Review: Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 128 mins / Dir. J. A. Bayona / Trailer

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should..."

~ Dr Ian Malcolm, in one of the few notable moments from the first Jurassic Park film which isn't the subject of a direct callback in the fifth, but really should be.

One of the things I found amazing about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was that a movie with this budget, creative crew and a limitless digital palette has so little imagination. Think how far through the ideas-book you'd have to be when the fifth movie in a series spends its first hour retooling Kong: Skull Island instead. That's not to say there aren't a plethora of hamfisted references to earlier Jurassic Park entries of course, but still.

The film does feature some nicely executed set-pieces as you'd expect, but they're all very on-the-nose. If anyone watching genuinely believes that the heroes are in danger of not waving behind the end-credits, they've clearly got some catching up to do. And while I freely admit that applies to the vast, vast majority of action-cinema, the protagonists' safety is underlined here with a fat red screenwriter's marker.

It's not that I particularly disliked JW:FK or even that it bored me, necessarily. I just found myself thoroughly uninterested in what was going to happen to the more-cardboard-than-ever characters (although the four raptor 'puppies' in the flashback scenes were adorable).

Nature = good, corporate = bad. It's a message which certainly wasn't invented with 1993's Jurassic Park, but now feels as old as the DNA lying in the veins of a fossilised mosquito, as Universal hammer it mercilessly home - apparently without irony - to the viewers sitting in dark, air-conditioned chain cinemas around the globe.

Speaking of morality: we all know, yeah, that Maisie Lockwood is singly and directly responsible for every death which occurs (on the land, admittedly) after she hits the Big Red Button™ in the compound? Good guys, bad guys, bystanders, pets, the lot. And that includes every evil businessman, cackling mercenary and nameless extra who carks it in the next movie, too.

"...but they're alive!" she tearfully emotes as the surviving dinosaurs thunder out into the night. Well sweetheart, tell that to the families and loved ones of every corpse that racks up because of your moment of humility.

So in order for Jurassic World 3 to create a Hollywood-friendly narrative balance, either Maisie's character has to be held accountable for her actions (ie, suffer the ending of Toby Jones, Rafe Spall etc), or the story will need to fall back on the idea that Maisie doesn't really have a conscience because she doesn't really have a soul because she's just a clone. In which case: so were the dinosaurs, so what does it matter if the they were saved or not? Good luck with that one, Amblin…

Biggest disappointment: that our heroes escape the island on a ship named Arcadia, then the film *doesn't* turn into a Resident Evil crossover.

Rather fittingly, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom is the perfect theme-park ride. Methodical, mechanical, precision-engineered thrills designed to entertain a summer audience for the duration.

Right before they leave, then immediately start queueing for something else...

Oh, and I'm also taking a point off (no, seriously) for that "nasty woman!" line in the script, the most cloyingly cackhanded bit of zeitgeist camera-winking since Linda Cardellini was made to say 'snowflake' in Daddy's Home 2. Appalling…



Jurassic World.



Well…



Oh, if you like.



Hahahahahahahaha.



We very well might.



Not that I heard, but there is a section in the middle with about five minutes' worth of screaming, and there could well be one layered in there.



Level 1: That engineer out of Rogue One is in this. You know the one.



(did you think I was joking about knocking that point off?)




DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

Review: Jurassic World

Jurassic World*¹ (3D)
Cert: 12A / 124 mins / Dir. Colin Trevorrow / Trailer



To be fair to the Jurassic Park franchise as a whole, there are really only so many ways you can spin "we may have built a theme park full of murderous carnivores which we've underestimated a tad". Each film is an unashamed variation on that theme, and the fourth entry to the canon is no different.

Thankfully, most of the preachy eye-rolling is contained to the film's first act, as is most of the perfunctory plot-setup, and as soon as Chris Pratt is done scowling at some scratch-marks on a wall, it's carnage-central (y'know, in a sort of agreeable, 12A-friendly sense). In terms of Summer blockbuster action, you'd be hard pressed to ask for anything more, and Jurassic World is an enormous amount of fun, but it's never anything more. The film's main handicap is that it spends so much time trying to recreate the beats of its predecessors (1993's Jurassic Park in particular), that it forgets to really develop any ideas of its own. And it does have some, they just feel as tacked on as the underused 3D post-conversion.

That said, at least director Colin Trevorrow has taken the time between JP retreads to riff heavily on Aliens, too. Luckily that lends the film its only real sense of menace, as there's precious little coming from the dinosaurs. The series has never managed to top the raw danger emanating from the Velociraptors of the original film, and JW sees them pack-bonding with Chris Pratt's dino-tamer, Owen, which anthropomorphises them slightly too much to be any real threat. They're pretty cool, but they're not meant to be cool; they're meant to be fucking terrifying. That mantle is also supposed to be handed to the film's new creation, Indominus Rex, and also misses its mark by some way there, too.

Look, I'm being far too hard on the film, but it's no Jurassic Park. And this wouldn't be a problem if all of Universal's pre-press and trailers hadn't tried so desperately to convince us that it is. The sense of awe, the sense of wonder, the sense of danger… all lost in a frantic bid to up the ante for the 2015 Summer crowd. I can't work out if Park Director Claire's cynically hard-nosed line about needing bigger attractions to maintain visitor numbers is overflowing with self-awareness, or echoing around an empty barrel.

As enjoyable as it is (and it is), Jurassic World really makes me want to watch JP again. And that's not necessarily a compliment…

If Summer blockbusters are your thing, yes it is.



If you're on the fence, probably a rental. But you'll want to see it on the biggest TV in your house.



Not quite.



Not quite.



Not really.



Fairly sure I heard one during the pterodactyl-attack, yeah.



Chris Pratt's breakthrough role was of course Peter Quill/Star-Lord in 2013's Guardians Of The Galaxy, a movie which also starred Peter Serafinowicz, who voice Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace.







*¹ And it's nice to know that there are enough people on the internet who can't spell the word 'Jurassic' that the first predictive, auto-fill hashtag on Twitter is for #JurasicWorld…

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.