Movie Review: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Directed by: J.A. Bayona

Written by: Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow

Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Ted Levine, Isabella Sermon, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeff Goldblum

On June 22, 2018, Universal Pictures' Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom hit theaters in its U.S. wide release. Written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World) and directed by Spanish director J.A. Bayona, this is the second chapter in the Jurassic World trilogy and the fifth film of the Jurassic Park franchise. 

 How many times do you have to see the evidence? How many times must the point be made? We're causing our own extinction. Too many red lines have been crossed. And our home has, in fundamental ways, been polluted by avarice and political megalomania. Genetic power has now been unleashed and of course, that's going to be catastrophic. This change was inevitable from the moment we brought the first dinosaur back from extinction. We convince ourselves that sudden change is something that happens outside the normal order of things, like a car crash, or that it's beyond our control, like a fatal illness. We don't conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as woven into the very fabric of existence. Yet, I can assure you, it most assuredly is. And it's happening now. Humans and dinosaurs are now gonna be forced to coexist. These creatures were here before us. And if we're not careful, they're gonna be here after. We're gonna have to adjust to a new threat that we can't imagine. We've entered a new era. Welcome to Jurassic World. - Ian Malcolm 

Set three years after the events of Jurassic World, Jose Antonio Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a darker, edgier story that explores various themes that franchise creator Michael Crichton's incorporated into his 1990 novel Jurassic Park, especially the dangers of using genetic technology for nefarious ends. 

As the film opens, a group of well-equipped mercenaries carries out an intricate and mysterious mission for a shadowy employer in what remains of the ill-fated Jurassic World theme park on Isla Nublar. This island off the coast of Costa Rica was, a quarter of a century ago, the site of John Hammond's original Jurassic Park, a doomed tourist attraction which featured dinosaurs brought back from extinction by a team of scientists led by Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong). 

The mercenaries' task: to extract - what else? - material which contains the DNA of Wu's genetically-engineered hybrid dino, Indominus Rex, the rampaging animal that caused the disaster at Jurassic World three years ago. They succeed, but not without cost: one of the team members is killed by a T.rex carnivore as he tries to board the team's fleeing helicopter. 

Several days later, former Jurassic World exec Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is recruited by Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) and his eager-looking assistant, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) to return to Isla Nublar and assist in a rescue mission of unprecedented scope. The island's once-dormant volcano is going to erupt, and Lockwood, who was once John Hammond's partner in the Jurassic Park project, wants to rescue the dinosaurs from certain extinction. 

Claire learns that her ex-lover, Navy vet and velociraptor handler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) turned down Lockwood's request to help, so she travels to the small town where he is building a cabin. At first, Owen also rebuffs Claire's plea to help her save the dinosaurs from extinction, but the next day he is on the plane en route to Isla Nublar, spurred to go on the mission by the revelation that "his" raptor Blue is still alive after the disaster three years earlier.

Of course, this being a Jurassic Park franchise story, not everything is as it seems. Yes, the volcano on Nublar is about to erupt, and the dinosaurs are going to be"rescued." But there are players with a hidden agenda behind the scenes, including Dr. Wu and Gunnar Eversol (Toby Jones), an auctioneer who has his own plans for Jurassic World's menagerie. 

My Take

Although I am not as big a fan of the Jurassic Park franchise as I am of other Steven Spielberg-produced films or franchises, I have enjoyed the five movies in the series, including Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. 

In fact, I seem to be liking Colin Trevorrow's new Jurassic World trilogy a tad more than I do the first and more episodic Jurassic Park trilogy, even though I still consider Spielberg's Jurassic Park as the best of the lot.

Why? I think it's because the storytelling focus in Trevorrow's Jurassic World is different from the original trio of films created by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall (who is one of Jurassic World's executive producers) between 1993 and 2001. Those movies were good in their own right, but they were essentially thematically-linked self-contained stories and not one story told in three separate films.

With Jurassic World, Trevorrow began a complex story that takes the themes set forth in Michael Crichton's two novels and their Spielbergian adaptations but breaks the paradigm of constantly returning to either Isla Nublar or its neighbor, Isla Sorna, where Hammond had set up InGen's Site B. In the key plot twist in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Trevorrow borrows an idea from The Lost World: Jurassic Park but takes it to its logical "what happens next" development - and alters the universe in which the characters live with serious consequences for both humans and dinos.

Trevorrow was originally interested in directing Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; however, he changed his mind and chose to co-write and co-produce the film instead. In his stead, executive producer Steven Spielberg signed Spanish director (and film studies professor) Jose Antonio (J.A.)  Bayona to helm this action-packed science-fiction thriller.

Of course, viewers who have seen the previous films will see that Trevorrow and Bayona are not reinventing the Jurassic Park wheel. The old tension between those who want to make sure science is used for good and those who seek to use it for profit is still a big theme in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and there is a lot of duplicities, greed, and even murderous intent hidden not too far from the plot's surface.

Some critics may feel that this is a tired cliche, and some of the reviews I've read say there are few surprises in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.  

On a superficial level, yes. The movie seems to fall into a familiar pattern that we've seen in the other four Jurassic Park films. You have your virtuous team of eco-heroes and a kid (it's not a Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movie if you don't include at least one child as a main or supporting character) on one side, while they are opposed by a cast of heavies backed by wealthy people who want to exploit the dinos to become even wealthier, consequences be damned.

But even though there are familiar Jurassic Park tropes galore, the story is pretty good, the cast (which includes Geraldine Chaplin, Jeff Goldblum, and Ted Levine) is a who-is-who of American and British actors who know their craft, and the usual visual wizardry of Lucasfilm's ILM and the late Stan Winston's former team (which now forms a special effects studio called Legacy) brings animals that became extinct 65 million years ago back to life.

In addition, the musical score by Michael Giacchino (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Star Trek Beyond, and Up) is spellbinding, enhanced every so often by quotations of John Williams' original themes from Jurassic Park, 

In short, unless you absolutely hate dinosaurs, what's not to like about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom?