Newspaper Page Text
THURSDAY, JUNE 28 - JULY 4, 2018 lif
PAGE 11B
MOVIEREVIEW
Jurassic World 2 leans on nostalgia, contrivances
BY LINDSEY BAHR
(AP) Heress the good news:
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is
more fun than Jurassic World. It’s
not exactly a high bar, but still a
welcome surprise. In the hands of
a new director, J.A. Bayona, with
Chris Pratt’s high-wattage charisma
on full blast and a fair amount of
self-aware humor intact, there are
certainly worse ways to spend a
couple hours in the air-conditioned
multiplex this summer.
Mind you, this movie is pretty
ridiculous and the script (from
Colin Trevorrow and Derek
Connolly) is not very clever—I
found myself rolling my eyes almost
as frequently as I found myself
smiling with genuine delight.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will
not stand up to rigorous scrutiny,
and yet, it’s kind of an enjoyable,
preposterous and thrilling ride that
ticks through nostalgia beats like a
shopping list.
It’s a little sad how in this era
of industrial franchise filmmaking
a three-year gap between films
actually feels like quite a bit of
time—or maybe it’s just a testament
to how grueling the past few years
have been—but, hey, it did at least
seem like the right time to check
in with those dinosaurs again,
although I worry that our emotional
investment in Owen’s connection
with a velociraptor has been vastly
overestimated.
After a very solid, and scary,
beginning, with pouring rain
and genuine suspense as some
scientists venture back into the
defunct Jurassic World to retrieve a
dinosaur bone, a helpful newscaster
orients the audience with a whole
lot of exposition: It’s been three
years since Jurassic World closed;
$800 million in damages have been
paid out; and, most importantly, a
dormant volcano has come back
to life on the island and is about to
cause an “extinction level event”
that will wipe out all the remaining
dinosaurs.
The question of whether to
let the dinos go extinct again has
become a national debate and
Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire is
leading the charge to try to save
the animals. As a not-so-subtle
nod to that other national debate
about Claire’s choice of footwear
in Jurassic World, our first shot of
her is her feet in sky high heels (the
hiking boots she wears later for
all the action get their own loving
close-up too).
Essentially, and this is where the
contrivances start, a wealthy, dying
man, Benjamin Lockwood (James
Cromwell), who is somehow
connected to John Hammond, and
his associate Eh Mills (Rafe Spall)
pitch Claire on an expedition to
stage their own Noah’s Ark with
the dinos and transport as many
species as possible to a sanctuary
island. They need her to tap into
the park’s security system, and also
to convince Owen (Pratt) to come
along and get close to the raptor
Blue, his old pal who has become
so anthropomorphized it’s actually
surprising she doesn’t just start
talking.
There are some more new
characters added too: A skittish
computer guy, Franklin (Justice
Smith), and a doctor Zia (Daniella
Pineda), who come along on the
journey for some comedic relief;
a mercenary military guy (Ted
Levine); and a cute dino-obsessed
girl, Masie Lockwood (Isabella
Sermon).
Perhaps the most unexpected
thing about Fallen Kingdom is that
the “escape from the volcano” plot
is just the first set-piece. It’s all a
precursor to the dinos coming to
the mainland.
If you’re thinking, “I’ve seen
this movie before,” just wait, it
get so much more derivative than
you would ever imagine possible.
Bayona, who also directed The
Impossible and A Monster Calls, is
good enough to pull it off. It’s the
main reason why Fallen Kingdom is
entertaining despite itself, but it is
a shameless strategy that can only
work so many times. Also, can we
retire the “objects in the mirror are
closer than they appear” joke at this
point?
Life finds a way, and so do
franchises that make ungodly
amounts of money. Jurassic World:
Fallen Kingdom gets away with its
unoriginality for the most part,
but this franchise’s desperation is
starting to show. It’s time to evolve
or go extinct.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,
a Universal Pictures release, is
rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture
Association of America for “intense
sequences of science-fiction
violence and peril.” Running time:
128 minutes. Two and a half stars
out of four.