Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) Review

"Welcome...to Jurassic World."

-Dr. Ian Malcolm

Several years after the events of Jurassic World, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is now a dinosaur rights activist who is fighting to rescue all of the remaining dinosaurs at Jurassic World from an impending volcano eruption.  When the government declines to get involved, Claire is contacted by Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) and his right-hand man, Eli Mills (Rate Spall), who offer a solution of helping to move the dinosaurs to a new island and leaving them to live in peace.  They need Claire's handprint to activate the trackers in all the dinosaurs and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to track down the velociraptor, Blue.  Claire and Owen join the team to rescue the dinosaurs as the eruption draws near, but there is something shady going on behind the scenes and not everyone on the island or back on the mainland can be trusted.

There are going to be spoilers ahead, but I'll just go ahead and tell you this movie sucks.  It's easily the worst Jurassic Park movie and it has hardly any redeeming qualities.  It's the most disappointing film I have seen so far in 2018, and one of the worst, hands down.  Stay far, far away from this one.

What Sucks:

I'm going to start with what sucks in this film, mostly because there is a lot.  First off, these characters have absolutely no reason to go back to the island.  The plot is incredibly stupid, so right off the bat I had a hard time getting into the film.  I just didn't buy that smart people like Claire and Owen would go to the island when it could erupt any minutes.  I can't believe they would risk their lives for this.  I don't even know why Claire is a dinosaur activist anyway.  Before being approached by Lockwood and Mills, what was her plan?  How exactly was she going to save the dinosaurs?  Where was she planning on putting them?  The mainland?  I refuse to believe she could be that stupid.  It's utterly baffling and makes no sense whatsoever.

On that same note, at the very end of the movie, back on the mainland at Lockwood's manor, the surviving characters have a choice of letting the dinosaurs die from toxic fumes or releasing them from the mansion and into the world, where they will kill many people.  Claire and Owen decide not to do it, but the little girl, Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), who we will discuss more later, decides to let them out.  Good going stupid, you just killed a bunch of innocent people.  It's rage-inducing. The first three movies, all we ever talk about is how making dinosaurs was a mistake and letting them off the island is a bad idea.  So what do we do?  Make more dinosaurs and take them off the island!  What the hell?!  You people deserve to get eaten.

Now for the stupidest plot point in the entire series, which brings us back to Maisie, it turns out she's a clone of Benjamin Lockwood's daughter, who was killed in a car crash.  This development is horribly stupid and has even stupider implications for what could happen in a 6th film.  I shudder at the thought.  The only reason this was in here was to give Maisie a reason to free the dinosaurs, because they are like her.  Barf.

All of the new characters are one-dimensional.  We have the cowardly nerd, the tough-girl, and a few cartoonish villains, who plan on selling the dinosaurs as weapons.  Why is this in the movie?  Who cares?!  The point is; none of these characters are interesting in the slightest.  And they are all extremely stupid.  They make some of the worst character decisions I have ever seen in a movie.  Frankly, it was insulting to watch.

I have more complaints I'm sure, but I just watched this and it's making me angry just writing it out.  Let's move on.

What Works:

The on-island stuff is mostly fine.  There are a few sequences that are kinda fun.  I like the opening sequence, the scene where Grady gets paralyzed, the one where Claire and Franklin (Justice Smith) get trapped between lava and a dinosaur was decent, and I also enjoyed the scene where Claire and Grady attempt to get a blood sample from a t-rex.  They are totally acceptable action/tension scenes.

There was also one shot where we see a dinosaur that is left behind on the island calling for the boat to come back before it is engulfed in ash and fire.  It's actually a moving scene and the only time I felt any emotion beside anger and frustration in this film.

Verdict:

Fallen Kingdom is the worst movie in the Jurassic Park series and it isn't close.  It has a few decent sequences, but the movie is riddled with bad-character decisions, undecipherable motivations, one-dimensional characters, stupid plot-points, and all-in-all, it doesn't feel like a Jurassic Park movie.  It's one of the worst movies I've seen this year and it's easily the most disappointing.

 2/10: Horrendous