'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Review

It was only a few years back that amidst all the reboots and sequels being pumped out, all I wanted to see was a fourth Jurassic Park movie, a chance to relive my lifelong love of cinematic dinosaurs and oversized monsters on the big screen. When the first Jurassic World finally hit, it was a bitter reminder that not all beloved franchises need a revival, and its sequel, Fallen Kingdom, only reinforces that notion. There's some fun to be had with the occasional dino thrill and some interesting ideas presented, but on the whole it's tired, tedious, and flat out incompetently written, screaming to the audience at every turn that none of the cast or crew actually wanted to make this.

Set three years after World, Kingdom sees everyone's favorite genetically resurrected dinosaurs under the threat of a second extinction by an active volcano on the island they inhabit. Despite public warnings to allow the extinction to happen by Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum in a pointless and gratuitous cameo), Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) wishes to save the animals from this event. With the help of multi billionaire Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), Claire re-recruits former Velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to help rescue the dinosaurs by relocating them to another island. From there, they encounter all manners of dino-danger, chases, and the usual betrayals and turns expected of these films.

Starting off with positives, Fallen Kingdom should be applauded for taking some risks with its story, a bright spot in a sea of franchises only interested in copying stories from their predecessors in the name of nostalgia. Even Jurassic World made that mistake, but at the very least that lesson is learned here. We get to see a lot of story ideas that haven't been attempted in a previous Jurassic, and they're admittedly intriguing. In particular is the final act, in which director J.A. Bayona gets to apply his whimsical horror style that made The Impossible and A Monster Calls so engrossing to this film. It creates some great suspense with a visual tone never before seen in a Jurassic Park movie. If the entire film followed this style, I may have been more inclined to recommend this one, but the first half has little more to offer than the dull CGI-heavy summer blockbuster action fair we're used to overwhelming our senses to.

What makes the majority of the film so frustratingly dull is its lack of any believable characters and a story that barely holds itself together by a thread. It's more interested in contriving a nifty visual or scenario to put the characters in rather than crafting an even remotely compelling story. As a result, almost every decision made is baffling in how stupid and wrong-headed is. For example, while it's fun and incredibly suspenseful to see a deadly dinosaur slowly crawl to a little girl in her bed in a dark house, the feet are cut out from under the scene because there's no reason the girl had to crawl into her bed. An old mansion is a fascinating setting for a dinosaur movie, but then there's no compelling reason for the dinos to be taken there. The narrative is littered with ridiculous inconsistencies like this. It's absurd. The writing was so careless in their setup, especially considering so many smarter blockbusters managed to set up scenes of incredible spectacle and awe while still managing to make sense of it all.

On the acting side, nobody feels like they actually wanted to be here. With the stilted and juvenile dialogue, they all struggle to bring any humanity to their roles, merely being relegated to talking heads to forward the story. Howard and Pratt perform the usual shticks they've been doing for years. Cromwell, while a welcome addition to the Jurassic lore, seems to phone it in with everyone else. Jeff Goldblum may be given the worst dialogue of anyone, but thankfully he only embarrasses himself for about five minutes of screentime. The new young comic relief leads (Daniella Pineda and Justice Smith) almost never work, bringing a humor style that badly clashes with with the tone of the rest of the film. Maybe having just one or the other would have helped or having Pratt carry the comedy as he's done so well in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies would have helped better balance the tone.

While it's certainly an improvement over Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom is a frustrating showcase of a director clearly not having full control of his film and fighting studio decisions all along the way. Rife with stupid character decisions, a boring story, and awful writing all around, Bayona's style can do little to redeem it. For what tiny morsels it has going for it, many of the ideas presented could be brought back for a more compelling story in the inevitable next installment, but with Colin Trevorrow allegedly returning to the director's chair, I have little hope for the future of the Jurassic Park franchise.