I loved Jurassic Park (who didn’t?) and Jurassic World. Some people act like they’re better than the first JW, and they’re not. None of them! JW was the right way to make a proper sequel to JP, providing a great entry into the What If genre of film by just ignoring the inherent problems with making a dinosaur zoo and making a new, larger one that’s even more susceptible to capitalistic greed. Why come up with a dinosaur that’s more dangerous than anything else in the park? More customers and money! Why on earth would you let anyone walk around with dinosaurs, herbivores or not, in a big plastic ball? The whole thing sounds like a terrible idea, and of course it predictably turned into a horror show, because that’s the entire point of the series.
The problem with the JP series was always the sequels. There
had to be some excuse to go back to the dinosaurs, some issue with the
remaining ones from the park that are just roaming around Costa Rica unguarded.
JP2 and JP3 didn’t really solve it in any meaningful way, and neither does JW:
Fallen Kingdom. The writers try to get our main characters back to the park
with the intent of saving them from a conveniently exploding volcano. It’s not
that the premise is unrealistic (the whole series is completely unrealistic,
the instantaneous genetic engineering of new dinosaurs as a prime example).
It’s that it feels like the characters’ motivations aren’t justified enough.
Why would anyone set foot back on that island where the dinosaurs no longer have
cages AND a volcano is about to explode? By pushing the emotional impact of
saving the dinosaurs, the film is playing the wrong notes with its audience,
who don’t care about the dinosaurs as much as they care about the chaos they
bring at this stage of the franchise. Eventually, it all leads the dinosaurs
into a mansion with an extremely large basement (?) where they’re to be sold
off as weapons. That’s a thing that happens. Whoever wrote that into the movie
should probably not work on JW3.
The saving grace of JW: Fallen Kingdom is the cast and
production values. Both are up to the task of making this thing work as far as
it’ll go, with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard doing their best to work in
some gags and keep everyone entertained. The dinosaurs are still pretty neat, but
the most personality you get from them is a cute stygimoloch that likes to butt
things with its head. It’s a shame because the dinosaurs are really the ones
along for the ride and they get nothing much to do except eat a few people and
attack other dinosaurs. Blue’s backstory is a welcome addition, but it’s still
not enough for a movie that prides itself on showcasing how amazing these creatures
are.
It’s not a real surprise this movie wasn’t half as good as
the original JW. It’s probably better than JP2 and JP3, though not by much. It’s
also quite a bit more violent and dark than the first JW, making it a hard sell
to those with kids. I can see where they want to eventually take the series,
and maybe the producers thought this would be the best way to get there. It’s an
unfortunate place for a franchise that already ran into sequel trouble and had people
expecting the worst even when the first JW was released. If JW: Fallen Kingdom was
truly memorable (or even entertainingly watchable), I think moviegoers would give
more of a pass to a third movie that bombed. With a film this average, I can
see the franchise going extinct altogether along with those poor genetically-modified
dinosaurs.
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