Is Jurassic World OK for children? #FandangoFamily

Imagine for a moment that Jurassic Park had never been made and the cultural impact that it created did not exist. If that were the case then Jurassic World and its plot would air just after Sharknado. Two lost teens (whose parents are getting divorced!), mutant dinosaurs, a dino trainer, kids in danger, hungry animals and more make up Jurassic World. It’s rated PG-13 and some movies with this rating are A-OK for tweens and young teens, but is Jurassic World OK for children?

Jurassic Park was tame in hindsight. The most graphic image was that of that worker getting chomped in two by the T-Rex.  Go forward 20 years and Jurassic World pays homage to that film by talking about how quaint it was that they only had real dinosaurs and not genetically modified ones. There are also a couple props used in that film that make their appearance in ways that genuinely help move the film forward while respecting the source material.

This time the park attracts 20,000 people a day and has a complete infrastructure in place to manage them and the creatures that live on the island. There are various shows, souvenir stands and the other requisite things you’d expect from going to a major theme park.

Being a Steven Spielberg film there are a couple children in danger. I look at this aspect in two ways. It helps bring in that age audience so that they can relate to their danger. It also helps ensure that the rating will be PG or PG-13. There is also the reaction that horror films evoke when adults want to scream at the screen ‘don’t go into the water’. Or in this case, ‘don’t go to the dinosaur island’, which in this case isn’t true.

Jurassic World is entertaining, but it’s fun in the light summer popcorn fare of films.  Adults will enjoy the film, but be able to predict what’s happening and possibly wish that they saw Fury Road again or instead.

Teens, depending on their comfort level of predatory animal violence will like it. There are several scenes where people are eaten, chomped, stomped, maimed, shot or chased by dinosaurs. Younger viewers will be especially put off by a pterodactyl that picks up a person, only to have the two of them slapped around in the water and then eaten. That act, in and of itself isn’t too bad, but the scene has blood that splatters across the screen.

I offered to take some teen and tween friends of mine and their parent let me know that they were a bit squeamish when it comes to violence and blood. For them Jurassic World is way off of their radar. Actually the film is a hard PG-13, closer to an R rating than a PG. There isn’t any language that’s worse than what they hear in school, but it’s the violence, combined with a couple scenes of sexual innuendo and violence that will put parents of kids 12 and under off of this film.

Older teens, 15 and up will love the film because they don’t really have a connection to the first film. In the cannon of Jurassic this ranks near the first one, partially because its plot, action and story are so similar to it.