I was the tender age of 9 when Jurassic Park hit the movie theaters and I can remember vividly how terrified it made me … in the best way possible. Sitting in a dark movie theatre in a reclining seat with 3D glasses, I felt like the 9 year old in 1993 ready to pee my pants from fear and excitement. What a ride.

While the hype for this movie made me rolls my eyes initially (because what sequel has ever measured up?), I was pleasantly surprised to find myself welling up as the Jurassic Park theme played during the opening scenes of the movie with slight variation to give it its own voice. Most everyone knew going in that dinosaurs and captivity is a bad idea (As Dr. Ian Malcolm put it in Jurassic Park, “I’m simply saying that life, uh… finds a way.”). I found myself shaking my head no at opportune moments early on simply because I knew what was coming.

“God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.” -Dr. Ian Malcolm Jurassic Park

There were a few things that bothered me about this movie. The romance was unnecessary and, frankly, horribly developed. Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, (and a future cosplay of mine), was a typical heroine that we see in modern media. Hair perfectly in place, five inch heels and a clean silky outfit that she simply threw on this morning. At first. When it came down to it, she took care of business. In heels. Without the perfect hair and spotless wardrobe. Throwing a romance at her was stupid. This movie in no way benefited from the addition of this plot line. An awkward kiss from the hunky Indiana Jones ex-Marine Owen played by Chris Pratt made me wrinkle my nose, not hope that they both made it and skipped off into the sunset together.

There were big holes in plot lines which, when you have a movie that is a sequel to a favorite childhood movie, who cares, right? I really didn’t care, I’ll be honest. I would have liked to have seen some of the plot lines at least fleshed out, but it was fine because I was still shaking from the Indominus Rex playing soccer with a glass ball filled with children.

Quite simply, this movie got one big thing correct: we as a human race just never seem to learn from our mistakes. The nods to the original movie that can be seen throughout were lovely and made me smile a little remembering the T-Rex roaring and the Jurassic Park banner floating down around him. I loved that they chose two brothers for this film and that they were sent to be looked after by their fledgling aunt who runs a theme park of DINOSAURS. Cool aunt card automatically, right? Oh, so wrong. The relationships being strained was a nice subplot, but the audience was still sitting there thinking, “okay, but DINOSAURS, please.” The special effects in this movie were amazing. It helped that I saw the film in 3D, but the dinos were fabulous.

Chris Pratt. Oh, Chris Pratt, well done sir. There is a theme in all of these movies that there is always one guy who knows exactly what to do that no one wants to listen to. It just so happens that Owen knows how to take and give commands because he is Ex-Navy. Watching him train the raptors with a clicker used to train dogs (I always thought of raptors as jungle cats with scales) was pretty cool, I won’t lie. While, yes, this is a nostalgia film (and how do you rate an actor in a nostalgia film, blah blah), I think his performance was fabulous and would like to see him in another Jurassic movie if the powers that be so grant us another.

My final gripe with this movie was the ending. I wish we could have resolved the whole “mom and dad are getting a divorce” plot line, but we don’t get an answer on that. We. also don’t really have a romance at the end, it seems to simply be mutual respect on the parts of our hero and heroine. Honestly, it was a meh ending to what was otherwise a pretty fun rollercoaster of a movie. I laughed, I covered my face in fear, wound up in the fetal position at least once and genuinely enjoyed myself. Bravo.

In short, I give it a four out of five on the geek scale for still being awesome despite some minor issues. Also, the score is gorgeous, Michael Giacchino.