(Movie) How to Train your Raptors...a look at Jurassic World

*Puts on radio announcer headphones*

ANNNNND HERE IS THE FIGHT WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! THE INDOMINUS REX vs. TYRANNOSAURUS REX AND VELOCIRAPTOR!!

For those of you that don't know, Jurassic World is a direct sequel to Jurassic Park. The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3, while still canon, took place on a different island.

It's been 22 years since the release of Jurassic Park.

The question remains, however.

Did this movie live up to the hype?

Let's review!

Story/Dialogue: Two kids spend a weekend hanging out at JURASSIC WORLD. Their Aunt Claire, a neurotic, business minded woman is setting up the big reveal of the park's latest attraction. In order to test its emotional stability, they bring in raptor wrangler Owen Grady.

The dinosaur breaks out and chaos ensues.

Even as a kid, I loved dinosaurs. It still brings this child-like wonder and excitement as they showed them to the world.

I loved how the story dealt with the need to impress the audience. Being in a society where our attention span is incredibly limited, they want to cater to that with bigger, badder dinosaurs.

This movie asks the question; How much is too much?

It makes me appreciate it a whole lot more.

I also loved the homage to the original movie. That was a nice touch.

Can I just say, CLAIRE! DOING ALL THE THINGS! IN HEELS!!!

That was just awesome to me.

In terms of dialogue, a lot of it is thought-provoking, yet not flowery. Though I found some other parts to be a bit over the top. Seeing a kid throw out random bits of information with so little backstory kind of bugged me.

Chris Pratt's performance showed that the modern action star can be somewhat goofy as well as a badass.

Cinematography/Effects: The scale of this island was massive. It felt massive. It felt like a world, rather than a park. The dinosaurs were enormous, dangerous and gave you the sense that you were so much smaller than the world leads you to believe.

The graphics were so fantastic that to the untrained eye, you couldn't tell what was CGI and what was special effects. The interaction between Chris Pratt's character and the brontosaurus was one instance in which I found myself trying to figure out which was which.

The framing was excellent and the lighting was wonderful.

A personal favourite was the scene between Claire and Owen at the aftermath. The silhouettes were a nice romantic touch.

Audio: I love how this movie paid homage through sound. There was the original theme with its horns and sense of grandeur. But there was also the toy box-esque variant during the ruins scene that represented a time gone by where it was all innocence.

The sound effects, with the footprints to the snapping of jaws to the roars were exquisite. Major props to the sound crew for that.

Overall: In order to properly ascertain the rating for this movie, I must ask myself some questions.

- Did the movie meet up to the hype? Not really. It was awesome, but nostalgia upped the hype too much, frankly.
- Was the movie's story well fleshed out? Yes and No. I found that it ended abruptly and there wasn't an emotional payoff. Plus, what the heck happened to the parents who were getting divorced? While it left it open for a plethora of sequels, I left the cinema feeling like something was missing.
- Did I enjoy myself overall? Hell yeah! I love crazy dinosaur action! Plus, they got brutal! You get to see people get crazy chomped on. It was epic!

So with that in mind, I'm going to give this Jurassic World a solid 4 and a half stars.