Plot Details: This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Dino Dinner, come and get it
Plot Overview
In “Jurassic Park” (2004) a scientist learned to develop a warmth for children in lieu of genetic manipulation of resurrected extinct giant lizards. In this sequel set in a glorified dinosaur petting zoo on Isla Nublar off the coast of Costa Rica, business is booming. Meanwhile a married couple in the states, Karen and Scott Mitchell (Judy Greer & Andy Buckley) whose marriage is on the rocks, send their two children to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) there while the parents will decide who spends Xmas with whom … to the background tune of, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Aside from some worried phone calls, the movie then forgets the parents, but the aunt is another matter. Taught by the same mom, Claire is cut from the same cloth as her sister when it comes to men. Claire's a successful businesswoman, park manager of said Jurassic World, but she has trouble getting a second date. Men find her too controlling.
The business is on shaky ground—in more ways than one. Attendance has been declining. In order to garner more interest, they've created a hybrid dino that's bigger and louder than the "natural" ones, and with more teeth. A business does what it has to to survive.
Claire didn't become successful without learning how to delegate, so instead of shepherding her charges herself, she turns them over to her assistant Zara (Katie McGrath) (“Zara is going to take great care of you.”) Zara takes her eyes off them for a moment to answer her cell. A girl has to stay connected to get ahead. The boys vamoose to escape her strict control. They head over to the gyrosphere ride. Sixteen-year-old Zach (Nick Robinson) just wants to check out the girls in line, but his younger brother Gray (Ty Simpkins) puts a damper on it, so they take the ride together, Gray not being big enough for most rides, at least not unaccompanied.
An incident forces the shutdown of operations, but the two boys are out of range of the message. When they discover an anomalous hole in the fence, Zach goes “off road” for some adventure. The new Indominus Rex having escaped its enclosure is patrolling the same ground. It is bigger and badder than the regular dinosaur. The gyrosphere—sort of an oversized hamster globe—is designed to be impervious to attack. When the irresistible force meets the immovable object, anything can happen. There's bound to be a spectacle. All that progress reminds me of what a navigator once told the pilot: “I don't know where we are, but we're making good time.”
Ideology
Bestselling author John Gray, Ph.D. tells us, “The high rate of divorce … indicates … we men and women want more from our relationships. … We want a lifetime of love; we want lasting passion with one special person” (93). That describes Karen and Scott. Gray also says, “Working women are required to be overly masculine” (10). That describes Claire.
The Mitchell kid Gray is short on inches but could hold a Ph.D. in
dinosaurs. He can name them right off the bat. He'll count the hidden
ONE in the bush. He'll pick the underdog in a fight (“We need more teeth.”)
He's even able to suss
out his parents impending divorce. He's one smart kid. He's
juxtaposed with corporation's head of security Hoskins (Vincent
D'Onofrio) who's fronting for some sinister element that wants to
weaponize the creatures. Hoskins is unable to listen to reason and
is likely to seize control in a crisis. Solomon wrote a comparison
of such a duo in, (Eccl. 4:13-14) “Better
is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will
no more be admonished. For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas
also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor.” The
very name of the new Indominus Rex bespeaks a king who won't take
admonishment. The dinosaur in fact did escape its cage. And an
opening sequence shows its sibling being hatched who subsequently got et.
I've written elsewhere that I think Solomon was speaking metaphorically of the small wise child of the early native English into which the King James Version (KJV) was translated, whose vocabulary usage has since become poor, this being better than foolish modern translations in our grown-up language, derived from manuscripts that have escaped their well-deserved obscurity. Be that as it may, Gray Ph.D. goes on to say regarding m-f relationships, “The most important differences that need to be nurtured are our gender differences. For a woman to stay attracted to a man, he must be in touch with and express his male side” (95). In “Jurassic World” this happens when velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) tells Claire-of-an-unsatisfactory-first-date as they are about to embark on an extraction of her two vulnerable nephews, that in the bush he is boss. The KJV expresses the principle thus, as applied to married couples: (Eph. 5:22) “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” My Criswell Study Bible lists the Greek term for submit (verse 22) as “hupotassō a military term which means ‘to place under’ or ‘to subordinate’.” The movie runs a parallel theme where the velociraptor pack submits to their “Alpha male” Owen.
