Jurassic World

Apparently I didn't see the same movie that made $500M in it's opening weekend, and instead saw something by Micheal Bay.

Easily the worst of the four Jurassic Park movies, with cardboard two-dimensional characters that couldn't hold a candle to the earlier cast.

It was hard to not check off the by-the-numbers death scenes as they ticked by complete with Redshirt nod, and it was even harder to care about a single person who died. The possible exception being the nearly invisible assistant whose sole role seemed to be to make Howard's character even less empathetic than she did on her own.

Chris Pratt - the cardboard hero with a moral compass who saves the day, repeatedly. Oh, he was in the Navy, and that matters for some reason...but that's it.

Bryce Dallas Howard - the completely irrelevant reason to have a couple of kids in the movie, who has one scene where she saves the day without any foundation or backstory, and after which she immediately reverts to useless mopey eye candy.

Vincent D'Onfronio -  one dimensional baddie with an overlong and completely obvious death whose sole purpose seems to be to establish that there are bigger baddies in the next two movies and that the dinosaurs are destined for military applications, because no one sees *that* ending badly.

John Hammond II - no, I'm kidding, but his spirit sort of lives on in the only person I could muster even the slightest concern over, Irrfan Khan. I would have rather seen him live in exchange for any...or even most...of the rest of the cast. Lost sequel opportunity there.

The obligatory 'two kids in the Jurassic Park movie' - 'insert a teenager and younger brother from central casting here'. Sadly, instead of actual dinosaur geeks, we have an ADD kid who spouts random science, and a cranky teen. Apparently the kid's parents are getting a divorce, and this somehow matters enough to feature in several scenes without going anywhere.

Monsters, monsters, monsters. Although if you're surprised by anything, including the supposed 'twists', then you're likely new to Jurassic Park and really should watch the other movies first. Once you have, there shouldn't be any surprises here. Humans are stupid, mess with dino DNA, and get eaten.

In short, if you want to switch off for a couple of hours, this won't tax your brain as you drive a T-Rex through the plot holes and continuity errors...but if you're looking for something that lives up to the Jurassic Park legacy...you're better off revisiting the originals.

Unfortunately,  we can expect more of this in the next two instalments of Micheal Bay Does Dinosaurs.