Fallen Kingdom starts some time after the ending of Jurassic World with the park being shut down. Both Clare (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen ( Chris Pratt) have gone their separate ways. Suddenly nature decides to take matters into it's own hands and have a volcano become active on Isla Nublar. Now it is up to our two heroes to go and save some of the dinosaurs from the island to bring to a sanctuary that the unknown partner of John Hammond, Mr. Lockwood ( James Cromwell) has created for them. It just turns out that their are other nefarious motives at work.
Now not only is this movie just a cut and paste of the others in the series, it lacks everything that you want in a Jurassic Park movie. First the characters aren't really that enjoyable. I remember back in the original when you were concerned for all of them. This one features new characters with names I didn't even bother to remember because they were so insignificant. For example the character Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) was only put into this movie for comedic relief and if thats what they want to call it, thats a huge stretch. Everything that he says or does is so eye rollingly bad that its difficult to watch. It was almost as everyone else in the movie knew it was a joke as well. Nobody seems to really be trying.
What this movie does have is incredible CGI. Everything on that front is really well done. The actions are fluid and everyone does okay acting against a blank screen. But that is where the magic falls flat. Being a huge fan of practical effects and Stan Winston's work, it still holds up so well. This just feels extremely stylized and almost video game like. I realize that with a lot of what they wanted to do with this movie could only be done with CGI but the entire movie and every dinosaur was done that way. But lets get on to the most ridiculous part of this movie. The Indo-Raptor. I still do not understand the reason why in these series reboots they have to create new dinosaurs? There are plenty of other ones that they could have chosen but instead they want to just ignore real dinosaurs or throw their name in just for exposition. Finally they decided to have carnosaurus and a baryonx thrown in but for basic cameos. Plus now the movie has taken the villains of the first movie, the raptors and have turned them into man's best friend. It just doesn't make sense.
The first act of this movie is a repeat of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Go back onto the island to "save" the dinosaurs but they get taken but the big bad corporation and brought to the main land. Act two changes into exposition of the true reason why this is happening and the bad guy emerges out of the shadows twirling his mustache like a Bond villain. We find out there is no sanctuary and the advisor wants to hold an auction and sell the dinosaurs to private bidders. Third act is just boring nonsense. Lets just say that the "Jurassic Park" has now been replaced by a surprisingly huge mansion. It's almost like playing Clue and finding out how someone got murdered in the study. I don't want to tell the ending but let me just say that I could not have been more disappointed with the twist. The whole thing just has no heart.
Now before everyone accuses me of being too hard on this movie, I am aware that it was just a cash cow going to set up a sixth movie in the franchise. I know that. I really tried hard to like this movie. Who doesn't like to see dinosaurs brought to the big screen? Who doesn't love to hear the roar of the king of the dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus Rex? Now the snippets where they just had the dinosaurs eating people were fun. The cold open was pretty awesome and a few moments throughout were very exciting. There was too much drama from the people here and not enough of the dinosaurs. The cinematography was boring. Just pointing and clicking the record button and when substance was brought in, it just felt like a John Woo slow motion fight without the pigeons. It really hurts my heart but if the series continues on this path I am afraid of how much further it will sink.
Grade: F
Genre: Action
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of science fiction violence and peril.
Director: J.A. Bayona
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