Jurassic World (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  2015
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller
Director:  Colin Trevorrow
Starring:  Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onfrio, Irrfan Khan, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, B.D. Wong, Katie McGrath
Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

A fourth Jurassic Park film had been a long time coming, constantly brought up but never delivered upon for more than a decade.  Personally after the fart-in-the-wind way that Jurassic Park III came and went I didn't really think we would ever get one.  But hey, a fourth Jaws movie happened at one point, so I guess anything is possible.

Eventually one would be produced, and wouldn't you know it it was released in a year full of weaponized nostalgia box office flicks, including us all finally caring about Paul Walker's existence for the first time now that he had tragically passed on in Furious 7 and the Star Wars movie Star Wars fans loved until they remembered they're supposed to hate everything new in Star Wars, The Force Awakens.  Hell, there was even a surprise award recognition in the resurgence of Mad Max and Rocky franchises that year.  And yet 2015 still couldn't get a damn Terminator sequel to work even with Schwarzenegger.

The storyline is almost innovative.  Instead of just sending people back to the island just 'acause, the filmmakers create a "What if...?" scenario and base their movie around that.  What if the park actually opened?  Jurassic World shows John Hammond's dream fully realized as a version of Jurassic Park is opened to the public, even after all those people dying making it a reality.  But people have become bored and the fat cat businessmen are forced to create "new" dinosaurs to recapture their attention, starting with the genetically engineered Indominus Rex.  Since this is a story based on another story created by Michael Crichton, shit hits the fan and science runs amok.

In theory I should love this movie.  I love the idea.  There's a story in this somewhere.  I don't think this was it though.  Jurassic World is very derivative of the original film, sometimes to a fault.  When it does branch off into doing something more original it seems to play it safe and keep it expected.  The movie feels bland as a sock drawer and I find my attention wandering during it.  This is the last thing I need to say when describing a goddamn dinosaur movie.  I think it says a lot that this is the only Jurassic film in which I felt no suspense whatsoever.  Even the latest sequel, Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom, had some slick pieces of excitement in it despite it being one of the dumbest movies of 2018.  But in this movie everything just feels so sterile and somewhat distant.  I'm not really invested in anything.

But for some reason Jurassic World is considered the best Jurassic sequel.  Sure, why not?  It's probably clear by now none of the sequels are going to recapture the magic of that first film.  Might as well celebrate the most calculated attempt at fan pandering the series has ever offered.  I myself have rarely responded to a film that was made to merely be a series of silver platter money shots.  If I did I would have thought higher of films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and the original Avengers movie, both of which are fine but never really jazzed me up all that much.  Jurassic World lies just a bit beneath those movies for me.

The Trax

Jurassic World is a bit of a brick wall of bland, so it's going to take some hard work to riff this thing and make it interesting.  Unfortunately the riffs are a bit run of the mill and there is nothing too spectacular here.  Jurassic World's blandness just makes for a bland Rifftrax.

The first act of this movie is a large amount of boggy nothing to wade through, and for the most part they tend to find themselves commentating on heavy batches of exposition, cliches, and foreshadowing.  I don't really disagree with a lot of what they're saying, but it doesn't really make for an entertaining experience.  The highlight of this section is hands down when Chris Pratt's character is introduced, and Mike pipes up the killer line of "Ladies and gentlemen, 21st century Brendan Fraser!"  Occasionally they'll have a more interesting observation of the park, such as the iconic scene of a great white shark being fed to a mosasaur, resulting in the cheer of "Woo!  Let's feed it another endangered species!  It'll eat anything but let's feed it some pandas!"

When the dino action starts, the riffs become a bit more engaging because the film is actually giving them something to work with.  The funny-meter spikes a little bit, but still Jurassic World struggles to leave an impression.  It's a riff that's way too anchored by the film chosen, and while their observations can be cute at times there is really not that much to see here.

Average