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agentnico · 6 years

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) Review

Remember when Killmonger says in Black Panther earlier this year “you think he’s your king? Nah...I’m your king!” The T-Rex in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom basically goes by that motto, well, maybe saying queen instead of king, because the animals in Jurassic Park are female.

Plot: When the island's dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen and Claire mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event.

The first Jurassic World film was fine. It didn’t recapture the magic of the original Jurassic Park, but it was an enjoyable shove-popcorn-in-your-mouth and see dinosaurs-shove-humans-in-their-mouths kind of film. Now we have the inevitable sequel which to be honest does make sense, since the first one did make over a billion at the box office, so even though it is a most definite cash grab, I do accept that in this scenario its very well founded. However now instead of Colin Trevorrow we have J.A. Bayona of A Monster Calls fame taking over the director’s chair, though Trevorrow does write the screenplay alongside Derek Connolly. But that brings me straight away to the issue of this film. It’s two different visions, the director’s and the screenwriters’, and they simply do not mesh together well. In addition, even the film’s plot-line feels like two different films. with the first half being the events on the island with Owen and Claire trying to save the dinosaurs from Pompeii, then the second half being set in Luigi’s mansion with an auction of the dinosaurs, and these two plot-lines don’t mix well together. This is mainly due to the script being very weak, having hollow dialogue, a story filled with plot holes and decisions dumber than Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber. Then there is also no escaping the fact that this film, at least partially, is a knock off of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, at least the first half, though, ironically, it is that first half that is set on the island that’s more interesting than the events that follow with the auction. From the opening scene, you are hooked and on board with the whole thing, as ridiculous as it may be, all away till they leave the island, after which the film begins to dip, and though you are still entertained, there are many dull and boring parts where I personally began to zone out. However, on a positive side, the title Jurassic World is now justified.

Again, I’d like to reiterate the part about dumb decisions, as this film is filled with them. A soldier guy walking into a cage with a dinosaur thinking he’s macho-man, well, serves the macho-man right, he’s gone and been swallowed. The T-Rex!...my gosh, the T-Rex in this movie. She’s hardly in it, but for the moments she was were unintentionally the most ludicrous and funniest things that happened on screen. So there’s this scene on the island where everything is going to sh**, and Owen, Claire and this nerdy dude get stuck face to face with this angry dino-dino-jungle animal who wants to go chomp-chomp-chomp. But low and behold, the T-Rex comes out of nowhere and saves the day by attacking the hungry dinosaur and showing who’s the real cool kid in school! Fair enough, I can accept that, the T-Rex wants to show off its dominance, alright. But then you’d think it go for Owen and the other humans. No, she just gives a good old roar and then waddles away like a duck. It’s not that funny when I just describe it, watch the film for yourself for that scene alone, the fact how anti-climactic it is truly is hilarious. And in general there are a lot of stupid decisions thrown throughout the film, and I honestly think that the reason for that is the poorly written script, as you can very much see in various parts of the film J.A. Bayona’s artistic directing style pop up here and there and shine. A great shot that comes to mind is one where this dinosaur is creeping around the bedroom of this little girl and we see a close-up of the head of this toy horse and then behind it appears the shadow of the dinosaur head which I found to be visually an interesting composition. As I said, this movie is actually filmed quite overall, it is the script that pulls it down.

It was nice to see the use of practical effects, as in this day and age so many blockbusters rely purely on CGI, and with so much CGI on-screen the result becomes visually very fake and non believable. With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom there is also a lot of CGI which, again, at times looks very unrealistic, however there are certain scenes where animatronics are used with obviously the eyes CGI’d but as a whole being fully practical, so I very much don’t mind the use of CGI, it just looks much more perfected as when in mixture with practical effects, and this film does offer a bit of that.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard (now without heels) both return from the previous films, and my issue with the previous one was the fact how one-note I found both of them to be. Here however it feels like there was more progression and development to them, as they were much more interesting to watch, and even Pratt’s natural sarcastic tone has been toned down to balance with the rest of the film, and to be honest, Chris Pratt the way he is in this film is probably at his best. His relationship with the raptor Blue is also the stronghold of the entire piece. Howard is enjoyable too, however she does once again suffer from constantly being the damsel in distress, but she does also get her moment to shine. Though again the issue does arise that even though they have chemistry, Pratt’s and Howard’s relationship in this film is hard to believe, just like in the previous film. Rafe Spall and Toby Jones play the villains, and Spall does fine, however his villain is at the end of the day a generic baddie. Toby Jones is just under-used and his role could have been played by anyone. Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong both make appearances too, however their roles are so minor that if you are planning to see the film for either of them, don’t bother.

Look, at the end of the day this film has many flaws, Its all over the place and generally bland, yet for a popcorn flick its enjoyable for what it is. I mean, let’s be honest, at the end of the day you’re going to see this film for a bunch of dinosaurs, and, can’t lie, you get exactly that. But as a film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is okay at best.

Overall score: 5/10

TOP MOVIE QUOTE: “Change is like death. You don’t know what it looks like until you’re standing at the gates.”

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