Movie Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Director: J. A. Bayona

Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Rafe Spall, B. D. Wong, James Cromwell, Toby Jones

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 128 minutes

I should preface my review by saying this: I didn’t really care for Jurassic World. While it was a like a dream to the 8-year old in me to see the dinosaurs appear on the screen almost as though they really were living and breathing creatures, the magic of it all quickly wore off due to a boring plot, uninteresting characters, and the fact that the movie’s predecessor series Jurassic Park was better in almost every way despite (or perhaps to the older movies’ credit) the older practical effects used. Getting that out of the way, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom made me reconsider if Jurassic World was really all that bad.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens with Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm from the original series giving a speech before the U.S. Senate about the dangers of allowing dinosaurs to roam the planet, and that it is probably best for humanity to allow the dinosaurs to die off. After this captivating and frankly reasonable introduction, the rest of the movie follows a group of people dedicated to doing everything in their power to go against Dr. Malcolm’s advice.

The basic plot of the film is the island where the now-defunct Jurassic World theme park was locating is about to be destroyed by a volcano, and along with it the dinosaurs that were left there. There is a conservation group called the Dinosaur Protection Group led by Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard reprising her role from the previous film) that aims to save the dinosaurs on the island. Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) the former partner of John Hammond (the man responsible for cloning the dinosaurs in the original series), also wishes to save the dinosaurs and has a new island sanctuary prepared to house the lost lizards. To ensure the dinosaurs are all safely rescued from the dying Isla Nublar, Dearing recruits her fellow conservationists Dr. Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda), a “paleoveterinarian”, and Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) a former IT specialist who worked for the Jurassic World theme park and now serves as the Dinosaur Protection Group’s systems analyst. Along with them, is raptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) who was recruited by Lockwood because he’s the only one who’d be able to find and capture the rare velociraptor Blue from the previous film. From here things escalate as villains are revealed and a new genetically-engineered dinosaur is released to wreak havoc.

It’s hard to say what the worst part of this movie is. All the characters are incredibly boring archetypes: Webb is the neurotic hacker who is afraid of his own shadow, Dr. Rodriguez is the tough former Marine who doesn’t take shit from anyone, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) plays the greedy businessman who starts off as an underhanded businessman and ends up almost cartoonishly money-hungry to make sure audiences understand he’s the bad guy. Chris Pratt is an actor I’ve never found to be a good lead for action or drama roles. While he excels in humor-based roles like Guardians of the Galaxy and Parks and Recreation, no amount of petting and clicking will make me believe that this goofball is a dinosaur tamer. Besides my own prejudices, Pratt’s acting in this movie consists of bad one-liners, rolling, and squinting seriously at impending danger. Bryce Dallas Howard is an actress that I greatly admire from movies like 50/50 and The Help, but in this movie and its predecessor I never found the character of Claire Dearing to be all that endearing. In Jurassic World she plays a woman who, once realizing her mistake in allowing the creation of Indominus rex, attempts to try and fix the problem herself along with Owen Grady. However, in Fallen Kingdom, any positive feelings I had for her were thrown out the window due to her new mindset of “save the dinosaurs at all costs”.

And this goes to my next point: the heroes’ motivation is near impossible to sympathize with. Like I said, the movie opens with Dr. Malcolm giving a speech about the dangers of allowing dinosaurs to exist in a modern age. The movie is also filled with small bits of Dr. Malcolm speaking about the dinosaur threat if they could live along with mankind, almost to reinforce the message. However, the heroes continue to go out of their way to go against this and prove Dr. Malcolm right as the dinosaurs tear humans apart almost every time they interact. I don’t want to spoil the film for those who wish to see it, but there are multiple plot points introduced in this movie that made me roll my eyes (chief among them why in the world would you ever repeat the Indominus rex fiasco after the events of Jurassic World) and the movie’s end sets up a possible sequel that I for one hope never sees the light of day.

The writing in this movie is pretty poor, with characters giving predictable lines for their archetypes, and I don’t think I laughed at a single “joke” in the film. On top of this (as I’ve explained), the plot and the character’s motivations are hard to sympathize with and, thus, it’s hard to enjoy the journey with the characters because they continue to disappoint at every turn with their decision-making. J. A. Bayona is a director I am unfamiliar with outside of his 2016 A Monster Calls, but in this movie he doesn’t do much to sell me on his directing abilities. To be fair though, it’s hard to tell if the movie suffers from a bad script, bad direction, or both.

In short, while there were very few things I managed to find enjoyable about the movie the overwhelming amount of negative makes it impossible for me to recommend this to anyone. While I’m sure there are plenty of children running excitedly out of the theater because they got to see dinosaurs tearing things apart, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom makes me hope that they stop trying to milk the series for money and let the franchise go extinct along with the dinosaurs.