Jurassic World

The park reopens 20 years later, the same corporate money making goals lead to crazy safety and environmental decisions in the pursuit of a dollar. In the original, the story didn't really matter. We were enthralled with the idea of humans interacting with dinosaurs and the visualization of this on the big screen was astounding. Today, the visualization is so seamless, that interacting with dinosaurs is the new normal. So the story better be good. And it ... well, let's just say it passes. Corporate interests looking for the next new attraction are genetically breeding bigger/badder dinosaurs. Military interests are pushing genetic modifications that might produce a bigger/badder weapon. People still visit as if this is a petting zoo. Escape, mayhem, human/human connection, human/dinosaur connection, evacuation.

I have seen a bit written about the characterization of Claire, female CEO of the park, and the dismay of the stereotypical/repressive representation of women in films. I went in watching to see if I could identify how the film could have been different in this realm. I don't really have any ideas. I can see that you might want to display a more empowered woman, but in a film like this I would guess that an empowered woman role would simply switch the genders of CEO Claire and rogue Chris Pratt. In fact, you probably wouldn't even need to rewrite the script, just switch the cast. But I am not sure that even this "empowerment" is what we are looking for. Another alternative is to imagine what a truly empowered female CEO of this Jurassic company would look like. My guess is that the result would be that the film is never made since this CEO would never open the park in the first place. I do think that the representation of women in film is a complex cultural issue. Is it enough (for now) to notice and see through the misogyny? What would it take to authentically portray women in film, both in action genres (where the empowered woman is written as a female acting male) and non-action (where empowered women are written as controlling and/or bitchy)?
3 stars (out of 5)