Jurassic World

20 years ago, John Hammond captivated people around the world by creating a theme park built to house real, live dinosaurs, not just props or animatronics. His dream was to use the park as an educational experience, as well as a scientific facility. That dream turned into a nightmare when one of the dinosaurs escaped and wreaked havoc on the park, leaving it to a paleontologist to save the day. Fast forward to the present, and a new park has been opened, and all of the mistakes previously made have been taken care of and the new park has been running smoothly. So smoothly, in fact, that business has stagnated, so investors demand new advances in attractions in order to bump up the numbers. As a result, the scientists in charge of the park have worked hard to both resurrect previously extinct dinosaurs, as well as new variations created by combining DNA of different species into one dinosaur. The result of these experiments ends up being a massive dinosaur called the Indominus Rex. Hoping to be the next big attraction, the park's staff release the Indominus Rex onto the island. Nothing can go wrong. With all of their precautions it's not like this new creation can break out of its cage and start terrorizing the island. Or can it?

I'll be honest, unlike the majority of my generation who grew up with Jurassic Park, I was never *that* big of a fan. I mean, I liked it of course, but it's nowhere near my top 10 films ever. Quite frankly, I'm not even sure if I'd put it in my top 20. With that said, I wasn't necessarily looking forward to watching Jurassic World when it was announced. I waited about a week after it was released to go see it, unlike everyone else I know who went opening night. After seeing it,  I will say that it was more entertaining than I was expecting, but I also still think it's a bit overrated. If anything, I thought it didn't really bring much new to the table that Jurassic Park hadn't 20+ years ago. Being the fourth in the franchise, I'm actually really surprised it's lasted this long. Granted, I haven't actually seen the second or third films, but everything I've heard is that they were the same stories except with different dinosaurs used, as well as being on different islands. If this series continues they're going to have to get really creative on setting up future installments, because the same "create park, fill it with dinosaurs, have them escape and wreak havoc" concept is getting old pretty fast. That might be just me who thinks that, but I can't help but wonder how this series can continue past maybe one more installment. Even that is pushing it to me. It also makes me wonder if Jurassic World would have been such a big box office smash if it had been the first in the franchise instead of the fourth. I don't doubt it would have been a box office hit, but I'd be willing to bet money it would not have been anywhere near as high. Time will tell if this dino-monster series can keep the entertainment value high on the next installment or two.