Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

50% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 246 reviews)

Runtime: 128 minutes

Directed by: J.A. Bayona

Starring: The leads from Jurassic World, plus irritating new characters, although the little girl was fine until an off-putting plot point and a really dumb action she did

From: Universal

You know, maybe the first Jurassic World wasn't so bad after all...

Warning: This will be a very long review from me. It may seem odd that I am starting this off with talk about other films but there is a reason why. I've talked before about my disconnect with Hollywood blockbusters and how I just avoid many of them. To be honest, I also have a disconnect and don't quite get how many 21st century movies are beloved while I think they are mediocre or worse. I don't mean any offense to those mutuals that follow me and how they love certain films that I don't even think are good; I just think differently and am quite odd; I hope that doesn't make me sound like a neckbeard as I am definitely not one of those.

I'll just mention some examples. The Nolan Batman movies I should watch again so I can give them much more in depth reviews on why I don't think Batman Begins or The Dark Knight Rises are too good, and if it wasn't for Heath Ledger as The Joker and the memories I have surrounding all the hype The Dark Knight got a decade ago, I'd probably think that was mediocre due to various plot and logic-related reasons. Then there's The Last Jedi, something I thought was “meh” at the time but in hindsight and realizing just how bad and pointless the “comedy” was and how the story makes zero sense... in the future I'll probably watch and review it again... and the rating will be lower than 2 ½ stars, that is for certain. I know many on Letterboxd will vehemently disagree but I'll never be the type to always excuse the braindead nature of modern Hollywood blockbusters, “just because”. Note, however, that I am NOT one of those clowns that support the harebrained scheme of “fans remaking The Last Jedi” as it's all just laughable; in the off chance those random people actually DO have access to 200 million dollars, why don't they do something more useful with it, like give it to an orphanage or try to help feed the starving children of Africa?

But onto the first Jurassic World. I reviewed that twice and I explained how the story was crap and I did not care about any of the characters, especially those two ogres that were the nephews of Bryce Dallas Howard. The younger of the two was a hyperactive obnoxious nerd while the older was a lame stereotypical horndog teen... who somehow did NOT pitch a tent in his pants because a hot woman like Katie McGrath was the one who escorted him and his brother around the park? That was the least believable part of the picture!

If you're wondering why in the Sam Hill I even went to the cinema to see Fallen Kingdom, good question. Someone I know digs the series in general and they rate Jurassic World pretty highly; for their sake I would tell them what I thought of this even though they knew I hated JW and they strongly disagreed, as they did with my opinion of Fallen Kingdom. I really did go into this hoping for the best; it'd be nice if at least I got more enjoyment out of this. As you can see from the very low rating, no I did not.

Frankly, it wasn't until a few minutes into this that I realized the main plot point is incredibly dumb... why exactly was Isla Nublar chosen as the island to host dinosaurs that were brought back to the Earth via genetic engineering... what sense does it make to select an island that has a long-dormant volcano? The fact that a theme park was later built at a location featuring a long-dormant volcano is even most insulting to my intelligence. The rest of the plot is not worth explaining, as a lot of it is forgettable and in fact I've forgotten sections of it already. Just note that what has said was true... the volcano stuff is only the first part of the film; the rest of it was in a rather dull and drab location, which hosts something that also was intelligence-insulting. Plot devices lifted straight from Jurassic World... sigh.

The characters are still a big yawn for me; Owen Grady is no Starlord by any means and Claire Dearing is just dreadfully dull. Apparently, this movie wanted to punish me for crapping on the nephews from JW, as two new characters who are dragged around... utter bores. One is Tumblr Feminist and the other is Feckless Computer Nerd; for different reasons, each were one note irritants. The villains were total Snidely Whiplash caricatures, total stereotypes whose scheme is just not believable in the universe. I mean, there is a great variety of different dinosaurs on display and I enjoyed looking at all of them, yet they are stuck in a movie with a plot and scene after scene I couldn't care less about.

There is also a little girl character and she was far more tolerable than Tumblr Feminist and Feckless Computer Nerd. While I have questions revolving around the character and especially one thing she does, the performance itself I can't complain. Considering this is the only IMDb credit for young Isabella Sermon, I was impressed. But overall this movie is SO dumb and devoid of logic... as you probably already know by now, Jeff Goldblum's big “return” is him speaking for about 2 minutes in one location, and that's it.

I don't want to belabor this further than I already have; by now I hopefully explained why this fell so flat with me.