Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

We’re back! Yes, this review is incredibly late and this film might not even be in theaters anymore but I insist on following through! It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks so I haven’t much time to write about movies, but I have a free evening so here we are. Boy do I wish someone would pay me to do this. Anyway! Jurassic World!

How Are The Mighty Fallen

Jurassic Park was an amazing movie. It’s almost a perfect film, which we should expect from the director of other near perfect cinematic masterpieces like Jaws and Saving Private Ryan, Stephen Spielberg. With such a great cornerstone to build a cinematic franchise on, it’s a little sad to see what the “Jurassic Park” series has fizzled to. For all it’s problems, I still enjoyed the first sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Jurassic Park III was kind of a mess that felt like a tired retreading of the first two films so I was glad when the 4th film in the series, Jurassic World, came out back in 2015, subtly glossing over the second and third films and soft rebooting the series.

Unpopular opinion: I liked Jurassic World. Yes, it’s a narrative mess, the villain’s motivations make zero sense, and the kids were at best a missed opportunity for character development, and at worst, an absolute waste of screen time. HOWEVER. Owen Grady drove a motorcycle through a pack of Velociraptors. That alone, I believe was worth the price of admission. I was really hopeful for the trajectory of the series after Jurassic World but unfortunately, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom doesn’t really deliver a satisfactory follow up to my beloved “prehistoric monster” series.

People For The Ethical Treatment of Dinosaurs

We start right where Jurassic World ends, with the park abandoned and in shambles. In addition, a natural disaster threatens to wipe out all the dinosaurs on the island. Bryce Dallas Howard returns as Claire Dearing, who ran Jurassic World in the previous movie and now works as a dinosaur conservation advocate. After a sketchy rich guy proxy in a suit, Eli Mills (played by Rafe Spall), invites Claire to go on a dinosaur rescue mission she convinces Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady, a former Jurassic World Velociraptor wrangler, to join her and attempt to track Blue, the only surviving raptor from the previous film.

That’s pretty much it as far as spoiler-free plot summaries goes but honestly whatever narrative twists they have embedded in the film were either spoiled by the trailer, or are so glaringly obvious that it’s quite possible to work it all out before our heroes even step foot on dino-island. The film is directed by J. A. Bayona who’s done mostly smaller films and some TV, and honestly I feel like his talents are wasted here. I find the narrative of this movie incredibly shallow. The villains are mustache twirling caricatures and again, their plan makes no sense. The heroes are not incredibly well motivated and we’re saddled with a couple of pretty annoying and completely unnecessary side characters who try (and fail) to provide comic relief and act as an audience surrogate.

Chris Pratt is trying really hard to carry this film and for the most part I think he does a pretty serviceable job as our witty hero but there is a little bit of a tone problem regarding how he carries himself in this film. You’re not quite sure if he wants you take him more or less seriously and it can be a little confusing. Bryce Dallas Howard I think tries to make her character work but there’s so little for Claire to do in this move it verges on “sexy lamp” territory. Franklin Webb, a whiny, neurotic, socially awkward, indoor kid played by Justice Smith is the good guy team’s “tech nerd” and is utterly useless as a character. I would have much preferred to see Jake Johnson reprise his role from the previous film as Lowry, Jurassic World’s resident technician but alas, I did not direct this movie. We also get a pretty lousy stab at another “strong female character” with Zia Rodiguez, a paleoveterenarian (whut) played by Daniella Pineda. She’s less annoying and actually more interesting as a side character but gets so little screen time you forget she’s even in the film at times.

The film’s plot also relies a little to heavily on Deus Ex Machina and “poetic justice”, so much so that it robs our heroes of any satisfying reason to be around. Things happen to our protagonists too much and they don’t cause enough things to happen. It’s kind of a mess and I want to get in to it in a little more detail, so I guess… approach carefully if you’re trying to avoid getting spoiled?

Dino Crisis

Let’s talk about the villains plan a little bit. As in the first film, there is an assertion that dinosaur predators might have lucrative military applications. There’s a lot of talk about how animals and people have waged war together for hundreds of years, and their hoping to cash in  on that premise. It is true that armies often use dogs and horses in war, but those animals are heavily domesticated. There’s a reason soldiers aren’t marching into battle with packs of leopards, or the navy doesn’t use sharks to hunt down submarines. It’s because those animals will freaking EAT EVERYONE. Owen even jokes about this exact same thing in Jurassic World. That movie’s sleazy macho bad-guy says that nothing, not even robots, can do what a Velociraptor can do in combat, which is silly because… humans are smart, and we’ve solved this problem. You want to know how? Robots. The answer is robots. Drones that search tunnels, drones that fly overhead and scout the area, drones that drop bombs from so high up in the sky you can’t even see them with the naked eye. Trying to sell dinosaurs to an army at the risk of having the army get eaten by the dinosaur when you can just buy a Predator Drone is ridiculous.

