4th of July Fireworks Guide

The official guide to the biggest and brightest 4th of July events in Dallas-Fort Worth

As befitting the unofficial motto of Texas, when it comes to Fourth of July fireworks displays in Dallas-Fort Worth, it's go big or go home. Although there are plenty of options for viewing colorful explosions this Independence Day, the following list only includes the biggest and brightest.

Most of the events are free, some cost a nominal amount, but all of them guarantee grand entertainment, both in the sky and on the ground.

Addison Kaboom Town
Kaboom Town, which actually takes place on July 3, has been the standard bearer in the area for years, but recently Addison has had to install measures for crowd control. If you haven't already secured a free ticket to get into Addison Circle Park, you're out of luck, because they've all been claimed. However, the fireworks can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Addison, and many local restaurants and businesses host their own watch parties, so there are still plenty of options if Addison is where you want to be.

Denton Kiwanis Fireworks Show
The Denton Kiwanis Club has been putting on a fireworks show for over 40 years, but it wasn't until Apogee Stadium was built a couple of years ago that they had the perfect venue for the celebration. The event features an array of live music leading up to the fireworks.

Fair Park Fourth
Another stadium, the Cotton Bowl, is the optimal place to view the fireworks at Fair Park Fourth, but the event is an all-day celebration. It features performances by the Razzmajazz Dixieland Band and ZZ Top tribute band Trio Grande, rides, games and concessions along the Midway, and more. Attendees are not limited to the Cotton Bowl for fireworks viewing, though, as pretty much anywhere in Fair Park is a great spot.

Fort Worth's Fourth
Taking place at the riverside Panther Island Pavilion, Fort Worth's Fourth is an extravaganza full of activities like Jet Ski shows, Flyboard shows, pony rides, bounce houses, miniature golf, water slide, levee slide, face painting, tubing and more. Throw in a concert by Larry G(ee) and the fireworks, and you have a helluva free event.

Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra presents Old-Fashioned Family Fireworks Picnic
Just down the river at Fort Worth Botanic Garden, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra hosts not one, not two, but three straight days of Independence Day celebrations, starting July 2. The orchestra performs the usual array of marches and military salutes, followed by fireworks. Clever Fort Worthians can enjoy both this and Fort Worth's Fourth by placing themselves in just the right position along the Trinity River.

Frisco Freedom Fest
The celebration in Frisco is a two-fer, as Simpson Plaza outside of City Hall has activities like a zip line, Euro bungees, rock climbing wall, bounce houses and a Taste of Frisco, and FC Dallas hosts the Philadelphia Union for an all-American soccer match at Toyota Stadium later in the evening. Those with tickets to the game will have prime seats for the fireworks show emanating from the stadium at the end of the night.

Grapevine July 4th Fireworks Extravaganza
There's just something about seeing fireworks explode over a lake that makes the experience extra special, which is exactly what you get at Lake Grapevine. There are no extra activities with this one, but it's one of the longer shows around, and people come from miles around to see it, so it's best to try to claim your spot as early as possible. If that's too much of a hassle, they're putting on shorter fireworks shows every Friday night through Labor Day.

Irving Independence Day Fireworks Show
Taking place on a (much smaller) lake is Irving's celebration at Lake Carolyn. You'll want to go to this event not only for the great fireworks and entertainment from the likes of Journey tribute band Escape and Jennifer Nickerson, but also to revel in the fact that Irving was named one of the best cities for Fourth of July celebrations by WalletHub.

Lone Stars & Stripes Celebration
Along with the fireworks at Joe Pool Lake, which cost $20 per car, Grand Prairie residents can get their fill by heading over to Lone Star Park. In addition to the fireworks, entertainment includes live horse racing, family activities and a concert by Incognito. As an extra incentive, free tickets can be had at local Ford dealerships, along with an entry form to try to win a brand new 2014 Ford F-150 SuperCrew Truck, which will be given away that night.

McKinney Red, White and Boom
Last but not least, McKinney's Fourth of July celebration takes place at the massive soccer complex at Craig Ranch, featuring live music by Zane Williams and other family activities. The goings-on there are actually the culmination of a day-long event that also includes a parade and car show in downtown McKinney that morning.

Kaboom Town has been one of the best fireworks displays in Dallas-Fort Worth for years.

Photo courtesy of Town of Addison

Kaboom Town has been one of the best fireworks displays in Dallas-Fort Worth for years.

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Movie Review

Film sequel Jurassic World Rebirth: stillborn is more like it

Photo by Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment

Scarlett Johannson in Jurassic World Rebirth.

Given how successful the Jurassic Park / Jurassic World franchise has been at the box office, it’s no surprise that Universal Pictures will find any excuse to keep the gravy train rolling. So here comes Jurassic World Rebirth, a film with all new characters that only has a tangential relationship to the stories that have come before.

And, man, does it have a lot of characters. Leading the way is Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johannson), a woman who is known for being able to procure hard-to-get things. She’s hired by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who works for a medical company looking to get blood samples from giant dinosaurs to make a life-saving heart medicine. Naturally, they need a dinosaur expert, which they find in Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), whose work at a natural history museum is coming to an end as the public seems to be growing tired of dinosaurs, five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion.

The dinosaurs they need can be found off the coast of Suriname, a subtropical environment that is one of the only hospitable areas left for the creatures. There Zora recruits boat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), who comes with a crew of three mostly anonymous people. And for good measure, Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) happens to be sailing nearby in the middle of an ocean voyage with his two daughters and his older daughter’s extremely lazy boyfriend.

Given the recent pedigree of director Gareth Edwards (The Creator, Rogue One) and original Jurassic Park writer David Koepp (returning to the franchise for the first time since 1997’s The Lost World), the film should be an unmitigated success. Instead, the filmmakers and their team stumble blindly through any kind of character development. The fact that they’re trying to introduce no fewer than 11 different people should be a big flashing red light, but still they persist.

Instead of making us care whether the people in the film live or die (spoiler alert: A lot of them die), Edwards and Koepp seem to lay all of their hopes on audiences being satisfied with yet-more dino mayhem. But dinosaurs rampaging or chomping people in half only works if the human component is compelling, which it is not. They try to gloss over this by having the characters encounter experimental cross-bred creatures, a story device that makes an impact with a monstrous one in the final act, but otherwise fails to land.

The film also yada-yadas a lot of the plot points, including how Krebs’ company knows they need the blood of these particular dinosaurs when they’ve never had it before. They reference events from previous films in oblique ways, but they run into the same issue every Jurassic World film has had: Not being able to properly explain the main premise of their story, given that previous events should have stopped them from ever happening.

Any film with an Oscar winner (Ali) and nominee (Johannson) at the top should be one worth watching, but it almost feels like neither actor knew what kind of film they were actually making. They each get by on charm, but even they can’t sell the nonsense they’re asked to say. Bailey, who played Fiyero in Wicked, is given a weird nothing part, while Friend plays the villain with little verve. We hardly get to know anyone else, but Audrina Miranda, who plays the youngest daughter on the sailboat, is super-cute and gets a couple of decent emotional moments.

As with the Marvel movies, there is bound to come a time when the general moviegoing public gets tired of being served mediocre Jurassic movies. If any of the franchise’s movies deserves to be the stopping point, it’s this one, with a non-starter of a story and little to get excited about when it comes to the dinosaurs.

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Jurassic World Rebirth opens in theaters on July 2.

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