Jurassic World

Jurassic World, the fourth instalment in the dinosaurs-gone-wild film franchise launched by Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 adaptation of the late Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel, knows where it’s at. 

It realises that just as punters at the prehistoric fun park of the title are suffering from spectacle fatigue (the novelty of hugging a baby brontosaurus soon wears thin), so too are viewers of big-budget blockbusters.

So what to do? Up the ante? Scale things back and go lean and mean? Or try to recapture the magic of Spielberg’s original? Jurassic World tries its hand at all three at different times, and while it doesn’t match Jurassic Park it does come up with a hugely entertaining thrill-ride that has some terrifically tense sequences.

The idea of a dinosaur Disneyland never really came to fruition in the first three Jurassic films (due to the attractions running amok before opening day), but thanks to a cash injection by billionaire Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) ‘Jurassic World’ is now open for business.

Egged on by the marketing department, however, those foolish scientists in the lab are upping the resort’s wow factor by genetically engineering something with “more teeth” — a big, bad hybrid dubbed the Indominus rex. Guess what? Gets loose!

Luckily, dino-wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt, consolidating his action-man bona fides) is on hand with the posse of velociraptors he’s been training to obey his commands. But what happens when the beasties encounter the Indominus, the new alpha-male on the block?

Director and co-screenwriter Colin Trevorrow has a real knack for suspense — there’s a dino-hunt halfway through Jurassic World that wouldn’t be out of place in Predator or Aliens — and knows how to ease the tension with a wisecrack or black joke. 

And even if Jurassic World succumbs to CGI overload by the end with its climactic reptilian rumble, it has built up enough good will to have its audience walking out suitably awe-struck and adrenalised.