The New International Version (NIV) breaks Paul's expansive thought on Christian body life into shorter sentences and then prints what was his ending clause (Eph. 5:21) as a separate paragraph unto itself, before starting the next (family) section: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” In the dinosaur world “submitting to one another” would mean not stepping on one another's toes. When Owen is in with the velociraptors, it's mostly his own toes he has to worry about getting stepped on, so that would undermine his authority with them to use this NIV enjambment. Dr. Gray says of the man, “It is fine for him to express his female side, but if he suppresses his male side to be in a relationship with her, she will eventually lose her attraction for him” (95). The NIV was copyrighted: 1973, 1978 & 1984, a time when our English language underwent deliberate modification due to problems (some) women had relating to men. Said Rush Limbaugh, “It's almost as if America went through its own feminist Cultural Revolution in the 1970s and early 1980s. Everything went mad for about ten years, and only now [1992] are we seeing young people who now view those years as somewhat bizarre” (191). Other movies I've reviewed explore this same phenomenon.
The Indominus Rex was manufactured by splicing together genes from the T–rex (lots of teeth), the cuttlefish (ability to camouflage), tree frogs (ability to modify heat signature), and perhaps others—these are military secrets—resulting in an unholy genetic marriage of diverse species. We could well call it a gay marriage in the sense of the term gay meaning (among other things) licentious, as used in the phrase, "That's so gay!" At any rate there's more marriage of genes in this animal than we could get by legally hitching two men or two women to each other. I've discussed this phraseology elsewhere on my site.
Production Values
This film “” (2015) was directed by Colin Trevorrow. Its writers include Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly and Trevorrow. It Stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Irrfan Khan, B.D. Wong, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, and Judy Greer. The cast also features Lauran Lapkus and Brian Tee. It's the velociraptors who steal the show. Bryce Dallas Howard is a good actress, but she's trapped in the sorry role of female exec. who's clueless about kids. However, she reprises herself during the second half as a sort of "You Tarzan, me Jane" heroine. Vincent D'Onofrio is especially strong as an underplayed rogue. One kid is cute, the other an obnoxious teenager. Chris Pratt should be promoted to a better picture, here he upstages everybody. There's more action in this movie than character development so any acting faults can be forgiven.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril. This is one that'll make you jump out of your seat, but there's no gratuitous gore and violence. The crowd is getting decimated, to be sure, but very little of it occurs on-screen, just the occasional splash of blood on a wall or an off-screen crunching sound. The original theme music by John Williams starts us off by evoking a sense of nostalgia. Michael Giacchino takes over from there, and I doubt he'll be much remembered although his sound does complement well the climactic fight scene. The visual effects are first rate, even more realistic now with updated technology, as are the accompanying sound effects. CGI is state-of-the-art. This sequel flows from scene to scene rather than from set-up to set-up as in the original.
Review Conclusion w/ Christian Recommendation
I enjoyed “Jurassic World.” It was everything I hoped it would be including a consistent subplot. One of my church elders is retiring to Costa Rica and has invited us to come visit. I think I would keep my eye on the sky for pterodactyls after seeing this picture.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years. Special effects: Absolutely amazing special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall product rating: Five stars out of five.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise noted, scripture is taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software, Print.
Scripture quotations marked NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION or NIV are taken from the
HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Print.
The Criswell Study Bible. Authorized King James Version. Nashville | Camden: Thomas Nelson Pub., 1979. Print.
Gray, John, Ph.D. Mars and Venus In Touch. New York: HarperCollins, 1st ed. Print.
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” was introduced in the 1944 musical: “Meet Me in Saint Louis.” Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane. Performed by Tony Bennett. Courtesy of Columbia Records. By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing.
Limbaugh, Rush. The Way Things Ought To Be. New York: Pocket Books, 1992. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org