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Plot Summary: When the island's dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen and Claire mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event.

Director: J.A. Bayona

Writer: Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow

Runtime: 2h 8min

Main Cast:

• Chris Pratt as Owen Grady
• Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing
• Rafe Spall as Eli Mills
• Justice Smith as Franklin Webb
• Daniella Pineda as Zia Rodriguez
• Toby Jones as Mr. Eversol
• Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm
• BD Wong as Dr. Wu

Review by: Mia

Twenty-five years ago, the world was introduced to a Sci-Fi concept that would last through two franchises without losing its fanbase. Fifteen years ago, I became a dedicated fan of a cinematic experience which merged love for long loved concepts seen in fantasy thriller The Lost World (1960) with the ever-growing theme born alongside real technological advancements: Man as God (the age of technology). I would like to say that no one could have predicted the impact that this concept would have on the SciFi fantasy world, but that just wouldn't be true. Before the novel that inspired this film was even released, there was already movie rights locked in for the concept worth $2 million (IMDB).

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The Jurassic Franchise was just a well-executed Thriller. I was young when the first film came out and, until the more recent reboot of the franchise, had never gotten the theater experience from Jurassic Park films. Still, watching the films left me with goosebumps. Jurassic movies know exactly how to get you invested in the characters and then send them sprinting through jungles with nothing but adrenaline to help them survive. This franchise has always been pure time travel: put the humans in the land of the dinosaurs and see how they fare. We all knew that if you chose the wrong Safari-style vacation to the right theme park, you could end up with a T-Rex breathing down your neck. The films weren’t just suspenseful though, they were also educational… I probably spent the better part of elementary school convinced I could go into archaeology thanks to the impression these films left behind.

Needless to say, the reboot of such a successful franchise left me excited. Word of its release has been out since 2005, but we didn’t get introduced to finished reboot for another ten years. Not only would I get a second experience with the dinosaurs that the technology of man had accomplished, but I would also get to see what modern cinematography and science fiction could do with the concept. With Jurassic World (2015), we met our new characters in much the same fashion that we were introduced to characters in the first Jurassic Park film:

Children, experts, meet Dinosaur Park. Dinosaur Park, meet meat.

The film showed us (once again) that man-made restrictions would be no match for the animals brought back to life by our genetic innovations. Just because we could create life didn’t mean we could control it…unless of course, you mean these highly intelligent velociraptors and you’re a dashing and heroic troll named Owen Grady (Chris Pratt). For the follow up to this technology filled Park gone to ruin, what would we get? The trailer gives a lot of details, but ultimately, we must watch the film to see. The answer: world-changing developments. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), the fate of these dinosaurs is questioned once and for all.

The park that has defined two decades of dinosaur life exists on an island with a volcano capable of catastrophic, species-ending damage. Will the world let these animals created by our own God Complex die? Or will we step in and treat them like the endangered species that they are? If you ask our lead from the first movie, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), these creatures deserve to live. They shouldn’t pay the price for the egos of man. If you ask leading expert and survivor Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), man should let God right his wrongs and wipe out this species that should never exist in the modern world, especially not with the legal and scientific implications they create knowing that man can literally clone any creature back into existence with just a mosquito-sized drop of blood.

So, the film begins, the characters we are most familiar with have left the park and moved on with their regular human lives. However, the dinosaurs are in peril, and Claire believes man must put himself in peril to determine the fate of the world as this Jurassic Park having planet knows it. As the acting lead organizer for a group advocating for Dinosaur survival, Claire is recruited by a private company to collect as many species as possible before the island implodes. She is tasked with convincing Owen that he should make the trip and help track his highly intelligent and well-trained raptor before she outwits her way into a lava-filled death. Claire and Owen join a party funded by John Hammond’s former business partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), and led by his Business Manager, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), to rescue dinosaurs and move them to a safe, secluded space away from humans and active volcanoes entirely. Together with their favorite System Analyst (played by Justice Webb) and Paleoveterenarian (Daniella Pineda), they must fight against natural born predators and natural born capitalists alike. Owen, who only agreed to the venture for the chance to save his last surviving velociraptor companion, must lead their quirky group through survival on an island that is killing itself before they even step back on it.

The island implodes, the dinosaurs are rescued, the mission is sabotaged, and our team of dinosaur-loving thrill seekers are left to stop greed from freeing dinosaurs all across the world to the highest bidders. At the same time, we meet Lockwood’s young granddaughter, who leads us through the ulterior motives and genetic background that allowed the dinosaurs to exist in the first place. Like other children presented in the franchise, she is a dinosaur fanatic, smart beyond her years, and destined to end up ducking the teeth of a hungry apex predator. People die, people run, dinosaurs will leave you in tears, and Chris Pratt is still a lovable asshole.

What I Liked:

A world where dinosaurs exist and technology has advanced far enough to allow us to travel in little glass globes durable enough to leap off cliffs, get hit with flying volcanic meteors and sink into the ocean without breaking. If I had to find myself running with dinosaurs, I’d definitely like to be in one of those. Owen Grady is the ideal adventurous, carefree, badass who takes having to sprint with predators or leap through the mouth of a T-Rex in stride. Cinematically, this film embraces the challenge of bringing an extinct animal to life and showing us mannerisms, scales, and teeth in full terrifying view. They take the time to really bring out the suspense by giving you claws and teeth at all the right moments. The hunt is stress-inducing and the stupidity of humans with a God Complex is compounded in a way that has you anticipating new dangerous heights for human-dinosaur innovation. Some might think that the whole “rich white man innovates world ending invention” is getting old, but for me, it matches the social climate of our world. We should stare into the face of our worst and question why we go so far.

Of course, Justice Webb does an amazing job at being a cowardly, super-intelligent, scrawny but vital part of the team. His lines hit home with the least effort and his presence as a plot device in every scene allows for just the right amount of thrill and reaction from the audience. Zia (Danielle Pineda) matches the thoughts of the audience well with her smartass reactions and matter-of-fact personality. You still root for the romance between Claire and Owen, even without it being the focus of the film. More importantly, you root for Blue, the velociraptor with a soft spot for her favorite human.

This latest addition to the Jurassic Park story really left me hungry for more science fiction aspects from the world its built within. I loved the little elements that we get in the movie that really hint at the worldwide implications of a world where genetic technology essentially allows for bringing dead species back to life or creating new species from piecing together the many different genetic markers of several species to see what we create and how it behaves. That side of the science fiction is new to the franchise, although originally an aspect of the rebirth of dinosaurs. By the end of the film, Dr. Malcolm’s contemplations (via speech) and Maise Lockwood’s discoveries of her family’s doings leave you hungry for more science from a franchise that used to just leave you eager to watch people get stomped on by giant reptiles for their recklessness. Consistently, the film acknowledges with each encounter with dinosaurs that these are animals, not pets, not attractions, but animals that can kill even when they aren’t predators. Production-wise, the touches that are thought of to make this world real are well done and believable.

Give or take a few gadgets, it isn’t hard to believe this is 2018 in our world today. The politics reflect this as well with the language and attitudes that we are exposed to while debating whether dinosaurs get to live. The government is hands off if they can’t rationalize a profit or benefit for themselves.

What I Didn’t Like:

While this film keeps up the momentum of the franchise without a doubt, there’s something missing from the 5th film of the Jurassic World. What are we still doing here? Why hasn’t man learned his lesson about playing with animals that are ultimately impossible to keep caged? Why are people so hell-bent on freeing animals that we can’t survive around unless they are caged? In every film within this franchise, it is up to the viewer to accept new faces as vital influencers in the survival of main characters and dinosaurs alike. This is frustrating, but possible, and bewildering when these new characters suddenly shift the entire dynamic of a film that used to be about adventures with dinosaurs. Don’t get me wrong; I like the introduction of politics and the continued conversation on ethics that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom embraces as the backbone of its plot.

I don’t think the film does a good job of bringing all of the many aspects of such topics together in a short amount of time while also trying to keep up the action-thriller momentum that defines Jurassic World. I do think that the follow-up film could salvage where this film falls short. Furthermore, Maise is nothing but a plot device. The film should have spent half as much time building up to the climax of her personal story and more time attaching us to the character. Perhaps they were depending on our love for children to build up the sympathy, but ultimately the internal conflict we witness from her character is flat and unsupported by what we witness throughout the film.

Images Courtesy of IMDB