Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Movie Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Three years after the destruction of the Jurassic World theme park, Owen Grady and Claire Dearing return to the Island of Isla Nublar to save the remaining dinosaurs from a volcano that's about to erupt. They soon encounter terrifying new breeds of gigantic dinosaurs, while uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the entire planet. 

I have been a fan of the Jurassic films since I was a little child. And being born in the 90's I have watched the original trilogy so many times I have lost count at this point. I absolutely loved the first Jurassic World film when it came out and am so happy they came out with a sequel. I will say sometimes sequels have a hard time surpassing the original film and quite frankly this one while being great just was not as good as the first Jurassic World movie. 

I am happy that the story finally continues, however, I wish they would have been a little more original. A volcano erupting on the island and being the demise of the dinosaurs? Of course, that was just but a piece of it, a team was dispatched by Eli Mills who is in charge of the Lockwood estates to capture a bunch of different breeds to sell to the highest bidder so they could have the capital to do more genetic cross breeding. If Lockwood was a billionaire how come they had to sell dinosaurs to get more funding to make more dinosaurs? The auction only raised a couple hundred million...but yet Lockwood was a billionaire? Another thing that really bugged me was the scenery this time around felt like they cheapened out, especially, when all the dinosaurs were stuck in the basement for a good chunk of the movie. It's weird because this movie had double the budget as the first one yet felt like they were working with limited funds. 

I wish they had have brought back some of the characters from the first movie. We only had Claire, Owen, Dr. Wu and a cameo from Dr. Malcolm. I wish they could have brought back Claire's nephews, Owen's friend Barry who helped raise the raptors or heck even Lowery. It would have been great if they could have brought back Masrani in a flashback of some sort, especially, since some of these characters are still being used in the Jurassic World app game. 

Sticking to the theme of Jurassic World there was another genetically modified dinosaur that was created... the Indoraptor! A mix of the Indominus Rex and velociraptor. The Indoraptor is supposed to be fiercer and easier to command like the raptor pack that Owen raised. First of all, the name completely sucks and secondly, it was defeated by a raptor and a couple of humans...at least the Indominus Rex had a more badass fight scene with multiple types of dinosaurs. The fight with the Indoraptor felt anti-climactic and I expected more from what was described to be able to do. 

What remained of the dinosaurs on the Lockwood estate were released into the wild and off they went to go settle elsewhere. I found it extremely emotional watching the dinosaurs stuck on the Island summoning to the smoke and lava caused by the volcano and now with them being released in the wild after being taken away from the only home they knew broke my heart and just proved how destructive humans can be when in charge. And now their future is uncertain but it segways to the next movie where we will find out how dinosaurs and humans will coexist. 

I'm not sure where Maisie Lockwood fits into the story because if we were to remove her altogether the story itself doesn't change. Maisie is the clone of Ben Lockwood's daughter and now she's been unofficially adopted by Owen and Claire. I felt like a lot of Maisie's scenes reminded me of a young Lara Croft from appearance to her inquisitive nature and rushing in to dangerous situations. Even the way she was scaling the roof of the mansion was reminiscent of the Tomb Raider games where you would play as a young Lara and climbed on the roof. It felt like a cheap imitation of something that was already done. 

Rating:

I am going to give Fallen Kingdom 4 stars on 5. It was a good movie but not great. There was quite a bit left to be desired. I expected more of an epic 'final' fight with the Indoraptor and wish there was better scenery than a basement. I'm curious to see just where this story will lead now that the dinosaurs are out in the wild and on 'human land'. InGen will definitely develop more dinosaurs which is to be expected but hopefully it's better than Indoraptor.