Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

What is the Jurassic Park franchise, and what should it be?

Those two questions are sitting at the front of my mind the morning after watching the fifth installment in this series, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Sleeping on this movie was not a good idea; instead of being ambivalent as I was last night, I am now deeply concerned that this franchise is not going to continue being one of my more anticipated summer movie events as it has been for both this film and Jurassic World.

The predominant problem with watching Fallen Kingdom is structure and pacing. It appears like two separate movies were put together end to end and played as the final product. The first half revolves around getting the dinosaurs off the island of Isla Nublar, saving the animals from its active volcano, while the second half turns into a gothic horror-esque monster movie that is tonally inconsistent by itself. These distinct aesthetics and tones make the finished film nothing more than a bridge between the first and third of this supposed trilogy, giving it a lightweight, filler-like aftertaste that made me leave the theater dissatisfied and in denial about its flaws. Especially with the way the climax unfolds and its consequences, I could not help but think that this franchise could have gotten to this point in its story in one film with all the necessary plot elements intact in a pretty good and much more entertaining movie. This realization is not helped by Fallen Kingdom’s similarities to The Lost World, with many long stretches of the film being beat-for-beat rip-offs of that installment’s plot and characters.

Taking this movie as filler is further enhanced by the lack of character development. Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), our two main characters from the previous installment, begin and end this film largely in the same place they were at the end of Jurassic World. What little character development they get is largely from changed circumstances and not inner transformation. One example of this would be Claire now working at a nonprofit whose goal is to save the dinosaurs from their imminent doom on Isla Nublar instead of a theme park selling the dinosaurs as attractions; it is a change, yes, but because we first encounter her in the film doing so it accomplishes no change in our perspective of her character. The other characters we encounter feel lifeless and bland, there to accomplish a purpose for the screenplay – as a plot device, comic relief, bad game hunter man, etc. – and nothing more. It was a shame to see such a storied franchise do such generic things with its characters when its past has had multi-dimensional and interesting human beings as both lead and supporting characters.

The nail in the coffin for me, though, was Fallen Kingdom’s treatment of its themes. The Jurassic Park films from the first have at least partially focused on the moral and ethical dilemmas of genetic editing for the goals of profit and how absolute power not unlike the God-like abilities of Dr. Henry Wu and his team completely corrupt the heart of man; for me, this is what sets the first film apart so much from most of its blockbuster counterparts. This film, however, has maybe two minutes devoted to the debate about whether or not the dinosaurs should be rescued from the island or left to go extinct once again, and because for the film to proceed it must answer its own question it allows for no true exploration of the issue. The screenplay also likes to just spell out every side of its themes in plainspoken dialogue; there is nothing that comes close to resembling that brilliant scene over lunch in the first film with its unique characters and positions in the argument.

I will give director J.A. Bayona some credit for making this film look phenomenal and using excellent practical animatronics far more than I expected, but besides that I don’t have much to praise in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It is bland, bland, and more bland, devolving what once was a tower of thought-provoking yet entertaining cinema into a generic monster movie. Maybe the next film in the franchise can correct this course, but I’m not holding out much hope.

My recommendation: Skip it.

My grade: 42/100