“These creatures were here before us. And if we’re not careful… they’re going to be hereafter. Life cannot be contained. Life breaks free. Life, finds a way. Welcome, to Jurassic World.”

 

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes place three years after the events of the first movie. The remaining dinosaurs are left on the island as a volcano erupts or as the advertisements put it “The Park Is Gone.” After the monster success of Jurassic World, a sequel was certain to happen in order to find new ways to bring these extinct animals back onto the big screens. While I enjoyed the first movie, a lot, but it was nowhere near as good as Jurassic Park. But it was its own movie. A good entry. It had its moments overall, just not Spielberg level good. Though, Fallen Kingdom decreases that standard a little bit.

 

We have a new director J.A. Bayona, with Colin Trevorrow only writing this time. Bayona is best known for horror and supernatural tragics, so I was interested in what he will bring to this new franchise. He does bring a lot of those elements into scenes where tension actually worked this time around. I must admit, the cinematography is visually stunning and makes the dinosaurs look terrifying. Unfortunately, all of this gets watered down by a terrible script, convenient situations, and the final result is just a normal Hollywood popcorn flick with little to no content.

 

The visual effects look really good and never takes you out of the movie when interacting around non-digital settings/people. I noticed some animatronics dinosaurs, but can easily get overshadowed by the heavy CGI. There are some shots where it looked a bit noticeable. Other than that, the visual effects are the strongest element of the film.

 

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are brilliant in terms of acting and share great chemistry. There are some questionable decisions being made which are slightly better compared to the first. Although their motivations for saving the dinosaurs only makes you agree with Ian Malcolm more. The film also introduces new characters played by Justice Smith and Daniella Pineda, who tag along with the main characters. One of them can access and hack into anything but he’s afraid of pretty much everything. Even the drop of a penny makes him think it’s a T-Rex. The other takes care of Blue after being badly injured and that’s really it. Halfway through the movie, you forget about them because they literally disappear from the film and later come back in the third act.

 

Overall, the movie is, at the very least, self-aware of itself. Evidently by Chris Pratt’s character before agreeing to go on a mission ironically states “What could go wrong?” Well, things do go wrong. Giving small winks to the audiences when the obvious is going to happen. It’s full of stupid decisions on top of more stupid decisions to push the plot along. I guess if every character had a brain, this movie wouldn’t exist; then again it wouldn’t be a great loss. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s not that good either. The horror elements together with set-pieces are the best part, though, not in abundance. It does, at the very least, set up the new direction this franchise is going to. That is, dinosaurs in the human world. Should be exciting.