- Joined
- Jun 3, 2009
- Messages
- 86,744
- Reaction score
- 26,249
Update: June 10, 2018
Dragonlord’s Review of JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: A stale retread of The Lost World and previous Jurassic films, Fallen Kingdom proves that the franchise might be heading for extinction.
Mercenaries go to an island with the intent of capturing a herd of dinosaurs and transporting them to the US. The heroes intervene and try to screw up the mercs’ plans. Three-fourths of the way, the action shifts to the US where dinosaurs break free and cause havoc. This is the raw premise of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which unfortunately feels like a retread to The Lost World: Jurassic World (1997).
Chris Pratt returns as dinosaur trainer Owen Grady, who goes back to the island to rescue his raptor friend, Blue. Pratt is charismatic enough to carry the film alone, unfortunately he is partnered up with Bryce Dallas Howard whose dull and uninteresting character brings nothing to the table and just takes up a lot of the screen time. Pratt works best when he is teamed up with a male authority figure where his brash and insolent personality would create some good friction and chemistry. Think Star-Lord meeting Tony Stark in Avengers: Infinity War. They should have gotten Sam Neil or Jeff Goldblum to be Pratt’s co-star.
What is a Jurassic film without the obtrusive addition of young supporting actors. These sidekicks are unmemorable and, if they’re not going to appear in future JW films, should have been eaten by dinos to create more tension and unpredictability. The new character Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) is feisty and shows more potential if she was Pratt’s co-lead than Bryce Dallas Howard. Too bad they had to un-glamorize her here since Daniella is easy on the eyes as well.
There’s just an aura of staleness and repetitiveness throughout Fallen Kingdom where some scenes are straight out copied from previous Jurassic films like the T-Rex inadvertently saves the heroes by killing a predator that was about to prey on them and then doing a victory roar/pose… despite the island being on fire from a volcanic eruption. Even the scenes with Blue and Owen teaming up to take out the threat seemed worn out.
It also doesn’t help that Fallen Kingdom lacks any significant highlight reel wow moments. Despite whatever shortcomings Jurassic World (2015) had, it delivered several memorable action scenes and images. Fallen Kingdom also introduced a game-changing genetic concept near the end but it felt shoehorned and just ultimately disregarded afterwards.
In Jurassic World, they initiated the laughable concept of trained raptors for military use. In Fallen Kingdom, they took it one step further and actualize it with a targeting method using a rifle with a laser sight and sonic tag. If you have a rifle with a laser sight pointing at the target, wouldn’t it be easier just to pull the trigger and kill the target with a bullet. Plus, the logistics alone for transporting a caged raptor would be a nightmare, especially for non-government agencies.
Watch out for an incredibly dumb moment when an employer discovers his employee is engaging in a highly dangerous and illegal criminal enterprise. So what does he do? This character tells the dangerous employee to call the police and confess to his crimes. This employer must not watch TV that much as he is murdered by the employee.
J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage, The Impossible) takes over directing duties but even his considerable talents can’t elevate the weak script. The filmmaker’s horror background did come into play with a silly and ridiculous finale involving an Indoraptor that seemed like it watched too many slasher horror flicks while in captivity.
Rating: 5/10
Dragonlord’s Review of JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: A stale retread of The Lost World and previous Jurassic films, Fallen Kingdom proves that the franchise might be heading for extinction.
Mercenaries go to an island with the intent of capturing a herd of dinosaurs and transporting them to the US. The heroes intervene and try to screw up the mercs’ plans. Three-fourths of the way, the action shifts to the US where dinosaurs break free and cause havoc. This is the raw premise of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which unfortunately feels like a retread to The Lost World: Jurassic World (1997).
Chris Pratt returns as dinosaur trainer Owen Grady, who goes back to the island to rescue his raptor friend, Blue. Pratt is charismatic enough to carry the film alone, unfortunately he is partnered up with Bryce Dallas Howard whose dull and uninteresting character brings nothing to the table and just takes up a lot of the screen time. Pratt works best when he is teamed up with a male authority figure where his brash and insolent personality would create some good friction and chemistry. Think Star-Lord meeting Tony Stark in Avengers: Infinity War. They should have gotten Sam Neil or Jeff Goldblum to be Pratt’s co-star.
What is a Jurassic film without the obtrusive addition of young supporting actors. These sidekicks are unmemorable and, if they’re not going to appear in future JW films, should have been eaten by dinos to create more tension and unpredictability. The new character Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) is feisty and shows more potential if she was Pratt’s co-lead than Bryce Dallas Howard. Too bad they had to un-glamorize her here since Daniella is easy on the eyes as well.
There’s just an aura of staleness and repetitiveness throughout Fallen Kingdom where some scenes are straight out copied from previous Jurassic films like the T-Rex inadvertently saves the heroes by killing a predator that was about to prey on them and then doing a victory roar/pose… despite the island being on fire from a volcanic eruption. Even the scenes with Blue and Owen teaming up to take out the threat seemed worn out.
It also doesn’t help that Fallen Kingdom lacks any significant highlight reel wow moments. Despite whatever shortcomings Jurassic World (2015) had, it delivered several memorable action scenes and images. Fallen Kingdom also introduced a game-changing genetic concept near the end but it felt shoehorned and just ultimately disregarded afterwards.
In Jurassic World, they initiated the laughable concept of trained raptors for military use. In Fallen Kingdom, they took it one step further and actualize it with a targeting method using a rifle with a laser sight and sonic tag. If you have a rifle with a laser sight pointing at the target, wouldn’t it be easier just to pull the trigger and kill the target with a bullet. Plus, the logistics alone for transporting a caged raptor would be a nightmare, especially for non-government agencies.
Watch out for an incredibly dumb moment when an employer discovers his employee is engaging in a highly dangerous and illegal criminal enterprise. So what does he do? This character tells the dangerous employee to call the police and confess to his crimes. This employer must not watch TV that much as he is murdered by the employee.
J.A. Bayona (The Orphanage, The Impossible) takes over directing duties but even his considerable talents can’t elevate the weak script. The filmmaker’s horror background did come into play with a silly and ridiculous finale involving an Indoraptor that seemed like it watched too many slasher horror flicks while in captivity.
Rating: 5/10
