[9]

I enjoyed the hell out of Jurassic World and I don’t care who knows it.

I don’t know who the director is (Colin Trevorrow, anyone?), but I thought this was easily the scariest and most entertaining Jurassic Park flick since the original 1993 movie. It moves at a great pace, develops and escalates nicely, is scattered with a handful of worthy scares and action set-pieces, and pays off in a helluva monster-free-for-all finale. I also think the human characters are the most empathetic and charismatic since the original film.

In this installment, Chris Pratt is a velociraptor trainer and Bryce Dallas Howard is in charge of park operations. The two get together to inspect the containment unit for a new, genetically-spliced monster called Indominus rex. Naturally, Indominus gets loose and the park goes to hell quickly. But unlike any of the other Jurassic Park movies, this time, the park is full of thousands of guests, and not all of them are going to make it out alive. (The movie is really a lot like Jaws 3D, if Jaws 3D were any good.)

Pratt and Howard carry this film very well, funny when they need to be, scared when they need to be, and charismatic enough to hold my interest throughout. A Jurassic Park movie hasn’t been this well cast since the original. Their two younger co-stars, Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson (The Kings of Summer), do equally well carrying their half of the film — playing two brothers who get stranded in a giant hamster ball in the middle of all the dinosaur mayhem. BD Wong returns as the first film’s genetic engineer and Vincent D’Onofrio comes aboard as a corporate letch who wants to harness the dinosaurs for military use.

I’ve seen this movie maybe ten times. It invites repeat viewings like few popcorn munchers do these days. Jurassic World made me feel like a kid again. All the things I hate about contemporary blockbusters are absent — the CGI is excellent and compelling, not cheap and intrusive. The characters, stock as they may be, dared to have emotions, a few of which actually resonate with me. Call me an old fogey all you want, but for at least its two-hour run time, Jurassic World had me wondering if the veil of cynicism that killed the wonder of ’70s and ’80s cinema might possibly be lifting.

I know that’s a lofty hope to levy on the third sequel of a decades’ old franchise, but like I said. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

With Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Judy Greer, Lauren Lapkus, and Jake Johnson.