Review - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the sequel to Jurassic World which was a sequel-soft reboot kinda thing of the beloved Jurassic Park and the quality seems to be a trickle down thing. I know there were two other sequels between Park and World but the World films don't seem to acknowledge them so I won't feel bad for having not seen them. Anyway, Fallen Kingdom follows on three years after World when the island has been abandoned... Again. But wait, this time, the island has a massive volcano on it that is exploding and we have to evacuate all the dinosaurs to get them to the second and third acts of the film. Most of the trailers haven't said more than that so I won't either but it really doesn't get better than the act I just described. It's an okay plot however there is one big twist I didn't see coming. Now, I didn't see this twist coming because I was expecting it to go the exact opposite direction which initially was pretty cool, except it leads to the very stupidest ending I may have ever seen. Genuinely. I watch a lot of awful films for fun and this ending takes the cake. Because the film is still so new, I don't think I can spoil it but if you are interested, look it up and be amazed at the ridiculousness of the ending and hey, maybe then remember that THERE'S ANOTHER FILM AFTER THIS! It's breathtaking.

I guess there's a cast here that are to be talked about so I'll get into that now. The star of the film, unlike the last one, is actually Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing. She was the secondary character in the last film because she was the corporate type but over that film, she started to care about the dinosaurs and now, she's leading the charge on rescuing them from the island. That arc makes her the most interesting character in the film, although the longer the film went on, the more I realised that her viewpoint was so clearly wrong. Chris Pratt is therefore put into the sidekick role and... Well, he's Chris Pratt. He looks great and does the action well so I guess there's no particular complaints. As the actual sidekicks, there's Justice Smith as the nerd character and Daniella Pineda as the hot vet type. Smith was okay in Paper Towns but here he's just pretty annoying. Pineda does a little better but maybe that's just because she's not in it as much and is simply a bland character but a pleasant sight onscreen. BD Wong (the scientist guy) is back for about a minute and literally gets dragged away to safety at the end, clearly to come back for the next film. I guess these are spoilers but as the villains there are Rafe Spall and Toby Jones. Despite both being British, they ham it up with American accents and are almost comically villainous but not in the good way and I kinda felt bad for them, except I remembered what massive paychecks they'll get for this. Finally, Jeff Goldblum is being touted as returning but that's a huge overstatement. He's here, sure but for maybe two minutes total, doing a little speech at both the start and the end of the film. Great, good job, get that paycheck Goldblum.

You may have picked up that I don't seem to be a huge fan of this film but in fairness, there is actually quite a bit to it I do like. I'll start with the start of the film, a cold open kinda similar to the one from the first film which, coincidentally, is referenced later but I'll get back to that. The cold open has a team going to collect some samples from Isla Nublar but obviously, dinosaurs are still there and so they don't really come out so well from it. This scene and pretty much all the other action scenes are the best bits of the film. They're generally quite thrilling, visually interesting and most importantly, they really don't take themselves too seriously. One particular highlight is the scene on the poster at the top of this review, when the volcano explodes and our heroes have to run away from it, along with a bunch of dinosaurs. It's silly and gives us probably the best shot of the film for it (again, see the poster). Speaking of, the worst bits of the film are the bits when there isn't action, when it's people being menacing or greedy or very very serious. At pretty much all of these moments, the film slows to a halt and it destroyed the pacing of the film, turning what should be a deliriously stupid film ala Fast and Furious into a serious consideration of animal rights. Still, one thing that this film improves on over the last is how it references the original Jurassic Park. I'm sure you remember how shameless many of those were, such as the jeeps being driven around the park and gratefully, a subtler hand has been applied here (that has not been applied anywhere else in the film). The cold open of Kingdom mirrors the tone of Parks cold open, that same cold open from Park is referenced more explicitly later in the film, plus there's a wonderful scene with a decapitated arm. At the end of the day though, I'm not entirely sure if reminding me of how much better other films in the franchise are.

Going into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, don't get me wrong. What the trailers had promised me though was a film that was as fun as it was dumb and instead, I got an astonishingly idiotic film that was periodically fun. Against all odds, this may be the dumbest giant monster movie of the year and that's after we've already had Rampage (The Rock versus three giant monsters) and are eagerly anticipating The Meg (Jason Statham versus a giant shark). I don't think I'll watch it again unless heavily intoxicated but it is okay and I'm sure most people will find some enjoyment in there. That's why I cleanse my hands of this film and give it a