The (Jurassic) world (sorry.) this movie takes place in is also so karmic in nature that there really isn’t much opportunity for tension. The heroes seem to be immune to all forms of injury, and they never seem all that worried about hiding from throngs of bad guys who are supposedly hunting them? The dinosaurs have also been reduced to a means for the film to deal justice towards anyone who does any wrong in the narrative and there’s almost no collateral damage (except maybe as the credits roll). Look, I love the idea of having a pet dinosaur. Having a prehistoric killing machine next to you, following your every command sounds like my childhood dreams come to life. The problem is that once you assign “value” to these creatures, where you have “good” dinosaurs, and “bad” dinosaurs, it kind of robs them of their teeth.

The reason the dinosaurs were so scary and intriguing in Jurassic Park is because they weren’t evil or good, they were just… there. So no one was safe, it didn’t matter if you were good or bad, you could get eaten by anything. The dinosaurs were passionless forces of nature that everyone had to deal with. The moment you start setting up T-Rex’s and Velociraptors as “hero” dinosaurs, regardless of how awesome that sounds to 12-year-old me, that means your human characters no longer have to worry about getting eaten by those dinosaur… unless you’re a bad guy. It drains the fear out of interacting with these monsters, and honestly it’s a little disappointing to see the Velociraptors get nerfed like that. It also means film writers will have to come up with some bigger badder fake dinos  to act as “villains” that your “hero” dinosaurs need to defeat. Why are there even human characters in this movie to begin with?

Finally, where is it written that Jurassic Park films always have to have kids? I mean… sure the books these films were based on involved children getting thrown in to the action but that doesn’t make it a necessary ingredient for a good Jurassic Park movie, as evidence by the fact that the kids are consistently the worst parts about these movies save for the first film. In the first film there’s a narrative purpose behind the children being involved in the park and it facilitates Dr. Alan Grant’s transformation from grumpy, threatener of children, to beloved, responsible, parent figure. The children in the rest of the Jurassic movies, have no other narrative purpose other than to be disobedient, unwieldy, pains in the neck. Sadly this film also involves a useless child that gets in trouble with the added bonus of a third act reveal that is just bonkers. The “twist” in this film that comes absolutely out of left field and is so contrived it’s baffling.

Welcome to Nostalgia Park

Okay, I’ve been taking a relentless dump on this film but honestly it’s’ not all bad. For one, it’s very aesthetically pleasing. This film is a looker and it’s very competently shot. Also the action in this movie is mesmerizing. Earlier in the film when you aren’t yet so sure that plot armor will keep the main characters safe, the action sequences are exhilarating and it’s just really enjoyable to see dinosaurs roaming around on the big screen. Seeing as how Jurassic Park pretty much has the monopoly on dinosaur themed movies, I’ll take my dinosaur action any way I can get it. There was also a really good attempt at involving some horror movie techniques in this film that definitely saved it from being unsalvageably bland. The first Tyrannosaurus Rex sequence was genuinely thrilling. There’s also something undeniably cool about having a pet dinosaur. I know I’ve complained about that a lot but… it’s also still so cool!

There is also a delicious Jeff Goldblum appearance in the movie and while he’s definitely imported a little bit of his off-screen eccentricity to the role, it’s nice to see a familiar face that ties us back to the awesome beginnings of this series.

The Verdict

Well it’s not a complete train wreck. It’s a fun action film with a lot of eye widening set pieces that thankfully balance out the plots more sinful performance. It is difficult to fully recommend because of these film making faults but honestly, how badly can you lose with all that sweet, sweet dinosaur action? I love dinosaurs, it is my bias. The film also concludes in a very… open-ended way that’s also pretty ballsy and wild, I have to say. It opens the series up to becoming Planet of the Apes, but with dinosaurs. Or Mad Max, but with dinosaurs. Oooh, I think I just got myself prematurely excited.

Watch It If:

• You love historically inaccurate dinosaurs and want to see dinosaurs. Dinosaurs running, biting, bumping in to things, roaring. Dinosaurs, They’re awesome. Watch this for that.
• You have a perverse sense of justice and you want to see the hand of fate deal fierce, toothy, punishment on rich assholes and dumb, sleazy hunter dudes who deserve to get eaten by dinosaurs.
• If you’re an advocate for animal rights at the expense of… humans?

Don’t Watch It If:

• You enjoy plots that make sense and characters that are relatable and well motivated.
• You find kids in movies generally annoying.
• You are a rich asshole or a sleazy hunter dude. Wait. Actually if you’re either of those things you might actually like this movie, if only to brag about how “I would get away with that!”

Rating: 2/5

Look, I love dinosaurs, so this film gets my money, but honestly, this was a pretty disappointing outing and it really isn’t required viewing. I can only hope that if they continue to milk this series for all it’s worth, they get a script and find a director that can finally give these majestic creatures the movie they deserve!