Harry Situation Reviews: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Hold on to your butts!
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the science fiction sequel to 2015′s surprise box office hit Jurassic World, as well as the fifth installment to the Jurassic Park film series. The story returns back to Isla Nublar (the dinosaur island from Jurassic Park and Jurassic World) where the dinosaurs are about to face extinction once again due to the island’s volcano about to violently erupt. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing as members of a team sent to help rescue as many dinosaur species as they can, including the Velociraptor Blue who is the last of her kind. Eventually, they all learn that this was all a ruse to auction off all the dinosaurs and genetically create a new dinosaur that is deadlier than the Indominus Rex from the last film.
As you all know by now, I absolutely love dinosaurs and I’m a huge fan of the Jurassic Park series. The first one is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time, and its because of those movies that I’m even a geologist to begin with. I actually did take a moment to give my complete thoughts each film in the franchise, that you can check out here: https://theprose.com/post/104809/harry-situation-reviews-the-jurassic-park-films
Jurassic World was a huge surprise to me. I intially thought I was going to hate the movie but walked out really enjoying it. To me, it was just the right balance between dumb and fun, but had everything I could ask from a Jurassic Park movie. I was very hyped for this movie based on the first trailer and every trailer that followed. What made it even more special, to me, was the fact that this movie was being released the same month when the first Jurassic Park movie was released 25 years ago.
So, after all the hype it built, did it spare no expense? Yes, and also no. Honestly, this one's actually a little hard to talk about. Let me try to explain the chaos theory behind this movie.
Hands down the best part of any Jurassic Park movie are the dinosaurs, and holy cow do we have dinosaurs. The special effects look much better in this film than it did in the last Jurassic World. The CGI looks improved and they used more animatronics to bring more life to the dinosaurs. And as a fan of dinosaurs, it was great just to see new species brought to life in this film such as the Sinoceratops and the Carnotaurus. Not only that, but this movie did get me to feel for the dinosaurs. The big discussion for this film was to determine whether or not these dinosaurs should go extinct. As someone who loves animals in general, it would break my heart to see the dinosaurs go extinct all over again and do nothing about it if we lived in Jurassic World.
Chris Pratt is still great as Owen Grady. He was honestly one of the best things about both of these movies. Mostly because its Chris Pratt being awesome (lol). Bryce Dallas Howard was great as Claire Dearing too. Her character in this film was a great improvement over the last film. Last time she only saw the dinosaurs as theme park attractions. Here she’s an activist trying to give the dinosaurs a voice for survival. And let’s not, uh, forget that we, uh, also have Jeff, uh, Goldblum, Goldblum, returning as Dr. Ian Malcolm, and, well, there it is. He has a small role — although I never really expected him to have anything larger — but it was still great just to have him in this movie.
However, the problems from the last film were not fixed in this film. For example, the writing is still bad. Almost all the other characters, except for Owen, Claire, and Dr. Malcolm, are still annoying and cartoonish. The human villains in particular were very cartoonish. They're all about greed and don't care about the dinosaurs. Not to mention that one character has probably the dumbest revelation in any film made. Seriously, I rolled my eyes on that part. The comedy was still the most cringiest thing in these new films. It didn't help make these side characters funny, it made them more annoying than the last film. If anyone out there on Prose was still bitching about The Last Jedi, keep in mind that Colin Trevorrow (the director of Jurassic World) wrote the screenplay to this movie and Jurassic World. He was hired to write and direct Star Wars Episode 9 until Disney smartly gave him the boot. If you disliked how Rian Johnson wrote and directed Last Jedi, you would have hated Trevorrow's version of the sequel. I'll admit it, Trevorrow really isn't a good writer. Not to mention that this film's story was kind of a clusterfuck with it being two different stories jammed into one two hour movie.
But what I really think is really going to bring the film down is its second act. This is where the movie really grinds to a halt. The second act pretty much is about those greedy humans and hammering in the message that "corporations are bad". The thing is, we already got that message from the first two Jurassic Park movies. Also, I don't fucking care. I'm here to see dinosaurs eat people, which there really wasn't enough of in this movie. Luckily, once the third act picks up it's back to dinosaurs chasing people like before.
Also, I’m not sure how I should feel about the ending. I’m not saying that the ending is necessarily bad, but I don’t think that would have been the route I would have gone with. They stated that they wanted the dinosaurs to have a land to themselves where they could be free, and then something happens in the film to change all that. My question is: why not take all the dinosaurs back to Isla Sorna? Isla Sorna still exists, right? There's no volcano there, right? The events of Lost World and Jurassic Park 3 haven't been discarded from canon, right?
There's a reason why I didn't the review about it sooner. I saw it on Thursday night and I have been puzzled as to what to really say about the movie. The more I thought about the problems, the more I started liking the film less and less. But ultimately, it's going to come down to this dilemma: is this film better or worse than Jurassic Park 3? To answer that: no, I think it's worse. While I do own Jurassic Park 3 on DVD, and I do watch and get some enjoyment out of it, there are some major problems in that movie. The biggest ones were that it is the sole Jurassic Park movie that doesn't have much of a plot or a theme, where Fallen Kingdom does. Not to mention that was the film that put the series on hold for 14 years. But Jurassic Park 3 holds a nostalgic place in my childhood. And at least Jurassic Park 3 knew what kind of a movie it wanted to be.
Overall, I thought the movie was bad. While there were moments that I liked and they got me smiling it doesn't excuse the poor story and writing. I'm sure they did this just to ensure that they have something for a third Jurassic World, but it should have been thought out better than this. We'll just have to wait and see until the next big discovery.
Positives:
-Better CGI
-Pratt & Howard
Negatives:
-The whole second act
-Writing & story
-Cartoon sidekicks & villains
-Questionable ending
Final Grade: D+
Alright, that's my final thoughts on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Have you seen this movie yet? What were your thoughts? What's your favorite movie in the Jurassic Park series? And what's your favorite dinosaur from the Jurassic Park series? Please be kind, leave a like and comment, and check out more reviews here on Prose!
Best Quote:
Claire Dearing: “Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur? First time you see them, it's like... a miracle. You read about them in books, you see the bones in museums but you don't really... believe it. They're like myths. And then you see... the first one alive."
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