Film review: Jurassic World
The opening minutes of Jurassic World, the fourth instalment in the series that first thrilled audiences in 1993 with the release of Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jurassic Park, spark very little enthusiasm and may even elicit a few groans from those who are paying attention.
Not only is the first scene, in which the teenage Zach (Nick Robinson, a young John Mayer) has to say goodbye to the girlfriend he won’t be seeing for (gasp!) a week, the film’s most maudlin, but real brands are peppered everywhere onscreen. Hilton, Samsung, Verizon and Starbucks all crash land with a thud into the diegesis, and it is painful to watch.
These brands all form part of Jurassic World, an enormous theme park on an island off Costa Rica, located on the same spot where two decades ago multiple tragedies occurred that ultimately led to Jurassic Park being shuttered. Like most businesses, the park (and presumably this film, too) needs money, hence the brands we see all over the place.
But while the screenplay makes light of these brand names in a throwaway comment, we are only explicitly alerted to them at the outset, and sadly the film refuses to either dig deeper or make their presence more of a joke.
To read the full review, visit The Prague Post. Jurassic World goes on wide release in Bulgaria on June 12.
(Still of Chris Pratt in Jurassic World. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick – © 2015 – Universal Pictures)
