Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was an enjoyable, albeit clichéd at times, movie. But still, I thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it did have its problems.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Fallen Kingdom takes place three years after the events of Jurassic World and it follows the efforts of Owen and Claire as they try to save the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar from their impending doom at the metaphorical hands of the island’s now-active volcano. Claire and Owen, as well as Claire’s two employees Franklin and Zia, work with a small army employed by Eli Mills, who works for Benjamin Lockwood and wants to save the dinosaurs. Lockwood worked with Hammond in the past to bring the dinosaurs back to life, and he wants them to live in peace. Mills, on the other hand, wants to weaponize them, so he goes behind Lockwood’s back to make sure that it happens. In the process he betrays Claire and Owen because he only needed them to find Blue, one of the raptors that Owen trained.

Mills also wants to sell the “rescued” dinosaurs to a cornucopia of rich and powerful people. Of course none of this goes well. Chaos results after Mills’ newest experiment, the indoraptor, gets released and begins prowling the grounds of the Lockwood Estate. In the end, all of the bad guys get killed, but the world is going to have a slew of new dinosaur-related problems.

The story itself is nothing new: wealthy businessman want to make money by selling dinosaurs, then use the money to develop an even stronger, deadlier, and weaponized dinosaur that can then be sold for even more money. Ok, even though that story itself isn’t commonplace, the core concept has been seen before (think Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming). Still, the story has some very interesting and entertaining moments, such as trying to get blood from a T-rex to perform a blood transfusion on a hemorrhaging velociraptor or a pachysaurus running around and head-butting rich people. The movie is full of these almost absurd, yet entertaining moments.

And on the topic of entertaining moments, each villain death was extremely satisfying. After watching the villains in action, I had really grown to hate them, but I knew that in the end, they would die; I just had to wait. In all honesty, the wait was always worth it. Each “evil” character received a death that was truly befitting of them, as dark as that may sound. However, this does get into a bit of complaint. In Jurassic Park and its sequels, quite a few characters, both good and bad, died. In Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom, only the villains or nameless extras seem to die (I know there was the guy in the helicopter in Jurassic World but he’s the exception). There were a handful of times that the supporting characters could have died in Fallen Kingdom, but they never did, and I knew that they wouldn’t. It seems odd saying that it, but it almost seems like Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom were toned down to be more “family friendly (especially considering the fact that a man gets torn in half by two dinosaurs and another gets his arm ripped off before being mauled to death). Either way, it almost seems to take the danger and excitement out of the movie when you know that no matter what the situation is, these specific characters won’t die. Then again, maybe it was always like this and I’m just misremembering things or I’m still distrustful of movies after Infinity War.

My final complaint is this: the indoraptor’s death, though visually fantastic and satisfying, is almost impossible due to its contingency on just the right circumstances. After falling through a roof, the indoraptor is impaled by the two horns of a triceratops skull. However, if the indoraptor hadn’t fallen exactly as it did, it probably wouldn’t have been impaled. Its death was so situational and the only reason that it worked was because of luck (and plot). The indoraptor could have easily survived if it fell anywhere else, but this success isn’t presented as being lucky, it’s presented as being planned, and this does take me out of the movie a little bit.

The movie as a whole sets up for its sequel much better than Jurassic World did. Now that dinosaurs have been unleashed on the world at large, it will be interesting to see how it turns out. But not only are there dinosaurs running around America, and a mosasaurus (I think) prowling the ocean, some of the dinosaur buyers did in fact return home with their dinosaurs. On top of that, some of the scientists with indoraptor eggs and research were able to escape. Now, the title Jurassic World can apply to more than just the park, and I love this new and totally intentional double meaning.

SPOILERS END

In the end, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a fun and entertaining movie. Some of the characters go through interesting internal struggles concerning what they view as right or wrong, and this is sometimes accompanied by some truly beautiful, albeit sad and haunting, imagery. The narrative itself is simple and straightforward while at the same time possessing enough complexity to be interesting. Yes some of the moments may be predictable (though there are some really cool nods to the earlier movies, specifically the raptor scene in Jurassic Park), but watching everything play out is still quite satisfying and entertaining. All in all, I would recommend going to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; it’s the perfect movie to see to kick off the summer.