Written by: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall
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This could have been completely terrible and I'd still watch it a half dozen times; I love dinosaurs too much and there's too few movies about them in the world. As it is, the film is decent, at least a little better than its most recent predecessor, but in trying to create something more emotionally akin to the original it ended up going to extremes that were too far away from one another. There's almost three movies here; a horror, a kid's movie, and a tragedy, and while I appreciate what they were going for and where it was inspired directly by Jurassic Park, I don't think that the parts mixed well, nor that there's anything new that feels particularly noteworthy.
The story's strength varies, working at its best one the island largely due to theme and dropping off afterwards as it fails to find an strong response to the potential it introduces. Saving dinosaurs is an idea any fan of the franchise can get behind, so even with the inevitable turn for the worse it's hard not to respond to the manipulation at hand because the dinosaurs are the most consistently endearing characters. Beyond that, the film works best here because of how devoted it is to the impact the park has had, and the importance of leaving it behind for the sake of something new. The film promises that it remembers what was loved, and will try to find it again. Unfortunately, it takes the rest of the story for the film to get through its requisite villains and actually suggest a satisfying future for the series, and only does so once its devolved in to the same B-grade schlock that weighed its predecessor down. I'm glad that the film committed to its first idea of moving away from the park, but it doesn't seem sure of where to go from there, stalling for time with contrivances and old ideas before actually getting to what it wants to be about, which appears to be setting up for future movies. It's unfortunate that the film couldn't deliver on the imagination it promised, but thankfully, the dinosaurs are always there to make sure a scene is at least not lifeless, even if it's pointless.
Outside of the best parts of the story's mixed bag, the greatest aspects of the film are its action sequences. Driven by weight and chaos, the film lumbers and lashes with fear and fury, combining the best of what makes the dinosaurs powerful with what makes them scary for some truly exhilarating stuff. Between epic chases across fields and an excellent 'haunted house' sequence, the film has no shortage of edge-of-your-seat thrills. This is also the best looking Jurassic film to date, finally combining the right mix of real and CG to make the most important dinosaurs convincing. The film slows down a couple of times so that the dinosaurs can actually be reached out to and touched, and for a few brief moments raw, child-like wonder takes over; the dinosaurs are real again. If nothing else, the film knows how important it thinks these creatures are.
The big issues the film faces are in the tonal clashes between sequences and the poor characters.
While the thrills set front and centre keep things somewhat focused, the jumps between wonder and horror and tragedy are too large and too sudden here, feeling more as parts of different movies rather than extremes within the same. A dinosaur that shares both the film's key moment of wonder and the strongest tragic moment seems more emotional manipulation than real emotion; while I recognise that the film wants there to be gravitas to leaving the island and agree that the gravitas is deserved, the whole thing feels more mean-spirited than sad. Likewise, a bid to escape is played for some childish fun, but it spirals further and further in to cartoon territory before jumping almost immediately in to horror, with such a change only happening due to a contrived action of an undeveloped character. Much of the individual action pieces are well directed on their own, particularly those that delve in to horror, but they all feel disconnected from one another.
Additionally, just as one villain's actions lead to an awfully contrived third finale, much of the film seems to be run by people who were one moustache twirl away from being cartoons. None of the villains have any real development and their perspective is largely just "be cruel to dinosaurs"; it seems to be in service of this larger idea about cloned animals and their rights, but that idea never gets real exploration, just a slapdash "are they alive? yes" as the film trips over yet another villain to do all the bad things and get eaten for our pleasure. The deaths aren't even satisfying anymore, they're just forced despite so little investment beyond making them seem as evil as possible. The protagonists don't fair much better; none of them have any arcs and one of them was barely incidentally necessary, they're just the counter-point good to the villains' evil with a smattering of the forced love story from Jurassic World. There's ideas for good arcs that could be told by other stories, such as the deeper backstory they give to Owen that makes him retroactively more interesting or Lockwood's involvement with Hammond, but none of those are a real part of the story told here, they just make for easier turns and cheap twists.
The Short Version: Fallen Kingdom manages to offer a decent thrill ride with some genuine emotion at its core, but there's a tonal clash between the film's individual pieces; its horror moments and childish moments and heart-wrenching moments are all too far removed from one another.
Rating: 6/10
Published June 21st, 2018
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