Universal Pictures
It’s been almost exactly three years since Jurassic World opened to record-setting box office but so-so reviews. Hotchka’s Kim Tibbs reviewed the first movie and loved the nostalgia but felt some of the storyline was weak. I enjoyed Jurassic World in 1993 when it was called Jurassic Park as the movie was pretty much a carbon copy of the one that started it all. The others that followed are better left to history. So it was with the lowest of expectations that I entered Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
The story takes place after the dinosaur theme park has been destroyed, yet again, by rampaging, genetically created dinosaurs … because no one learned a lesson from any of the other movies. But now it is the dinos that are in danger as a volcano on Isla Nublar is about to erupt, sending the creatures back to extinction once again. Former park supervisor Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is now heading a campaign to get Congress to act on protecting these endangered species but the effort fails. Just as all seems lost, Claire is contacted by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), a representative for Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) who was John Hammond’s original partner in the endeavor to bring dinosaurs back to life. Lockwood wants to save as many of the species as he can and transport them to a new, isolated island where the creatures can live free in their own, human-free environment. And they want to make sure the intelligent raptor Blue is among those rescued, which means Claire will have to talk Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) into joining the mission. And he does, of course.
On the island, the team of Claire, Owen, dinosaur veternarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda), and tech whiz / fish out of water Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) grow suspicious of a heavy military presence with them. After Owen finds Blue, the table are turned on the team and they are almost left to die on the island with the remaining dinos but they manage to make it back to the departing ship just in time (and this part of the movie ends with a truly heartbreaking moment). They realize that there is something else at play here and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes the story into a whole new direction as it becomes clear that Mills has plans for the dinos that Lockwood is unaware of (at least until his granddaughter Maisie clues him in — and Maisie is also a pivotal character) that doesn’t involve bringing the animals to the island. And why is Blue so important? Because Mills and Dr. Wu (BD Wong returning again) are creating a totally new species of dino splicing together raptor and Indominus rex genes to create the ultimate weapon, the Indoraptor. What could go wrong?
Universal Pictures
As I said, I went into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom with low-ish expectations, fearing it would just be another retread of something we’d already seen, perhaps The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the second film in the original trilogy. Thankfully that is not the case. The film’s writers, Derek Connolly and Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, have crafted a story with a dark twist that really takes the series into a new-ish direction (but should a third film be made, this one does set things up to go into Lost World territory) and throws a couple of surprising twists at us as well. By the time the movie had ended — and be sure to stick around for the post-credits scene — I felt that I had been thoroughly entertained, surprised and on an emotional rollercoaster.
Aside from the story, terrific direction by J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls, The Orphanage), and stellar special effects, the cast is also top notch. Pratt and Howard slip back into their roles — and I have to applaud whoever came up with the several F U shots of Howard’s shoes throughout the movie in response to the controversy over her shoes in the first movie — and Pineda and Smith are nice additions to their little group. Cromwell doesn’t have a lot to do, but his presence — as well as the even smaller role of Maisie’s caretaker played by Geraldine Chaplin — gives the movie a little more gravitas. Perennial movie bad guy Ted Levine does his job as Wheatley, the man in charge of the mission to retrieve the dinos from the island, Toby Jones is a nefarious co-hort to Mills, and Jeff Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcolm to bookend the story. Rafe Spall is terrific as the film’s real villain, deftly switching behind kind-hearted dino benefactor to major slimeball, sometimes within the same breath. Spall’s been acting since 2001 and appeared in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Prometheus and the Dracula TV series, but I think this film will be his ‘big break.’
It’s not often that I’m surprised by a movie these days after writing about them for 18 years, but I have to say I was surprised, pleasantly, by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. For me, it delivered on all fronts, from story to acting to special effects, it made me laugh, it made me cry (a little), it made me cringe in my seat … it was almost how I felt when I saw the original Jurassic Park in 1993. I know the critics are already taking their knives to the movie, but speaking as a movie fan I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I think you will too.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has a run time of 2 hours 8 minutes and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.
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