Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Review

The fifth film of Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, was one of contrasts. The biggest being the conflict between a talented director and a terrible screenplay.

Years after the events of Jurassic World the volcano on Isla Nublar is about to erupt and the dinosaurs would suffer a second extinction event. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) leads the campaign to save the dinosaurs but the US government refuses to help. However, Claire gets an offer from the Lockwood Foundation to lead an expedition to save some species, but she needs Owen Grady’s (Chris Pratt) help.

Jurassic World: Fallen World was directed by J. A. Bayona, a Spanish director who has made three acclaimed films (The Orphanage, The Impossible and A Monster Calls). But Jurassic World: Fallen World did test his abilities because the screenplay was written by Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, the director of Jurassic World. Their reputation was more mixed.

Jurassic World: Fallen World was a film of two halves. The first half focused on the expedition to save the dinosaurs, the second was a claustrophobic haunted house film. The first half was better because it felt like a Jurassic Park film. There were moments of awe like the expedition coming across a brontosaurus, replicating an iconic scene in the original Jurassic Park. There were some well-crafted scenes during this section. There was a great moment of horror and tension when lava leaks through a tunnel and lighting up a dinosaur that was hiding. The eruption of the volcano was a fantastic sequence as dinosaurs and humans run away from the ash cloud. This was special effects filmmaking at its most entertaining. Plus, Claire wore more sensible shoes than in the previous film.

The film falls apart when it moves away from Isla Nublar and to the Lockwood Estate in California. It seemed like the filmmakers used up all the budget for the island sequence so saved money on setting it in a mansion. The action took place in corridors, laboratories, halls, and cells. This made Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom look like a Doctor Who episode. Nor did it help that film tried to introduce slapstick comedy which Bayona didn’t use in his previous films.

A film or TV show could overcome budgetary issues if they told a good story. Sadly, for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom the screenplay was the worst feature. Fallen Kingdom was essentially a remake of The Lost World which was poorly regarded film in the franchise to begin with. Fallen Kingdom repeats the plot points of Lost World: it had a lead character going to a mansion and talked into going to a wild island of dinosaurs before getting betrayed by people who want to bring the creatures to America.

The second half of the film goes into the land of stupidity. In this part of the film the villains sell dinosaurs to cartels and rogue regimes for no more than average Premier League players and creating a genetically-engineered dinosaur that could be used as a weapon (because it worked so well in the previous film!) The whole purpose of Fallen Kingdom was to find a way to bring dinosaurs into the human world, so this film was just a bridging sequel. It was a similar issue that plagued Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

A big error in the screenplay was the introduction of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) because the character felt like he originally was meant to be John Hammond. The plan would have been to get Richard Attenborough to respire his role. The obvious problem was Attenborough was dead before the release of Jurassic World in 2015.

Fallen Kingdom forced through comic relief through the character of Franklin (Justice Smith.) He was an irritating wimp who either screamed or asked if he was going to die. You would want Franklin to die just so he would shut up. If you have sensitive hearing beware that there is a lot of high pitch screaming from female characters.

Fallen Kingdom is proof that a talent director can’t salvage a bad screenplay and it dragged Bayona down. One of the best things to come from the film was this skit by CollegeHumor.