I'm not so sure why it's so hard to make a good sequel to the original Jurassic Park (which is now 25 years old!). They sure have tried over the years. The Lost World came close... until it decided to have a T-Rex run amok through San Diego during its third act. Jurassic Park III (the first without Spielberg at the helm) looked like it ran out of money at the one hour mark and decided to abruptly end the film. The failure of JPIII looked like it spelled end for the Jurassic franchise... but then along came Jurassic World, which set the box office on fire a few years ago. It was an OK film, but I felt it was largely overrated. It felt like a remake of the original film, only with a working amusement park and better CGI. There were some good moments in that film. It was a joy to see how John Hammond's (the creator of Jurassic Park in the original film) vision eventually came to life. However, there were a lot of parts that I felt just didn't work... namely, the militarization of the dinosaurs. It didn't add anything to the film. It only served to introduce us to the villains behind the curtains. Sadly, this is what they decided to focus the entirety of the new film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, on. Fallen Kingdom essentially boils down to a slasher film with dinosaurs replacing a Mike Myers type killer... throw in some morally repugnant capitalists and you have the makings of a lackluster sequel (again).
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom picks up a few years after the events of the previous film. The dinosaurs are still running loose on the island, but the big twist is that the once dormant volcano on Isla Sonar is about to explode. There's a debate going on about whether or not humans owe it to these creatures to save them from re-extinction. Bryce Dallas Howard's character is heading up a humanitarian effort that is trying to lobby members of Congress to allocate resources to go in and save the dinosaurs from extinction... to no avail. Enter the Lockwood estate. He (played by James Cromwell with a barely there British accent) was the co-creator of Jurassic Park along with John Hammond. Lockwood is on his dying bed and feels a sense of guilt over his creation. He enlists Howard's character to go to the island and save eleven species of dinosaurs in order to send them to a proper sanctuary. The only problem is that Blue (the super-smart raptor from the last film) is one of them, and those evil military types want to use her to develop a super weapon. This is where the film quickly goes off the rails. They get Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to go along because he helped raise Blue. And it's not long before they're all double crossed. The island portion of this film lasts maybe 20 minutes. We learn that the man in charge of the Lockwood estate is secretly developing weaponized dinosaurs and wants to sell these dinos off to a who's who of foreign bad guys.
The rest of the film takes place inside the Lockwood estate where the auction doesn't go as planned. Scariness ensues (along with one too many Pratt one-liners), and the film sputters to a close. The director (can't remember his name) tries to insert some morality lessons about the down side to genetic engineering and our roles in the world, but these lessons feel forced. We get a cameo or two from Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm character, but that too felt unnecessary.
I'm giving Fallen Kingdom 1.75 stars out of 4. It's essentially a remake of the third act of The Lost World (i.e. the bad act) mixed with a slasher film. There were a couple cool moments, but it felt like a giant cash grab. I didn't buy the plot in this one and it was severely lacking in cool moments that made you say "wow." There was a moment that will make you choke up a little bit as they're leaving the island, but I won't ruin it for you. I've never bought Bryce Dallas Howard as an actor in these films. She lacks the range of emotions necessary for a role like this. Chris Pratt also does nothing for me. He lacks the comedic timing of his other big ticket roles (namely Guardians of the Galaxy), and he's a little too cheesy when he tries to get serious.
If you want a purely mindless action romp (and with the world the way it is, you probably will want an escape), Fallen Kingdom is serviceable, but as an attempted great JP sequel, but falls short once again.
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