Fallen Kingdom picks up an indeterminate amount of time after Jurassic World. It has been discovered that an active volcano set to erupt any day is threatening the dinosaurs left behind on Isla Sorna. A senate hearing featuring a monologue by our own Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) bookends the movie to highlight the key question—both philosophical and very real—of whether the dinosaurs should be rescued. The official vote is to leave them to die, so Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard)—who is somehow not in prison for the wrongful deaths of dozens of people—are tasked with illegally heading to the island to capture as many dinosaurs as possible and transfer them to a new island, designated as a sanctuary for them.
This sanctuary has been set up by the ailing Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), John Hammond’s former partner who broke with the latter due to ethical disagreements. Lockwood regrets the split and wishes to make up for his mistakes by preserving Hammond’s legacy. I immediately distrusted Lockwood because the comparison to Hammond was just too apt, but it turns out the retired billionaire is on the level.
What isn’t on the level is Lockwood’s protégé, Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), whose instant “great guy” persona is as fake as it seems. When our heroes arrive on Isla Nublar, they immediately encounter Mills’ mercenaries, who really are there to capture and relocate the dinosaurs, just not to Lockwood’s sanctuary. Instead, Mills plans to sell the dinos on the black market in the mainland. He has also enlisted Dr. Wu’s (B.D. Wong) expertise in developing a new hybrid dinosaur using DNA from the remains of the Indominous Rex mixed with the hyperintelligent velociraptor. The mercenaries need Owen and Claire’s help in tracking the dinosaurs, particularly Blue, the alpha velociraptor Owen raised from her birth.
It’s at this point that I was unable to ignore the similarities to the second movie. An aging billionaire at the end of his life regrets his mistakes and sends the heroes from the last film to an island to look out for the dinosaurs. The leads are formerly romantic but currently estranged. Seeing the park abandoned and overrun with free-roaming dinos is definitely reminiscent of The Lost World’s Isla Sorna. They think they are there to be do-gooders but find out a large corporate entity has other plans that throw a wrench in the works. Emergency medical attention is required on a dinosaur, leading to a few tense scenes in enclosed spaces.
Both Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom love to reference the 1993 film too. A throwback to the infamous kitchen scene shows up in Fallen Kingdom, this time with a dumbwaiter. There’s a stampede with our heroes in the middle, and of course both movies—while relegating the T-Rex to a supporting player—nonetheless refuse to give up on the dino’s status as the queen. In this sequel, she has more than one hero moment that transparently exist for the sole purpose of getting us to cheer for her.
All these references definitely do the trick—they excite and delight and make us think of the good old days—but as quickly as the nostalgia comes, it evaporates just as fast and I’m left wondering if they prevent the movie from exploring new ideas and truly being its own entity.
It has been clear since the first Jurassic World that one-off character, Dr. Wu (who was a much bigger character in Michael Crichton’s original novel), is stepping up as a chief antagonist. He has little screen time in this film, but it is implied that he has questionable ambitions which will undoubtedly come up in the third movie. I think time could have been better spent exploring his motivations in this movie to prepare us for that. Crichton’s Wu was an ambitious prodigy instrumental to the creation of the dinosaurs but aloof and heartless to the consequences of his work and in possession of a bit of a God complex. I like that Jurassic World decided to explore this character where the original trilogy failed to, but the development has been a slow burn. I only hope that it pays off in the inevitable third installment.
The biggest reason the new trilogy has failed to land with me, however, is its lack of heart. This was first seen in Jurassic World, when the Indominous went on a rampage through the field, slaughtering the peaceful herd that called back to the scene from the 1993 film when Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) got the first glimpse of the wonders that captured an entire generation and set the tone for the original trilogy.
In Fallen Kingdom, they somehow manage to top the heartbreak with a single Brachiosaurus in a scene that had the entire audience silently suppressing tears.
In my case, I was openly crying and the scene sat with me for days after. It was effectively emotional but it just felt so cruel and I wondered if perhaps the writers of the Jurassic World franchise have missed what people loved about the originals. In Jurassic Park, the velociraptors were the villains, but ones you still kind of rooted for, second only to the T-Rex. In The Lost World, humans took over as the villains but the dinosaurs were still a force to be reckoned with. The velociraptors were the most dangerous but when the Ingen employees were thrown to them as fodder, it was impossible not to root for the dinos. In Jurassic Park 3, which gets a bad rap it doesn’t necessarily deserve, the dinosaurs were back on top of the threat meter, but we were also introduced to the idea of the raptors as intelligent, family-driven creatures, and it was this mentality that probably formed the basis for Blue as a pack animal and trained companion.
It seems that Jurassic World has missed the memo by creating dinosaur villains that nobody asked for. I was already on the fence about the Indominous Rex, but the idea was excusable if they hadn’t nearly exactly replicated it for Fallen Kingdom. Don’t get me wrong; the Indoraptor was cool and terrifying, which is what the writers were going for, but we already did this in the last movie and I fear we’re due for it again in part three.
I am still drawn to the Jurassic franchise and I likely always will be, thanks to Spielberg’s original film which spiked a lifelong interest in dinosaurs, but there is something about this new series that doesn’t feel right. I believe the third film still has a decent chance at saving the trilogy, because it has been set up to focus on the three most interesting aspects:
- Henry Wu – I viewed this throwaway character in a whole new light after reading Crichton’s novel and I believe there is more to him than we’ve glimpsed onscreen. Now that he has been set up as the primary antagonist, the best choice would be to make him equal parts sympathetic and dangerous, though I fear he will veer towards mustache-twirling, given the caliber of villain we’ve seen thus far.
- Blue – The evolution of Blue as an intelligent pack leader who is also a stalwart companion has reawakened many a childhood dream of owning a pet velociraptor. Blue lost her pack in this movie but it has been hinted that she may inherit a new pack and I am curious to see if they avoid the trappings of the first two Jurassic Worlds, which tended towards pessimism.
- A true Jurassic World – A last minute twist has certainly set the stage for a new world order. I am looking forward to what that world looks like in two to four years when the last installment roars into theaters.
