10 Wildly Overpraised Movies

What The Critics Said: “A terrifically enjoyable and exciting summer spectacular: savvy, funny, ridiculous in just the right way and with some smart imaginative twists.” (The Guardian)

With a worldwide gross of $1.6 billion, Jurassic World is the highest grossing creature feature of all time, which comes as something of a surprise: it’s a sequel, it was made two decades after the original and it’s not really that great.

The film’s art is in its plot contrivances, and it succeeds in coming up with new ways of unleashing dinosaurs on characters with ‘cannon fodder’ written all over them far better than either The Lost world or Jurassic Park III. All of which is entertaining enough while it lasts, but don’t expect much resonance.

It also has the good sense not to bring back characters from previous installments and starts over with a new bunch of caricatures. There’s Chris Pratt’s lantern-jawed, invincible adventurer whose warnings go unheeded, plus Bryce Dallas Howard as the uptight boss who learns how to loosen up and kick ass once people start being eaten.

Also around are some Cute Kids (of course), a Corporate Villain who meets a sticky end (ditto) and some post-modern blather about the first movie. One character even wears a Jurassic Park t-shirt – acknowledging your own merchandise is a running joke in this franchise.