Dinosaurs, excitement in short supply in Fallen Kingdom

Chris Pratt in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is not a good movie. It is, in fact, a remarkably bad movie whose sole enjoyment comes from its lack of quality. Fallen Kingdom is mind-numbingly awful, a disgrace to the legacy established 25 years ago. This movie serves as yet another reminder of mankind’s hubris, a testament to the dangers of recapturing an extinct past.

Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt are back a few years after watching an entire island of dinosaurs attempt to eat its guests. This time around, they want to save those dinosaurs from an impending volcano eruption on Isla Nublar. They're joined by a pair of dinosaur fanatics (Justice Smith and Daniella Pineda), and a collection of soldiers to save as many dinosaurs as possible. At least, that is the idea, although those plans go to pot once some of the pool of Toby Jones, Rafe Spall, James Cromwell, and Ted Levine, try to once again profit off the poor creatures. Jeff Goldblum makes a brief return as Ian Malcolm, although his shirts remain fully buttoned. And there are the dinosaurs, with a few standbys (the T-Rex and the Velociraptor named Blue) and a new dinosaur that will make for a mediocre toy.

Essentially, the thrill of seeing a dinosaur has gone away. The previous Jurassic Park franchise entries possessed at least a modicum of wonder for the dinosaurs, using John Williams' brilliant score to convey their inherent majesty. With Fallen Kingdom, the dinosaurs serve as pets or menaces, in both scenarios representing a step toward humankind's eventual self destruction. But they aren’t magical anymore, the brilliant impossibility of the premise has become lost and nearly forgotten. The one moment Fallen Kingdom takes to absorb the spectacle of it all is ultimately lackluster and marred by an incredibly stupid decision by one of the main characters. Even after a decade-plus siesta to recharge and come up with new and better ideas, this franchise is so tired the minds behind it can't make the classics work anymore. 

 

The beats in Fallen Kingdom belong to the franchise's previous entries. The looming threats of menace, the dinosaurs lurking right behind characters waiting to bite, the T-Rex that comes out of nowhere to wantonly save the protagonists or punish a villain at the exact right moment. All have been done before in earlier Jurassic Park movies. And, frankly, all of those movies did it leagues better than Fallen Kingdom. It's gotten to the point where the beats are so obvious, so telegraphed and silly, the series has become a parody of itself. Fear has transformed into camp, the dinosaurs devolving from the things that go bump in the night into comedic prompts with fantastical timing. Camp could work in a series like Jurassic Park, taking a little bite off of the seriousness and just letting the dinosaurs frolic and eat people because people are more filling than small critters. Fallen Kingdom has a lesson to teach about valuing life in all of its forms, a fairly important message that is both poorly conveyed and very much inappropriate in camp. Camp works because the point doesn't ultimately matter; a sincere message is the death of good camp.

Fallen Kingdom is bogged down by incompetence. The movie is rife with bad dialog and worst exposition, a premise that effectively makes the characters from Jurassic World look like idiots, and awkward plotting that leaves many a dangerous plot hole to fall into. But it's the characters themselves that make the best worst decisions, constantly engaging in activities whose repercussions greatly outweigh the benefits. Even the intelligent characters make some really, really bad choices, decisions that are asinine even before a dinosaur or two starts chomping on them. Yet the dumbest decision of all is the continued push by characters to monetize the dinosaurs for nefarious reasons. From the first film until through this one, there is always at least one character who decides they can make more money off the dinosaurs by being shady. Despite a whole universe in which the dangers of Jurassic Park were publicized and repeated, this one basic lesson has still not been absorbed. This lack of additional motivation is a clear failing for a franchise it has not found a way to create new, interesting motivations for their characters. Given a real world in which cloning is an ethical issue and the existence of dinosaurs conflicts with some religious philosophies, the screenwriters have ample material to build from. And yet they don’t pursue something new, instead relying on old tricks that can’t succeed with uninteresting filmmakers driving them.

Review: One and a half out of Five Stars

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 128 minutes

Genre: Action

tl;dr

What Worked: Some of the dinosaurs, James Cromwell, Geraldine Chaplin, Chris Pratt’s physical comedy skills.

What Sucked: Plotting, dialog, tone, directing, screenwriting, the score, uninteresting CGI.

Watch Instead: Jurassic Park