Every summer, the same complaint is levelled at Hollywood, and it’s a sound one: the blockbusters lack strong female lead characters. This year’s season started on a hopeful note, with Charlize Theron eclipsing Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road, and becoming the film’s true action hero. What followed in its wake hasn’t been terrible — by Hollywood standards — with the female-led Spy, Trainwreck and Pitch Perfect 2 all making loads of cash.
But Jurassic World beat them all at the box office, becoming the third highest-grossing film of all time — with a just-announced sequel in the works. Yet despite featuring Bryce Dallas Howard in the majority of its scenes, the film isn’t mentioned in the same breath as those female-powered hits. It’s a shame, because despite the valid criticisms that have been levelled at Howard’s character, she’s really good in the film.
Unlike Chris Pratt, her male co-star in Jurassic World, Howard didn’t have a massive recent hit prior to starring in Colin Trevorrow’s blockbuster — in Pratt’s case, that film was Guardians of the Galaxy, the highest-grossing film of last year in the US.
Due to that, Jurassic World was marketed as the dinosaur movie starring the dude from Guardians. Audiences expecting Pratt to take centre stage in Jurassic World were then no doubt surprised to discover that Howard’s character, Claire, propels much of the action. It’s largely thanks to Claire’s lofty aspirations that the film’s chief villain, the Indominus Rex, even exists, and it’s Claire who forces Pratt’s raptor tamer to venture deep into the park to rescue her nephews, thus setting in motion most of Jurassic World’s action set pieces.
Howard is solid in Jurassic World, imbuing the role of the ambitious park executive with authority and drive. She slowly reveals an appealingly warmer side once the script calls for it, essentially serving as the heart of Jurassic World amid all the mayhem. Without Howard, Jurassic World would be a cold affair.
Pratt has emerged from the success of Jurassic World as an even more bankable star than he was before. Howard got no such attention, save for a number of interviews and a lot of posts about her ability to cry on demand . It’s taken Pratt two blockbusters — Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World — to make him a global superstar. Howard has appeared in many more than Pratt, including Spider-Man 3, two Twilight movies and The Village, yet she has still to cross over. If Jurassic World can’t do the trick, maybe the sequel can.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
