Review of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) by Garethvk — 25 Jun 2018

It has been three years since “Jurassic World” kicked off a new trilogy of Dinosaur films and successfully rebooted the “Jurassic Park” series which had been dormant for over fourteen years. The new film “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” centers on an urgent need to save the dinosaurs from a pending volcanic eruption. This kicks off a huge debate as to the ethics about saving resurrected animals or simply letting them go extinct once again amongst government leaders.

Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) leads a group hoping to lobby support to save the animals and just when things look darkest, hope arrives with an offer from wealthy industrialist Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), arrives. Lockwood worked with Sir John Hammond to create the creatures many years ago and despite a falling out, he remains passionate about protecting the creatures and wants Claire to help save some of the creatures and relocate them to a private sanctuary. Claire is needed as she has a radio frequency which will make locating and saving certain species easier and she is tasked to take Owen (Chris Pratt), with her to retrieve Blue the Velociraptor.

The fact that Owen and Claire are on the outs is a challenge but the chance to see and save Blue gets him to join the trip and they set off with a team to accomplish their task.

Things do not go as planned as it seems that there is a nefarious plan in place unbeknownst to the ailing Lockwood where animals are being captured in an effort to sell them as organic weapons and collectibles.

Things go into high-gear when it is learned why Blue is so important to the plan and with a new and very deadly species of Dinosaur introduced, things are about to get very dangerous.

If you have seen any of the prior films you will know that there will be plenty of Dinosaur carnage and destruction on hand and that the humans must face their own creations in a battle to survive.

The film takes what to me was a glaring hole in regards to why not simply make new creatures versus the debate over a rescue and gave it a very sobering and sadly understandable answer.

The effects in the film are first-rate and the film does hold your attention and provide some very exciting moments. Some may say that after five films it is hard to recapture the sense of wonder as after all; the film is bound to eventually become creatures on the loose with humans caught in the middle.

Director J.A. Bayona keeps things moving at a brisk pace and does have a script with a few nods to prior films in the series. While some may want to detract the film as mindless entertainment, the film is better than the two sequels to the original “Jurassic Park”, and does provide enough good moments to keep fans happy. I look forward to seeing what the next film in the series offers as this is pure summer entertainment at its best.