As administrator of Jurassic World, Claire Dearing has a lot on her plate. Maintaining a 90% approval rating for a park of twenty thousand people isn’t easy, especially when T. Rexs just aren’t wowing the crowds like they used to. And, of course, we don’t want an incident like “the last time”. Not to worry though, the park’s newest attraction, a lab created dino hybrid, is sure to scare the kids…and their parents.

When Zach and Gray come to visit, Claire is a little too preoccupied to have quality auntie/nephew bonding time. Besides, it’s not like she hasn’t seen them in seven years. Oh wait, she hasn’t. Ah well, with VIP passes and Claire’s English assistant to act as nanny, the boys should be fine, even if Zach tends to be rather overbearing to his enthusiastic little brother.

Everything does seem to be going well, until Indominus Rex decides she isn’t content to simply sit back and attract the tourists. The dino begins displaying attributes and intelligence far beyond what her creators ever imagined, and is soon running rampant through the park, with the expected ensuing destruction and chaos. It’s then up to Claire, Zach, Gray, and raptor-handler and former Navy man Owen, to stop I. Rex before it’s too late.

My granny took Addie, Mason, and I to see Jurassic World and we really did enjoy the classic Jurassic experience of chills and thrills. The movie also makes some good points about family and priorities. Self assured Claire is completely consumed with her job, leaving little time or respect for others (on Claire and Owen’s first, and only, date, Claire wrote an itinerary for them to follow). As dinosaurs begin to rampage, however, she learns the importance of depending on and accepting help from others. Likewise, Zach is churlish and impatient with his exuberant younger sibling. It’s only until his and Gray’s lives are at stake that he realizes how much he loves his little brother and begins to defend and comfort Gray.

I also appreciated the parts that pondered the ethics of creating such a fearsome creature as Indominus Rex. When Claire is hesitant to use real bullets on the berserk dinosaur, saying she doesn’t want to turn the park into a war zone, Owen points out, “You already have.”

 Of course the movie has its share of issues, not least of which is the amount of violence subjected to the audience. A film whose basic plot is a dinosaur running amok in an amusement park is bound to contain destruction and mayhem, but Jurassic World seems to delight in showing us every possible way a human can be killed by a dino. People are crushed, tossed, smashed, clawed, and eaten at a frightening rate, many of them unprotected park goers. And while I’m sure the young man sitting next to us appreciated the excuse to wrap his girlfriend with a reassuring arm, it left me thinking.

Does the movie really need that much brutality and bloodshed? I know it’s an action/adventure dinosaur film, but the makers seemed to delight in showing us gratuitous violence. “It’s just a movie,” some people might say, and they’re right. But the things we feed our minds will shape who we are. Maybe watching an overly violent film isn’t going to hurt us, but what happens when violence in films becomes accepted and even expected? Aren’t we in danger of being left desensitized and calloused?

Claire explained how people were no longer satisfied with normal dinosaurs. Consumers want them “bigger, louder, with more teeth”, she says. Maybe we’ve become the same with our movies. But when will we say enough is enough? And will it be before we get consumed?

-The Farming Daughter