Does the world need another Jurassic World movie? I mean, that’s really the question here, isn’t it? Are dinosaurs, Starlord, and Bryce Dallas enough to make it worth a visit to the theater?
Kinda.
THE BLURB:
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.
WHAT WORKED:
The first half of this movie.
Man, from the opening shot of this movie, nighttime with a lone submarine floating into the abandoned Isla Nebular bay, I was like ‘yes, okay, yes. THIS is fun. This is exactly what I want.’ The place has been abandoned. It’s creepy. Dangerous.
Then, we get to our two main leads, who are estranged. Yes. Also a good choice. The Jeff Goldblum stuff speaking to congress is a bit weird and out of place, but whatever, we roll along.
The mission back to the island is also fun! It’s about to explode. Volcano’s! Lava! Dinos in lava! And we even have funny side-kicks. This is GOOD. This is what I want in a Jurassic Park movie.
The sequence that caps it off, the final escape from the island as it implodes, amongst a stampede, a T-Rex, those rolly-bubbles that were cool from the first movie, underwater escapes, and finally a surprisingly mournful shot as we leave so many lives behind to die…
It worked. It was good. It’s actually BETTER than the first movie. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are great together. Our new sidekicks are fun and funny. They’re scared like we are. The baddies are bad in a way that very much reminds us of the hunters in The Lost World.
To start, this movie is better than the first. Probably in the conversation for best Jurassic Park sequel (the first movie, obviously, will never be topped or even closely approached, it’s that much of a classic).
WHAT DIDN’T WORK:
Aaannnddd theeennn…we flush all that down the toilet for the entire second half of the movie, which is so static, so tired, and so boring, it’s hard to reconcile that this is one whole movie.
The little girl is ‘meh.’ We’re stuck in a mansion for, like, OVER AN HOUR. The new Dino is ‘meh;’ we’ve done this before. The action sequences are ‘meh;’ they’re not scary, a nowhere near as thrilling as that island escape.
It’s all just…kinda boring. It’s not HORRIBLE, per se. It’s not laughable (mostly. There are a couple exceptions, including one sequence where our heroes are craigslist level creepers towards this little girl). It’s just…not as good as the first half. The movie peaked too early.
And, it’s a shame, really, because the beginning WAS good. And I mean, like, legitimately good. I was thinking I was watching one of the better movies of the summer, and then that feeling of excitement just slowly faded and faded and faded until I was watching something that just wasn’t all that interesting or exciting.
I think the big mistake of this movie was setting everything in the second half in that one static location. The ONE exception was the sequence in the mansion where our heroes are hiding out in the natural history diorama display cases. THAT was fun.
This movie is better than Jurassic World. It’s more exciting, and more importantly, it and its characters make waaaaay more sense. But, it really falls flat in the end, which is a shame considering its starts so strong.
6 out of 10 – if you love dinos, see it in theaters for the first half; otherwise, its a rental