Jurassic World

In Jurassic World, Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic Park reboot -- set 22 years after dinosaurs started walking the Earth, again -- brontosauruses, stegosauruses, and velociraptors have become old hat, sort of like the mechanical Abe Lincoln at Disneyland. Meanwhile, the habitat around them has gone Vegas: Isla Nublar, home of the former dinosaur lunch counter known as Jurassic Park, is now the site of a sleek, multimillion-dollar resort known as Jurassic World, which boasts a petting zoo, an aviary, and a Brookstone (because you never know when the desire for a vibrating neck massager might strike).

Because Jurassic World has been operating smoothly for years, attendees have become bored. And so the resort's resident genetic experts have monkeyed inappropriately with DNA to breed a new creature, a dino the size of a skyscraper, with frosty white skin and eyes the color of fire opals. She's an inscrutable, ill-tempered beastie, but the suits in charge are banking on her as their next star attraction, sort of like Cher at the Colosseum.

As far as all that stuff goes -- and taking into account the often gorgeous special effects -- Jurassic World is pretty good fun with some wondrous moments. The plot banked around all that grandness is essentially serviceable, but it's all quality product, with the slickness -- and soullessness -- that implies. Trevorrow has directed only one previous fiction feature, the 2012 indie romance-thriller Safety Not Guaranteed, but in Jurassic World he orchestrates big special effects like a pro, for whatever that's worth. The picture is sleek and impressive, although, as with its predecessors, how much you enjoy it will depend on your tolerance for watching dinosaurs chomp down on terrified humans.