This weekend I saw the highly anticipated Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and while I thought it was going to be a great summer flick, I was not prepared for just how much of a summer blockbuster it was going to be. By that I mean it had tons of action, little focus on plot consistency, and humor. If you mindlessly watch Fallen Kingdom, you’ll think it’s a great film, but if you dig a little deeper this movie is a bit of a mess. This film gave me the inspiration for my new series: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Instead of being a full on review, it’s going to focus on what went right and wrong, and what was just head shakingly bad. It won’t always be for movies, and I can’t say how frequently I’ll write one of these, but just remember these are only my opinions! Anyways, I hope you enjoy!
***************OBVIOUS SPOILERS FOR FALLEN KINGDOM AHEAD***************
The Good
The Opening Scene
Honestly this was the best part of the whole film in my opinion. It was flat out scary! Men are underwater searching for the remains of the Indominus Rex that the Mosasaurus munched on in the first film. The one man is worried for his safety and the other reassures him “Anything that’s in here is dead,” and that’s when we see the shadow of the Mosasaurus right behind them. On land, the rest of the crew is trying to close the gate in the ocean but they are attacked by the infamous T-Rex! One man hanging from a helicopter ladder barely escapes the T-Rex but is then eaten by the Mosasaurus. It was intense, scary, and a hell of a lot of fun! Honestly one of the best openings I’ve seen in recent memory.
Blue
Everyone’s favorite character in the first Jurassic World was Blue, and if you tell me differently then you’re wrong. Blue once again is the show stealer this time around. It’s amazing how much personality these films can give to dinosaurs. This time around we learn more about her upbringing and relationship with Owen and once again she ends up being the real hero saving the people that will apparently never learn their lesson. Blue is the perfect example of why people love the Jurassic Park films in the first place.
The Action
Like I said in the introduction, the film has some great action sequences. The opening sequence, the stampede during the volcano eruption, and the chaos in the mansion at the end. All are fun and memorable action sequences that’ll entertain anyone looking for some pure dino action this summer. There’s a lot of action, but it’s definitely not overbearing like the Transformers films or other similar big summer blockbusters. If there’s one setback about the action it’s that basically all the big scenes were in the trailer so if you saw that, it takes away from seeing the whole film.
The Bad
Plot holes
There are quite a few of them, friends have pointed out more than I caught myself so I’m just going to go down the list
- Why would a company that loves dinosaurs so much, make their home be where an active volcano is? The film says the volcano became since the events of the first film but I’m pretty sure that’s not how volcanoes work! They had to have known that the volcano would be a HUGE threat to the park over time… right!?
- When the “dinosaur traffickers” go to Isla Nublar to capture dinosaurs, their #1 priority was Blue. When Owen and the traffickers attempt to kidnap her, Blue gets shot and is dying. The traffickers then take Claire’s paleovet Zia hostage and force her to save Blue. Owen and Claire sneak upon the trafficker’s boat and find Zia trying to heal Blue. She says she needs to do a blood transfusion and the only dinosaur with the right blood is the T-Rex so Owen and Claire sneak around the boat to get it. If Blue’s survival is that important, why not just ask the traffickers for help!? The only reason Owen and Claire HAD to get it was so we could get that intense scene with the sleeping T-Rex. There was literally no other point.
- At the end of the film, the “dinosaur traffickers” capture Owen and Claire and throw them in a prison cell next to the dinosaurs. The one soldier asks the main villain, Eli “What should we do with these two?” Eli replies saying, “As far as the world knows, they died when the volcano erupted.” THEN THEY LEAVE OWEN AND CLAIRE IN THE CELL. WHY!? You just said yourselves that everyone assumes they’re dead, why not just kill them!? You have a T-REX that’ll eat them in two seconds!
The Villain’s Motivation
The villain motivation in Jurassic World: “Let’s turn the dinosaurs into weapons!” The villain motivation in Fallen Kingdom: “Let’s sell the dinosaurs to criminals that’ll turn them into weapons!” It’s hidden underneath the “save the dinosaurs” plot but in the end the villain’s motivations are the same as last time. To the point that the genetically modified dinosaur almost has the same exact name (more on that later).
The Ending
They were sooooooooooooooooooo close to having a great, powerful ending! At the end of the film, the Indo-Raptor is dead, most of the criminals have been mauled by dinosaurs, and our heroes are alive! But the dinosaurs are trapped in their cages and poisonous gas is filling in. Claire and the others are in the control room and have the ability to free the dinosaurs. Owen though says that freeing the dinosaurs would endanger humanity and Claire with tears in her eyes decides to let the dinosaurs die. The End. At least, that’s how it should’ve ended BUT NO. Maisie decides to free them all because they’re alive “just like her” because we found out earlier she was created in a lab by Lockwood who missed her daughter. So now the dinosaurs are running free and are going to go on a killing spree… which doesn’t fit the feel of Jurassic Park at all. Ugh, they were so close to ending it right.
The Ugly
The Indo-Raptor
As if the plot of this film wasn’t already close enough to the plot of the first, they couldn’t even bother changing the name of the new genetically modified dinosaur! It went from the Indominus Rex to the Indo-Raptor. That’s just flat out lazy! Also this is the second time a genetically advance dinosaur has been beaten, when are these people going to learn!? There better not be an Indo-anything in the inevitable third film. Also side note, I thought the auction where the Indo-Raptor was revealed was hilarious. The auctioneer was miraculously somehow able to see people bidding behind the massive dinosaur cage blocking his view. Maybe he has genetically modified to have X-Ray vision.
Poor Claire
Bryce Dallas Howard never heard the end of it after outrunning the T-Rex while wearing heels in the first film, and this film didn’t do much better to improve her character. There are A LOT of shameless shots that have Claire’s butt or chest at the perfect angle. She’s already pretty she doesn’t have to be exploited. Then, when the film isn’t trying to emphasize how pretty she is by having her lose layers of clothes as the movie continues, she spends the rest of her time screaming like a damsel in distress. She also says the hilariously bad line of “these dinosaurs are dying and nobody cares.” She isn’t awful throughout the entire movie, but they really need to figure out what to do with her in the future because right now it’s just not working.
So there you have it! Fallen Kingdom is kind of an absolute mess, but if you go into it just looking for some dinosaur action then you’ll leave the film satisfied. If you’re looking for an actual plot though you will be severely disappointed. But that’s just my take on it. I’ll probably end up seeing the third one anyways because I’m just that big of a dinosaur nerd.
The Magical World of Dids 