Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Thought I might as well review this film immediately after Jurassic World, so here it is 🙂

It is a truth universally acknowledged that sequels are rarely as good as the original. But occasionally you'll find a sequel that is just as good, or even better, than the first film(s).

This is one of those sequels.

They brought back the skeleton logo! Yay!

Fallen Kingdom starts several years after Jurassic World. (Apparently the prologue takes place a few months after it, but the main film is set three years later.)

A group of men retrieve a bone sample from the I. Rex, and in the process set the Mosasaur free. Then the film skips forward to the news that a volcano is about to erupt on the island where Jurassic World used to be... and where the dinosaurs still are. Claire and Owen gather a team to rescue the dinosaurs. Meanwhile, we meet a little girl called Maisie, whose grandfather -- or rather Eli Mills, someone who works for him -- is sending a group to "help" Claire, Owen and their friends.

Maisie

Frankly, the first thirty minutes or so of the film are pretty dull. Not a dinosaur in sight, except in the prologue. I usually skip forward to when Owen meets Blue the Velociraptor, and the group Mills sent turn out to be traitors. That's when the film becomes truly interesting.

The traitors kidnap as many dinosaurs as they can before the volcano erupts. Owen, Claire and Franklin, one of their friends, manage to get on the ship before it leaves, while Zia, another of their friends, tries to treat Blue, who's been shot. This treatment requires blood from the T. Rex. Owen and Claire have to get it.

Blue

Owen, Claire... and Rexy

Mills murders Maisie's grandfather and has the dinosaurs brought to his house, where they're going to be auctioned off to the highest bidders. Meanwhile, we learn that there's something in the basement.

Owen and Claire are captured, then escape with the help of a dinosaur. (Yes, really.) They meet Maisie, and she tells them about Mills and Dr. Wu's plots. The auction has begun, and the thing in the basement is properly introduced.

It's the Indoraptor, another genetically engineered dinosaur, created from (mostly) the I. Rex's DNA. And it's possibly the scariest dinosaur ever to appear in a Jurassic Park film. Most of the dinosaurs are just vicious animals. The Indoraptor has a twisted sense of humour and a fondness for hunting children -- specifically, Maisie. It even smiles. This thing is so unlike a dinosaur that I began to wonder if it's supposed to be part-human. Dr. Wu (AKA the Dr. Frankenstein of Jurassic Park) made it, so it's not impossible.

The Indoraptor

The Indoraptor is what makes this film truly great. The first half is just average; no worse than Jurassic World but no better either. But from the minute the Indoraptor tries to grab Maisie from the shadows, the film takes a turn towards Gothic horror, and becomes a much better film for it.

Anyway, a mercenary's idiocy leads to the Indoraptor rampaging through the house, while our heroes try to evade it. At the same time poisonous gas is flooding the other dinosaurs' cells. Zia and Franklin try to get the ventilation systems to work... and accidentally turn on the lights all over the house, just when Owen, Claire and Maisie were relying on darkness to escape the Indoraptor.

The Indoraptor chases Maisie up to her bedroom. Owen tries to shoot it, but apparently Dr. Wu made it bulletproof. Then Blue arrives to save the day. Owen and Maisie escape out the window and end up on a glass roof. The Indoraptor chases them. With Claire and Blue's help they make it fall through the roof, right onto the horns of a skeleton below.

Blue standing on the Indoraptor's corpse

One threat's dealt with, but poisonous gas is still slowly killing the dinosaurs. Claire considers setting them free, but decides it would be disastrous. Instead Maisie frees them. The film ends with dinosaurs running loose all over America. Suddenly "Jurassic World" takes on a whole new meaning.

So, what do I think of the film overall?

The beginning is slow and rather dull. The plot only picks up when the volcano erupts. But thankfully, the rest of the film more than makes up for the beginning. The entire Indoraptor sequence is better than the second and third films combined. (Not that it takes much to be better than the third film...) And Maisie's origin is an interesting twist that raises all sorts of questions.

