Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

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The 'Jurassic Park' franchise has kinda always had me going back and forth. On one hand, we could say "hey, fun dinosaurs, who cares about anything?" and just enjoy for whatever it is. On the other, you'd be hard pressed to find a series with more stupidity surrounding a lot of its characters. And as time goes on and these movies keep getting cranked out, the original 1993 film STILL has yet to be topped. The main reason? Us dumbass humans can't learn a damn thing.

This time around, we kick things off with Jeff Goldblum returning as Ian Malcolm (by the way, if you go to see him, you will be disappointed as he just kinda bookends the movie). He's in a conference where they discuss the volcano on Isla Nublar about to erupt and kill off these dinosaurs. Malcom, being the only one with common sense suggests letting it happen. Dinosaurs are not meant to be a part of our world, pain and simple. But of course, the movie is immediately weakened by some stupid animal rights activist group who says "our children shouldn't have to grow up without dinosaurs"... y'know, like since humankind began, but who are we to argue?

Heading this department is Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) from the last film. She recruits Owen (Chris Pratt) and a team of minor characters to head to the island and try to get the dinosaurs off of it. Which, spoiler alert, you pretty much see the results of in the trailer. Ultimately, the volcano erupts, and few are rescued, but by the wrong people and fro the wrong reasons. I'll just give you ONE GUESS what they wanna do with these dinosaurs - that's right, same as usual. Use their DNA to create shitty creatures who wanna kill things. This time around, I won't spoil much, but they take it to a pretty ridiculous extreme.

I dunno man, I think this title pretty much pulled a 'JP3' on me, and has me inda giving up on the series for myself. I frankly found a lot of this movie to be insultingly stupid at times, and apparently I exist within in a small percentage of people. But my biggest beef lies in the ending of the movie. It's such a facepalm moment, but at the same time, seemingly the way to move things along for the next film (and oh yes, there will be a next film as long as money is to be made). In that case, I dunno if I'm quite on board.

Now, was it 100% terrible? Not really. There were a few neat ideas here and there, but for the most part this turns into an incredibly heavy handed movie about animal rights... but with dinosaurs. This isn't a species of creature that is endangered and about to go extinct that we should struggle to save. It's a species we lived without for centuries who pose a threat to our very existence. Hell, there's even a scene where Blue the Raptor is shown crying. I mean, seriously give me a break.

All criticisms aside, however, it's not a terrible flick to bring the kids to if they enjoy dinos. It has the varying aspects of thriller/horror that the first film had, and I'm willing to bet it could keep your kids on edge more than some of the previous films. A nice toe-dip into horror if you will. But as an adult, there's just too much here that outweighs the good.

So I think, speaking for myself, I'll tend to just stick to my 1993 classic I saw when I was almost 10. I can still watch 'Jurassic Park' today and have a blast with it, even if it has its stupid moments too. It's almost like looking at the 'Transformers' films in my opinion. The first one is full of these mind blowing special effects you can have a lot of fun with it, but after a while, the effects need to take a back seat to the story.

2/5

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