There’s nothing quite like being stuck inside for 3 days with your family. I love my wife and kids, but all of us love traveling and going out to do things, whether it’s eat at a restaurant or go shopping or just adventure. Being stuck inside as things like global warming give us 60 degrees on Christmas and 2 feet of snow a month later makes life…interesting, especially with our penchant for extra-domicile adventures. We had to come up with our own entertainment. Thanks El Niño.

So what does one do when you’re trapped in your own home? Watch movies that you got for Christmas! We got started on Saturday with Jurassic World.

I was super excited about this movie. I heard all the people who were like “it’s just a rehash of the original. It’s such a cash grab. UGH, PSSH, (other unintelligible noises of disgust).” The older I get, the more I realize that I DON’T CARE IF IT’S A CASH GRAB! People said the same thing about Force Awakens and that movie kicked all sorts of ass.

Jurassic World was an obvious throw back to the 1993 classic.  The main theme was EXACTLY the same (not John Williams’ score…but that was the same, too); man tries to eff with nature and make a few bucks. Nature violently objects to being tampered with in the way of a giant killing machine going on a rampage of death and destruction. In fact, all 4 of the movies in this franchise use this template with a few variations here and there. Go ahead and yell and scream hipsters. “They’re all basically the same movie!” Guess who has two thumbs and doesn’t care?

This movie was fun. It took some of the things we know and love and put some interesting twists on them. You can apparently ride baby triceratops around! The T-Rex still has a great relationship with the local goat population, and velociraptors can now be tamed by Star Lord. Oh, and let’s not forget the two newest and biggest stars of Jurassic World: the Mosasaurus and the Indominus Rex.

Mosasaurus

I liked the way they played this one. At first, in the movie, ol’ Mossy (that’s what I called her) was more of a novelty act. Jurassic World’s version of Shamu, if you will. We see her eat a shark by leaping out of the water and then splash everyone in close proximity.I’m sure that water smells lovely with a prehistoric mutant swimming around in the water, by the way. I figured that would be all we got from Mossy. Oh no…she shows up later by eating a personal assistant (and the pterodactyl that was holding her, too. Kinda like a Jurassic Double Down!). She also plays a big part in the finale. I don’t want to ruin the ending if you haven’t seen it yet. Congrats on a great first performance, Mossy!

Indominus Rex

Dude…this dinosaur is a jerk! Granted, humanity and their greed and lack of foresight created this jerk, but still…he was vicious. If the Silver Surfer was a dinosaur, he would be the Indominus Rex; they both can do pretty much whatever they want and they were created by juicebags (Galactus and InGen respectively). Irving, what I nicknamed the Indominus Rex, has the strength and voracious appetite of the T-Rex, the intelligence of the velociraptors, it can camouflage itself like a chameleon, it can hide it’s heat signature like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator…and it escapes it’s enclosure. Irv also has a taste for killing other dinosaurs for the sport of it. Yikes. What are the staff at Jurassic World going to do??

Remember when I mentioned above that Star Lord himself, Chris Pratt was in this movie? And that he’s the “alpha” of a pack of velociraptors? Plus he loves his raptor buddies and won’t let mean ol’ Vincent D’onofrio use them as weapons. He’s quite possibly every man and woman’s perfect guy. My step-daughter was swooning over him and I was like “I want to hang out with this guy.” I think his name in the movie was Owen, but he’ll always be Star Lord…man. He’s going to save the day! He’s going to somehow save Bryce Dallas Howard who is running through the jungle with him in a smart, power skirt and HIGH HEELS. Seriously, she deserves a gold medal for her speed in those heels. It was damn impressive. She did manage to go from clean and presentable to gross in about 5 minutes while Star Lord just looked even more bad ass. It’s not your fault, Bryce. Your dad is Opie for crying out loud, it’s not like you came from action hero stock.

One thing you’ll never have to worry about with my movie reviews is expecting something out of a franchise that isn’t reasonable. I don’t think the Jurassic series is going to be blowing me away with intricate story lines and incredibly acted performances. It will, however deliver chumps getting eaten by genetic freak dinosaurs. This one gave us some water dinosaurs who can perform tricks and Chris Pratt being BFF’s with a pack of raptors, so there were some pleasant surprises…but nothing unexpected.  No one expects Colin Firth to star in a remake of Predator in the Schwarzenegger’s role, so no one should expect Jurassic World to be anything more than a lot of action and a lot of fun.

Jurassic World has moments where it almost seems like it was written by 8 year olds (“wouldn’t it be awesome if Star Lord was like…friends with the raptors? AND AND AND they like…ran through the jungle trying to fight some giant super dinosaur. WAIT, STAR LORD NEEDS A MOTORCYCLE!!!!) Well, who are we as rational movie going adults to say no to such awesome ideas? AND, in typical like-it-was-written-by-children fashion,we get an Indominus Rex vs T-Rex fight, or an Irv vs Timmy showdown if you will(yes, I named the T-Rex Timmy. Deal with it). This movie is a ton of fun. It’s thrilling, action packed, and everything you could possibly want when you’re stuck at home because of the weather.

Rating:

ComicsOnline gives Jurassic World 3 and 1/2 genetic-hybrid-killing-machines out of 5.

For more on movies that you should have seen in the theater, Chris Pratt being Chris Pratt, and a theme park that NEVER LEARNS IT’S LESSON, go to ComicsOnline.com! Check out our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and iTunes for more reviews and everything geek pop culture!