Before we get to the spoilers and my over critical analysis I want to make this very clear: GO SEE IT. Overall, Fallen Kingdom, for all its plot holes and my minor complaining, was a strong action movie deserving of its $150million dollar budget that deserves to be performing as well as it is at the box office [projected to not do as well as the original jurassic world, which feels right]. This is not a movie to wait to watch at home, as only the big screen can capture the epicness of the giant creatures and that big ass mansion.
But here are my VERY SPOILER-filled impressions, starting with what annoyed me and ending with what I felt were the films strongest moments:
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
The constantly repeated last moment saves by Blue jumping on the bigger predator felt more like a need to re-use model scenes developped in Jurassic World, which isn’t old enough for a nostalgic call-back and felt more like lazy and unimaginative writing/film making.
The little girl being a clone was an interesting twist, if not so overly foreshadowed we were grateful when they finally just admitted it.
I didnt need Chris Pratt going all Johnny Karate for a full minute. It almost felt like they ran out of cgi budget and needed to feature him more or something. Still not what i want in my dino movie. The parallels
Anyone catch that Land Before Time shoutout as we tearfully watched a brontasaurus die? (Too soon?)
I didn’t appreciate the over-use of shadows or mirrors — the film made many attempts at stylistic/ “artistic” cinemotgraphy that weren’t needed, necessary, or appreciated. We want big cgi beasts, not a boogeyman complex.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
For constantly showing Compys it was annoyingly hard to believe they wouldn’t attack a paralyzed Chris Pratt and ever posed any threat. We all remember what happened to Young Cathy Bowman, and having him wake up to the pain of a couple conpys pecking at him would’ve been more exciting and urgent feeling than being licked by a gentle giant.
Why was Isla Sorna not reconsidered as a dino-sanctuary? Or one of the other five islands in the muerta archipelago? If Maisey could hear the “secret facility” dinosaurs echoup the dumb waiter how did they never hear those cries echo in that very quiet mansion? How dod the scientists all get in and out unnoticed? There were approximately 30 dinos released, theres no reason to brlieve they’d have not been hunted and put down by the government and pushing this “Jurassic WORLD indeed” plot for the sequel feels conpletely unbelievable.
What I did enjoy centered on the movies expected strengths– the dinos and the new characters:
Maisie, for all my complaints of her story feeling like fan fiction, and RAGE filled annoyance when she hid in her bed, was a good character. Her shrieking decoy role in the group was stemmed nicely from the few early scenes we got of her. Eventhough the writers couldn’t decide what age range to base her dialogue off of she gave a strong performance, and we appreciated the parallelisms between her and Kelly Malcolm from the original Jurassic Park sequel [mainly her bravery, acrobatics, and rebelliousness].
Other newcomers Zia and Franklin embodied what we loce about characters in the Jurassic franchise — realsitic outlooks and a focus on science. They convey logic and relatability when they question survivability and seem less prepared and desensitized to the world they’re thrust into. Zia’s appreciation for the dinosaurs and the elongated moments the movie took to show her awestruck were powerful additions to the film.
The inclusion of a wider variety of carnivores, even when there were less dinos overall, was a step in the right direction. The films can get caught up re-exploring the same species for nostalgia sake but it was refreshing to see new faces (except indo-raptor, which looked mismatched and it’s face was jarringly unrealistic. Dont make up anymore “new” dinosaurs please).
The biggest kill count wasn’t by a raptor or by the T-rex or whateber mutant hybrid species they cooked up this time, but the little head-butting pachycephelasaur probably resulted in the most casualties. And that’s beautiful, or at least a nice change of pace.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Make sure to check out all the other analyses online about all of the references to the original, because the movie is obaolutely full of them and handles them with care. Fallen Kingdom almost watches like a love letter to the series that lead up to it, and we are here for it.
