Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review

Man, what a dumb movie. I didn’t watch all the trailers for this movie, because I heard there were spoilers in them. I’m not going to outright spoil anything, but I’ll touch on some things that might not have been in the trailers.

The story in this film was just bad. It starts out fun, but quickly descends into dumb. Just about everything in this movie left me wanting more. The volcano erupting was really cool and led to some tense sequences, and the movie even starts out with some of the political ramifications of the first movie. Don’t expect those to continue past the first 5 minutes though. Oh and you know that thing in movies where the last time you see characters onscreen they are a couple and then in the sequel they aren’t, and just end up going through the exact same arc as first one? It’s dumb and pointless, and feels cheap. There are places the franchise goes that we’re inevitable I guess, but they are dumb places to go, and only Jeff Goldblum seems to understand that. A lot of the new characters are fun enough, but we never know what exactly they are doing for 80% of the movie. Lastly on the story, STOP MAKING NEW SUPER DINOSAURS IT IS DUMB.

So enough railing the dumb story, because I think technically the movie is pretty great. There are some shots that are really memorable, but you have probably seen most of them in the trailers. I think the use of lighting was awesome, especially in scenes where it was thunder storming, or with the use of lava flowing across the island. All of these provide shots that are pretty unique to the franchise, while still having the obligatory character looking at a reflection and seeing dinosaur behind them. There were a couple longer takes that really impressed me as well, as I’m sure it was really tough to choreograph these scenes, but I respect the decision because it made scene either feel more fluid or more personal to the characters. All of the dinosaurs CGI was spectacular, and I love how many they actually took time to make real robotic versions for. The two meshed really well and I don’t think a general audience member will be able to tell the difference, but will definitely feel the emotional impact that the two different techniques bring to the movie.

I think the acting in this movie was fine. Everyone either projected they were a good or bad guy from the instant they were one screen so not a lot of second guessing going on. I mentioned the newcomers to the franchise earlier, and I think they added some more humor to the movie but they didn’t feel entirely necessary. I think they are likeable enough, and the actors made them feel different from the characters we’ve had in the past. Chris Pratt is still hilarious and pumps out one liners for every dollar he’s worth. Bryce Dallas Howard is a great actress and does a lot with what she is given. I will say, a lot of dumb faces in this movie. I laughed at least 4 times because of the face someone made after their dialogue was spoken, and I don’t think it was supposed to be funny but it was.

Overall, I recommend people see this in theaters because the big screen is what makes this movie s fun time. But I don’t think I will be buying the Blu Ray anytime soon.

Final Score: 5.0/10