Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin
Directed by: J.A. Bayona
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: When an imminent volcanic eruption threatens to destroy the remaining living dinosaurs, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) attempt a daring rescue operation.

Review:

Tim: I have to say, this is the moment when the Jurassic Park franchise wore out its welcome. I've always been overly kind to these movies. The original is still one of the greatest movies of all time. I liked The Lost World: Jurassic Park more than I should have. I was able to overlook the flaws in Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World. But the mounting issues have finally become too much. I wouldn't say this franchise has "jumped the shark", but I fear it is entering a downward spiral from which it will not recover.

It's pretty ridiculous how many times human beings have messed with dinosaurs at this point. The fifth film in the franchise is when the story finally started to wear thin. Now, the movie does try to do something different. That's good- but what it does unfortunately doesn't work. I still am not clear on exactly what the "bad guys" were after. The main story line involves a bunch of rich people bidding on dinosaurs at an auction. It seems like the central idea is to weaponize them somehow. I have to be honest- this made zero sense to me. If we've learned anything from the previous four movies, it's that dinosaurs are unpredictable, uncontrollable, and dangerous. Sure, the new hybrid dinosaur apparently has some apparatus that forces it to attack where a gun is aimed. This still made no sense. In 2018, with the rampant technology we have available, what good would a dinosaur be as a weapon? What possible use could it have? It would be a pretty obvious, visible assassin. How would you get the dinosaur out after it killed whomever it was supposed to kill? And despite what the movies tell us, a dinosaur isn't all that hard to kill with modern weaponry. This aspect of the film was one of the weakest. It makes zero sense and the film crumbles under this terrible idea.

The script has a whole host of other problems. I was rolling my eyes at the transparency of the plot and the thin reasons why Claire and Owen would return to the island. Everything felt so ridiculous. The script felt like a bad first draft that needed to go through multiple rewrites before it was actually made. I was fairly stunned that the following up to one of the highest grossing movies of all time put forward such a pitiful story. The characters were atrocious, too. Outside of Claire and Owen, things get bad quickly. You have the tough-as-nails scientist chick. You have the goofy IT expert (who in real life would never have accompanied the team in this way). You have the token child character who thinks and acts unlike most children and of course, plays a vital role in saving the day. The supporting characters were a collection of cliches and the lazy writing really bothered me.

The visual effects were fine, but we've lost that sense of awe that Steven Spielberg created with the original. The dinosaurs are certainly cool to look at and we get a fair share of obvious moments highlighting how cool the dinosaurs are. One ridiculous moment involved the Tyrannosaurus Rex posturing for no reason other than it was a cool shot. The volcanic explosion is pretty cool, but that was almost all we saw in the trailers, so it felt like we'd seen it before. Outside of that, the rest of the movie is pretty average.

I like Chris Pratt, even though his character is surprisingly boring. He was decent here, although his character is surprisingly unmemorable. Bryce Dallas Howard gave a good performance as Claire. Rafe Spall was far too over-the-top and obvious with his performance. I groaned at some of his acting. Justice Smith felt miscast as the IT expert. He was supposed to bring levity and laughs to the film. His comedic timing was surprisingly bad. I don't think I laughed at a single crack he made. Daniella Pineda was fine, but her character was annoying. I loved seeing James Cromwell here- he certainly made the movie better. Jeff Goldblum was completely wasted in one meaningless scene. The movie would have been better if his role had any substance to it. It's always fun to see BD Wong, and Toby Jones wasn't bad. The cast as a whole was "meh".

Look, there's always going to be something amazing about seeing dinosaurs depicted on the big screen. I'm not suggesting this is a joyless sequel. However, many of the decisions of the previous movie hurt this one. I like director J.A. Bayona, but this is the worst movie of his I've seen. This felt like a film suffering a hangover from the unexpected success of the previous one. This is a movie in a franchise on autopilot. I would never have suspected I'd feel so ambivalent about a Jurassic Park movie, but here we are. There will certainly be a third movie to round out the Jurassic World trilogy and I have very little desire to see it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park III, Jurassic World, A Monster Calls