielberg and the rest of the execs that make up the Jurassic Park brain-trust liked what Trevorrow was putting down. Going by the trailers, Jurassic World doesn't bear much resemblance to the director's previous work, looking more like the kind of precision-engineered, slightly vacuous popcorn flick any number of directors-for-hire could have churned out rather than the work of a fledgling indie film maker. Still a trailer does not a film make, and I have high hopes that in-between the bouts of computer-generated carnage and pithy one-liners, Trevorrow's penchant for building rounded, sympathetic characters will come to the fore.

A scant few days ago, the final trailer for the film hit the web. This teaser is very different in tone, showcasing a more sombre side of Isla Nubar. If anything, it's strangely redolent of Predator, showing as it does various sweaty, distressed people traipsing through leafy jungles, trying not to get brutally splattered. There's also a shot of Bryce Dallas Howard holding a flare that practically screams Aliens.

We'll see how well Jurassic World fares at the multiplexes, and with the critics, next week, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic about the film's chances. I certainly don't think we're looking at another Fury Road-sized critical smash, but it won't have far to go to top the previous Park sequels and, for me, at least, watching these prehistoric bruisers run amok, snuffling screaming humans never gets old. And, hey, it can't be worse than Lost World, right?