RECENTLY VIEWED: JURASSIC WORLD

Now that I have two young children, I have not seen a grown up movie in the movie theater since 2010's comedy Date Night. A lot has changed in five years and mostly the prices. So for Father's Day my wife talked me into going to see the new film Jurassic World. I went by myself, but I am glad I did. I saw the first Jurrassic Park movie in the movie theaters as a teenager, and I have seen each additional sequel as well, and I had to see this newest film.

This is the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park film series. The screenplay was co-written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly, and Trevorrow. The film stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong, and Irrfan Khan. Wong is the only actor from any of the previous films to appear in the film. Set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World takes place on the same fictional island of Isla Nublar, where a now fully-functioning dinosaur theme park has been in operation for ten years. The park, however, plunges into chaos as a genetically-modified dinosaur named Indominus Rex breaks loose and runs rampant across the island.

Universal Pictures initially intended to begin production on a fourth film in 2004 for a summer 2005 release, but endured over a decade of "development hell" as scheduled release dates were pushed back several times while the script went through revisions. Steven Spielberg, director of the first two Jurassic Park films, acted as executive producer, as he had for the third film. Thomas Tull also acted as executive producer; his production company, Legendary Pictures, funded approximately 20 percent of the film's budget. The film was produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, and was released by Universal on June 10, 2015 in European countries, June 11 in Australia, India and Malaysia, and June 12 in North America.

I was a huge fan of actor Chris Pratt from his television work on Parks And Recreations from 2009 to 2015. As for Bryce Dallas Howard, I actually saw her in the 2004 movie The Village. I was worried that this movie would be silly and repetitive. Even though this is the fourth movie in the series, it was just about better than the first one. There were lots of nods and references to the first movie, and one minor star BD Wong from this first movie actually had a huge role in this film. Very rarely can a sequel, some twenty-two years after the original brief life in a film series, but they managed to do that with Jurassic World. I don't want to reveal too many plot details, but I highly recommend this movie. I am lucky that I have a wonderful wife who would let me relive my child hood for at least 120 minutes to watch this great popcorn film...

MY RATING: 9 OUT OF 10