Review: JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM 
(ACTION-ADVENTURE/SCI-FI-THRILLER) 
★★1/2
Directed by J.A. Bayona
Screenplay by Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow
Based on characters created by Michael Crichton
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabella Sermon, Robert Emms, Peter Jason, Kevin Layne, John Schwab, Charles Rawes
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.
128 minutes
Verdict: With improved direction by J.A. Bayona but an increasingly absurd overview from Colin Trevorrow, FALLEN KINGDOM is more entertaining than expected, but about as dumb.

In spite of consistently strong, even stellar, box office returns, the Jurassic Park franchise has been creatively running on fumes since Steven Spielberg's 1993 original.  Back in 2015, I gave a negative review to JURASSIC WORLD in which I called it the best since the original anyway, although I wouldn't say that now.  The thing is, I wouldn't confidently say that it isn't the best of the Jurassic Park sequels either, because THE LOST WORLD and JURASSIC PARK III aren't good either.  They're all just different kinds of bad.  JURASSIC WORLD was mean-spirited and generic, and having rewatched it recently, I was also surprised to discover it's also pretty campy.  The idea of actually opening the theme park and seeing the day-to-day operations of that kind of thing (as much as we do see, anyway) is exciting, but you have this goofy subplot with training velociraptors and Vincent D'Onofrio wanting to use dinosaurs for military operations, and D'Onofrio's performance is weirdly hammy.  As the two leads, Chris Pratt didn't work as a steely Clint Eastwood/Harrison Ford dinosaur wrangler (who sexually harasses his co-workers, by the way), and Bryce Dallas Howard was painful to watch at times as the utterly incompetent park manager.  These were the kinds of characters who would've been eaten off the toilet by a T. rex in the original.  Colin Trevorrow, the writer and director of JURASSIC WORLD returns with the new JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM, but this time only in the capacity of screenwriter, and Guillermo del Toro's Spanish protégé J.A. Bayona takes his turn in the director's chair.  Bayona's previous work has included the 2012 disaster drama THE IMPOSSIBLE and the 2016 fantasy tearjerker A MONSTER CALLS, both movies that, based on the material, could have been disasters, and while they both had their problems, Bayona's direction brought out their best qualities with emotional weight and visceral chills.  In the end, FALLEN KINGDOM is largely a push-and-pull affair between Bayona's direction and Trevorrow's story (co-written with his regular collaborator, Derek Connolly), and the result is entertaining, campy and absurd.

The movie is set three years after JURASSIC WORLD, with the theme park, the island, and the dinosaur attractions abandoned.  An impending volcanic eruption on the island threatens all its inhabitants however, spurring on a movement to save the dinosaurs and transport them to another island.  To be fair, people get behind a lot of political movements and demonstrate passionately for things that are a little funny when you think about it, but my God; the dinosaurs in this franchise are genetic hybrids created by a private business venture combining dinosaur and other DNAs.  They're not authentic dinosaurs, they're not naturally occurring, plus, they consistently eat people.  But dumb Millennial types from the Dinosaur Protection Group, led by former Jurassic World park operations manager who really should know better, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), are petitioning for public support to rescue them.  Dearing is contacted by the estate of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), the late John Hammond's estranged business partner in creating Jurassic Park, who wants her and her associate Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to return to the island with a team to help locate and rescue some of the dinosaurs before it's too late, including "Blue," the velociraptor Owen raised and trained.  Owen and Claire soon realize though that they've been used as patsies in an operation to capture the dinosaurs for a secret auction, and Blue, in particular, is to be used to create a sinister experimental new creature.

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise compared to JURASSIC WORLD is that Owen and Claire are a lot more likable this time around.  The idea that Claire wants to save the dinosaurs from the volcano is still absurd, but at least she's competent, more intuitive, and she no longer has that godawful haircut.  Owen is a bit more laidback, less smug, and a little more self-aware.  Their flirtation and "witty repartee" is still groan-inducing, but while trying less to define them or develop them, and instead letting them react to the situations around them as the thin characters they are, it flows better.  New characters like the nerdy IT guy Franklin (Justice Smith) and stock strong woman "paleoveterinarian" Zia (Daniella Pineda)  who tag along to the island are okay and add some diversity but not a lot else.  Ted Levine though, who I haven't seen in a mainstream movie for a while now, is a treat as one Ken Wheatley, the asshole mercenary in charge of the team capturing the dinosaurs, played with a wonderfully oddball twang.

The action and thrills are very good much of the time, and it occurs to me that there just aren't enough movies with action sequences set within a catastrophic volcanic eruption.  There are a few of them, but not enough.  For the first time in a while in a Jurassic Park movie, there are some really good, scary scenes, kicking off with a very intense chase with predictable results in the opening scene, and the final act allows Bayona to really put to use his experience in Gothic horror in some spectacular ways.  Spielberg managed to make a really solid blockbuster adventure movie that plays in an area similar to JAWS with the 1993 original JURASSIC PARK, filled with thrills, but also a sense of wonder and significance.  At this point, however, this kind of thing works best as a goofy, stylish monster movie thriller, and whenever it starts veering into other areas, it feels lost.  There are some late revelations about characters that the movie treats as though they should have more impact than they really do, and I'm not even sure what to think about where this movie suggests future sequels should go.  I haven't seen THE BOOK OF HENRY, but from what I've heard, and looking at Trevorrow's influence on these last two Jurassic World movies, his sensibilities now strike me as campy.  As with other Bayona films, his skilled direction acts in spite of the tendencies of the material, and it reminds me BLADE II, where Guillermo del Toro was directing a screenplay by David S. Goyer.  In terms of the action and aesthetics, the results are typically entertaining, but the writing is clearly holding it back.

The main point of these movies, I suppose, is the dinosaurs though, and while it's pretty much more of the thing we've seen in previous franchise installments, they're a substantial improvement on the creatures of JURASSIC WORLD.  There are more major scenes involving the traditional full-size animatronic puppets, and unlike the one practical scene of a dying sauropod in the previous film, these ones actually look pretty good.  There are shots that look like slightly sub-par CGI, but there are few other times when I wasn't positive whether the dinosaur onscreen was on-set or created in the computer, which should really be the goal when blending practical and digital effects.  The headlining new dinosaur, the "Indoraptor" is uninspired, basically a better-looking version of the Indominus Rex from the last movie, darker, with teethier teeth and longer claws.  Its role in the movie works a lot better than the Indominus though, keeping things simple and purely menacing.  That's where the movie works best all the time, when it keeps things simple.

                                                                                                                                                       Images via Universal Pictures