My son is in that phase: the dinosaur phase. He never took to superheroes and only marginally watches the usual Disney-Pixar/Dreamworks that all kids do. Dinosaurs, though, have dominated every birthday, Christmas morning, playtime, and screen time since he was two. Camp Cretaceous couldn’t have come at a better time because it has been a huge distraction from the far away release of Jurassic World: Dominion. But is it up to its family name or is it more like Jurassic Park III? My review has the benefit of two diminutive co-critics to help decide.
The series opens by introducing us to the core of campers, a diverse group of teens that touch upon familiar tropes: Kenji (Ryan Potter, Big Hero 6) is the uber-confident but self-absorbed rich kid, pink-haired Brooklynn is a prominent social media personality, Yaz is a champion athlete who has little interest in being brought out of her shell, nebbish and nervous Ben is given life by the familiar voice of Sean Giambrone (The Goldbergs) Raini-Alena Rodriguez (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) voices the overly-friendly and talkative Texas girl, Sammy. The POV character and my kids’ favorite is Darius, the youngest and most dinosaur-focused of the kids who turns out to be the problem solver in most instances.
The kids don’t change a lot as characters. They do learn and adapt but they don’t change their spots. Really, they come to accept and appreciate each other’s spots. Who else could know the secret ins and outs of a theme park like a troublemaker? Memorize the evacuation plans like a hopeless neurotic? Handle animals like a rancher?
The animation is similar to that of Disney/Marvel’s Big Hero 6 and Netflix’s The Deep. Make no mistake, though: this is Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, not Paw Patrol. A number of more mature themes persist. Darius is there to fulfill the dreams of his late father, whose physical decline we see in flashbacks. There is social friction between the campers. And people are eaten. It happens off screen but we get to see the campers’ reactions to adults that are eaten, trampled, and otherwise ended by the gigantic, scaly monsters that had a family-friendly theme park built around them. By the later episodes, this series has as much in common with Predator as there is with Troop Beverly Hills, and, just a warning for your kids, there are no guarantees for anyone’s safety.
Spoiler-free but the series takes place during the events of Jurassic World and the continuity is pretty seamless. That’s the impetus for all the claws and teeth and screaming (so much screaming.) It also cements Camp Cretaceous into the canon lore… and establishes that this is not the lone season.
We’ve all become witness to a streaming service arms race, with Netflix doing its best to stand fast in the face of Disney+ to remain top dog. With the almighty mouse having absorbed so many of the multi-tiered franchises that have formed our collective, Jurassic Park/World might just buy them some breathing room. If six movies, roughly two dozen video games, a few theme park rides, and one of the most iconic movie scores of all time, and, now, an animated series doesn’t do it, it’s scary to think of what it will actually take.
