Friday, June 22, 2018

'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom': Let Them Have It


What could be more fun than a dinosaur ER?
At this point in the seemingly never-ending Jurassic film franchise, it can safely be said that humans are idiots and they should just let the dinosaurs have the planet. After all, they had it for a lot longer than we have, and if it wasn't for a big dumb meteor it's likely they'd still be around. And if we had any doubts about who deserves this planet, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom peppers the film with plenty more reasons to take the dinosaurs' side.

Three years after the disaster at Jurassic World--which itself is reason number one to let humanity die; those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it (in a series of big budget sequels)--the dinosaurs that have been left to live amongst the ruins of the park on Isla Nubar are threatened with extinction when a dormant volcano on the island starts to erupt.

Former footwear-challenged Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), now heads up the Dinosaur Protection group who are working hard to convince the government to take action and rescue the endangered creatures. But the government chooses to do nothing. (Reason number two: a spineless congress).

Enter the reclusive, elderly billionaire Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) to the rescue. A former partner of Jurassic Park creator John Hammond, Sir Ben believes the dinosaurs deserve to live, and has built them a secluded sanctuary island. He just needs Claire's help to capture the smartest dino, a raptor known as Blue. Of course Claire needs someone else's help with that, roping in "animal behaviorist," and Blue's trainer, ex-boyfriend Owen Grady (Chris Pratt).

Sir Ben, who is on his last legs, has entrusted his executor Eli (Rafe Spall) to head up the rescue, and through a smile filled with supernaturally white teeth, Eli convinces Claire he loves those dinos as much as she does. (Has she learned nothing about trusting things with big white teeth?)

The scenes on the island are the only point where we get to see the dinosaurs living their lives and doing their own thing, and that's a joy that the first Jurassic Park  exploited full well, before it turned to destruction. Fallen Kingdom gives us about five minutes of that before all hell breaks loose, and the dinosaurs are running for their lives from the volcano and some pretty nasty mercenaries--headed by a sadistic Ted "Jame Gumb" Levin--brought along to aid in their capture.

At this point the film sets the tone for the rest to come, as we witness the sad plaintive wail of a brachiosaurus who is left to die as the island is quickly engulfed by lava and ash. As my eyes began to well up with tears, I began to hate Fallen Kingdom.

It gets worse from there. For the remainder of the film, many of the dinosaurs are relegated to cages, drugged up, tortured, or on the verge of death. Fun! The villains are revealed, and they're one-dimensional one-percenters, who only see the money-making possibilities of dinosaur propagation. While the inevitable use of a mutated dino as a military weapon gets the most play, we never really know what the rest of the bad guys want them for. Big game hunting?  Exotic menus? Weird sex games? Whatever it may be, it just proves that the obscenely rich are the worst, (and reason number three that humanity should die off.)

The film is big and loud (so, so loud), but at the same time it feels claustrophobic, with some of the dinosaurs charging around a spooky old mansion like errant toys in a dollhouse whose floors somehow don't collapse under their weight. There's a lot of screaming and running, much coming from Sir Ben's precocious granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon). Oakland actress and comedian Daniella Pineda has a few good one liners as dinosaur vet Zia Rodriguez. But the bottom line is a movie like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom should be fun, not a depressing slog that makes you question humanity. I mean, if you've got Jeff Goldblum in your Jurassic movie and you only give him four minutes of screen time? A decision like that is proof enough we humans deserve to die off.


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