A lot of people were delighted by Dr. Malcolm's cameos at the beginning and end. Frankly, those were the dullest parts of the film for me. Dr. Malcolm has always been my least favourite of the characters from the original film. Why he appeared and not Dr. Grant or Dr. Sattler -- or a grown-up Lex or Tim -- is a mystery.

Is it available online?: I don't think so.

Rating: 7/10.

Review: Jurassic World (2015)

Apparently I'm plunging back into the world of science fiction/fantasy for a while 🤷

When I was a child I was obsessed with dinosaurs. The girls I went to school with were interested in Star Wars, Disney, fairies, mermaids, and things like that, but I liked dinosaurs. I covered my room with pictures of them. I read every book I could find on them. So obviously, I loved the Jurassic Park films. As I got older I lost interest in dinosaurs, but when I heard there was a new Jurassic Park film being made, I knew I just had to see it.

Why didn't they use the famous skeleton logo for the title? This just isn't the same 😞

I didn't recognise many of the actors, and honestly I didn't pay much attention to the human characters. I was more interested in the dinosaurs.

The basic plot of Jurassic World is more or less the same as every other Jurassic Park film. People create dinosaurs, dinosaurs go on a rampage, there's running and screaming, people die. It has some elements that are original, though, which makes it feel less like a remake of the first film.

Years after the disaster at the original Jurassic Park, a new park is up and running: Jurassic World. But there's a problem: people are getting tired of seeing the same old dinosaurs again and again. (This is the most unbelievable thing in the whole film. Who could ever get tired of seeing dinosaurs?) So the scientists who clone the dinosaurs have come up with a solution. They're going to genetically engineer a whole new dinosaur! And they're going to make it as aggressive as possible!

Can you see how this is going to go horribly wrong? Yes? Then you're smarter than they are.

Unfortunately, this creature is also smarter than they are.

Anyway, they make the Indominus Rex. Actually they make two, but one of them eats the other. Masrani, the owner of Jurassic World, is alarmed when he realises how terrifying the I. Rex is, so he gets his assistant Claire to ask Owen, the park's raptor trainer, to look at it. When Owen and Claire reach the I. Rex's cage, it's missing.

You can already see where this is going.

The I. Rex

The I. Rex escapes and goes on a rampage. There's running and screaming. People die. The average Jurassic Park stuff, really. But then an idiot called Hoskins has the bright idea to use the raptors to track down the I. Rex.

Someone should really have realised earlier that the I. Rex is part raptor.

The raptors and the I. Rex

The raptors turn against Owen and go on a rampage. Things look pretty bad for our heroes... but then Owen manages to regain the raptors' loyalty.

Owen, Claire, Claire's nephews, and the raptors.

The raptors attack the I. Rex, and apparently all of them die. Claire has an idea: she's going to set the T. Rex free. And then she's going to personally lead it to where the I. Rex is trying to kill Owen and her nephews. This scene is just slightly unbelievable. (Claire outruns the T. Rex while wearing high heels? Whoever thought of that has clearly never tried to run in high heels... or walk in them, either.) But it's so awesome that I don't really care.

The fight goes badly for the T. Rex at first. But then Blue, one of the raptors, appears, alive and well. And the I. Rex gets dragged off by the Mosasaur.

The picture isn't the clearest, but this is the Mosasaur attacking the I. Rex.

Blue and the T. Rex wander off, and Owen, Claire and the boys get safely off the island. Yay, happy ending -- for now.

So, what did I think of it?

I don't watch Jurassic Park films for the human characters and their problems. I just want to see the dinosaurs. The more dinosaurs, the happier I am. And judged by that standard alone, this film is one of my favourite Jurassic Park films. It has raptors, a T. Rex, a Mosasaur (alright, so that one's not truly a dinosaur, but still), and the I. Rex. It has some gory scenes. It has dinosaurs attacking people and each other. Even better, it has a fight between raptors, a T. Rex and the I. Rex. That's all I ask for in these films, so I thoroughly enjoyed it.

If you want a film with a gripping plot, this isn't the film for you. If you're like me and just want to see dinosaurs, it definitely is the film for you.

Is it available online?: Probably not.

Rating: 6½/10.