Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom follows through on the first film’s charming and fun “monster flick” approach to Jurassic Park’s legacy leading to a shallow but fun movie that’s great when it’s all about the dinosaurs and not when it’s about the humans.
Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, off Central America’s Pacific coast. The plot follows Owen Grady (Chriss Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas-Howard) as they rescue the remaining dinosaurs on the island before a volcanic eruption destroys it. In true Hollywood monster-flick fashion, things go wrong, heroes get double-crossed, bad guys eaten (in surprisingly satisfying fashion) and good guys win. But besides one plot-twist, there was nothing in the story that advances the franchise forward, leading to this movie being the weakest Jurassic movie in terms of storytelling.
What the movie makes up for is the dinosaurs, and they bring life to what could have been an otherwise moribund movie. Whether it’s the carnivores eating herbivores, carnivores eating carnivores, and carnivores eating humans, they make sure that you, as the viewer, is at least entertained, if not impressed with the movie’s definition of scientific ethics and morals. In fact, I don’t even remember the finer details of the plot, but I can tell you that the Indoraptor (the genetic successor to the Indominus Rex), is one smart and scary monster.
The mixture of Computer-Generated graphics and practical effects give substance to the dinosaurs, making them feel more alive than they would have if pure CG was used. I can see that the use of practical effects is getting a resurgence in Hollywood movies, and it certainly helps with making some scenes look very natural and realistic that you’d really wince when an Indoraptor’s bite breaks an arm.
All in all, Jurassic World The Fallen Kingdom is a fun movie if you let go of any expectations regarding the story or how the movie pushes the franchise forward. It does neither, but instead delights you with good-old dino action that’s surprisingly worth your time. Unless you hate dinosaurs, that is.
