Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom wastes no time diving right back in to suspense and dinosaur action.
Three years after the events of the first film, a lone waterpod piloted by two men scours the bottom of the ocean in search of the bones from the Indominus Rex. One seems incredibly nervous, while the other casually turns to him and says, “Relax, if there was anything alive, we’d be dead by now.” And then we see that glorious, gigantic mosasaur (fun fact: not actually a dinosaur) shadow lurking not far away. Honestly, this opening scene really gave me a Jaws vibe and set the tone for the rest of the movie.
Even though time has passed and no humans have been there since, there are still several dinosaur species that have continued to live on Isla Nublar, but many have still been lost. To make matters worse, the dinosaurs are yet again threatened by extinction due to a newly active volcano. This is where Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is now working with an organization to persuade the government to save the dinosaurs, comes in. Things aren’t going well though, until suddenly, Claire receives an offer from Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) — a man working for Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), a former partner of John Hammond.
Assuring her that all he wants is to save as many dinosaur as possible, Mills persuades Claire to get Owen (Chris Pratt) to assist them in rescuing the raptor Blue — who is the last of her kind. Owen reluctantly agrees, and so he, Claire, Franklin (Justice Smith), and Zia (Daniella Pineda) set off to capture a very illusive, very intelligent, raptor. However, as we know from every other Jurassic Park movie, never trust the people who wield power and money. It doesn’t take long for an expected double-cross to take place. And thus we truly begin our new story.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom pays a lot of homage to its predecessors. There were many times I excitedly white-knuckled my seat as I realized what was happening in the scene which was running parallel but not exactly, to a scene I had seen before.
For instance, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (aka Jurassic Park 2) the dinosaurs are brought to the United States, somehow with no one noticing. The dinosaurs don’t just roam around the city eating pets and scaring children, though. (Well, I mean, they do scare a child, but she’s a special case so it’s fine.) The film is also changing up the perspective of the dinosaurs. Rather than viewing them as an attraction or form of entertainment, the challenging viewpoints are something we are familiar with from our own experiences with animals — should they be used as weapons, should they be eliminated, or perhaps, should these creatures be granted the freedom to simply live in peace?
One of the best things about this film is that it allows development of the secondary characters. We all know Owen and Claire, but in Jurassic World, I didn’t really care about anyone else. Yeah, I wanted the kids to live, but I didn’t care about them the way I did for Lex and Tim in the original. I feel that Fallen Kingdom made a necessary adjustment to accomplish this. I truly liked Zia and Franklin. I was pleased and entertained when they were on screen. I remember them, I remember their names and things they did. I am also a huge fan of Justice Smith, so I was excited as soon as I saw him. Other than being in a ball, I could not tell you a thing the kids in the last movie did.
Fallen Kingdom is also, in my opinion, the darkest movie of them all. There are certain things you expect to happen, certain people you expect to live and die, but these expectations are challenged for the first time. And it changes the pace and tone in general that we have come to expect from these films.
The movie is by no means perfect. There are plenty of plot holes a T-Rex could run through, but to me, that’s not the point of a Jurassic Park movie. The highly anticipated return of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is great – while he’s on screen — which is only for a matter of minutes and is spent with him speaking to a council making a decision on what to do about the dinosaurs. For being made to look like a key element of the film from the trailers, his role felt rather lacking. It’s not that it was bad, but it was unfulfilling. When looking at it from a general film perspective, I’d give the movie a:
OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 / 10
However, looking at it from the perspective of someone who loves Jurassic Park and dinosaurs, I got everything I expected and more, for that I’d score: 8.5 / 10
Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is hits theaters nationwide on June 21.
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