A Review of "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"

So Jurassic World was a pretty popular movie in 2015 when it came out. I remember going to see it in IMAX with my brother when it came out and it was a packed house. Huge turn out. First Jurassic Park movie since 2001's Jurassic Park III, which is a turd I'm sure we'll get to review one day. So, while not being the smartest-written movie in the world, Jurassic World was insanely popular enough to warrant a sequel, money-wise, so out comes Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. For a movie marketed as a end-all, doomsday sequel, it was literally nothing more than a slight remake of The Lost World with some different elements tossed in that really didn't make much sense or really seemed very stale. The characters just never seem to learn that you don't fuck with nature, even through four previous movies. These movies aren't getting any smarter.

Three years after the Jurassic World incident, a U.S. Senate hearing in Washington, D.C. debates whether Isla Nublar's dinosaurs should be saved from an impending volcanic eruption. The fact that there's been two major mishaps on that island that has resulted in the loss of life, and two other seperate incidents that also resulted in death means that this shouldn't even be up for debate. The fact you have to debate letting animals who eat and kill people die is pretty ridiculous. Mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) testifies that the dinosaurs should be allowed to perish to correct John Hammond's mistake of cloning them, so he's the only one that gets it. Meanwhile, Jurassic World's former operations manager, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has created the Dinosaur Protection Group to save the animals, so she's definitely one that doesn't get it. When the Senate rules against their rescue, Claire is contacted by Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), Hammond's former partner. Soon after, Claire meets Lockwood and his aide, Eli Mills, at his Northern California estate. They reveal a plan to relocate the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary, so it's quite honestly the same idea as The Lost World: Jurassic Park just with some different twists thrown in there. Claire recruits Owen Grady (Chris mothafuckin' Pratt), Jurassic World's former Velociraptor trainer, to help locate Blue, the last living Velociraptor.

The rescue group arrives on Isla Nublar and meets Ken Wheatley, the mercenary commander. I already had a bad feeling when I saw that guy on screen. It's like the want ad for the actor said "Must be a venomous asshole and a feral looking SOB, Inquire within." Claire and former park technician, Franklin Webb (Your science nerd for the movie) reactivate the park's dinosaur trackers, while Owen, paleo-veterinarian Zia Rodriguez, Wheatley and other mercenaries search for Blue. Upon finding her, the encounter escalates leading to a mercenary shooting Blue and Wheatley tranquilizing Owen. Oh, look. The mercenaries are actually operating on their own agenda to bring the dinosaurs back to the mainland for other purposes. Kinda like that one movie...what was it called? Oh yeah, THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK. Jesus Christ. Anyway, Zia works to keep Blue alive while Owen is left behind, somehow narrowly avoiding a lava flow and not bursting into flames himself. After surviving a Baryonyx attack, Claire and Franklin reunite with Owen as the volcano erupts. They flee from the pyroclastic flow which really should have killed them just by inhaling the ash n' shit. Come on, man. Dante's Peak was more believable than this. They then sneak aboard the mercenaries' ship, where they find Zia with Blue. The ship, filled with captured dinosaurs, departs for the U.S. mainland as the island's remaining animals die in the eruption. By the way, that brachiosaurus scene you heard about? It was pretty ridiculous. I laughed.

At Lockwood's estate, Lockwood's orphaned, pre-teen granddaughter Maisie overhears Mills and auctioneer Gunnar Eversol secretly planning to auction off the captured dinosaurs to buyers intending to weaponize them. Well that's just...dark, to say the least. This movie took a highly political turn. They also discuss unveiling the Indoraptor, a new genetically-engineered dinosaur created by geneticist Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) using the DNA of the Indominus rex and a Velociraptor. Oh good, it's like Wu's a complete idiot and didn't learn the first...or second time that this was a bad idea. Wu wants Blue's DNA to create an enhanced Indoraptor. What good Blue's DNA would have in enhancing it? I don't know, it wasn't explained very well. Maisie informs Lockwood about the auction, and he confronts Mills, who murders him...which is again, dark. The dinosaurs are transported to Lockwood's estate and caged while the auction occurs. Zia and Franklin evade capture, but Owen and Claire are caught. Owen manipulates a Stygimoloch to break open their cell using its dome head made of solid bone. Hardcore. They then encounter Maisie, who leads them to the auction where the Indoraptor is being bid on, despite Wu's protests that it is a prototype. Oh no, it's like this is going wrong for some reason. The freed Stygimoloch disrupts the auction with Owen's guidance. In the ensuing chaos, Wheatley tranquilizes the Indoraptor and attempts to extract one of its teeth as a trophy, but it feigns sedation and escapes, killing him, Eversol, and others. Not gonna lie, that was a pretty cool scene.

Mills finds and tells Owen and Claire that Maisie was cloned from Lockwood's deceased daughter and is why John Hammond, who opposed human cloning, ended his and Lockwood's partnership. Something you never heard about in the previous movies, but it's brought up now so who cares? Also, human cloning? For a movie that's about dinosaurs eating people, this took a weird turn. Not to mention it isn't elaborated or followed-up on at all. The original Jurassic Park showed in detail of how the dinosaurs were cloned, requiring frog DNA to fill the gene sequence gaps to complete everything and make a living, breathing dinosaur in our world today. While a stretch, at least by my intellect which isn't very much, it was believeable. Human cloning on the other hand? I mean, I guess can believe it, but honestly...what the fuck. Anyway, the Indoraptor hunts Owen, Claire, and Maisie through the mansion. Zia releases Blue, who attacks the Indoraptor, causing it to fall through a glass roof to its death. So again, the dinosaur that was genetically designed to be superior and more lethal than the other, regular dinosaurs fails by comparison. Just like Jurassic World. Are we even sure Wu knows what he's doing? Is he even the great geneticist that two previous movies have built him up to be?

When a hydrogen cyanide gas leak threatens the caged animals, Maisie, unable to let them die, frees them against Owen's warning. Way to go, clone girl. Now dinosaurs are loosed upon society. How do you live with yourself? Mills tries to escape with the Indominus rex bone but is devoured by the Tyrannosaurus and Carnotaurus in yet another Jurassic Park style Tyrannosaurus roar shot. Owen and Claire leave the estate with Maisie, while Blue and the other dinosaurs escape into the wilderness, into our society. In a new U.S. Senate hearing, Dr. Malcolm says that humans and dinosaurs will now need to coexist, which is weird because technically all throughout each of these movies they've already coexisted. They're just now literally coexisting in the same space. The closing scene shows dinosaurs roaming wilderness and urban areas amongst people and the curtain falls. What an ending.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom had some fun moments, but ultimately felt recycled and not very original or deep. It's literally an altered clone of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The new characters were all stock, villainous bad guys who again, wanted to profit on the dinosaurs for their own personal gain. Owen and Claire are alright, but Owen's "badass factor" is greatly diminished by not seeing him command raptors and control them. Sure he beats up a few guys and talks to Blue a couple times, but it's just not the same. He doesn't command the same presence. The other characters? The tech guy from Jurassic World and Claire's two nephews, they don't exist here. It's literally just Claire and Owen returning. Ian Malcolm came back, but with a greatly diminished role. He has two scenes and about ten lines of dialogue. Oh and the human cloning? The topic it didn't even touch upon it after its reveal. So yeah, she's a clone. So what? I guess nobody cares. The movie is so stock, cliche and overdone, it almost didn't need to be made, but you can't argue against the power of the Almighty dollar.