jurassic world fallen kingdom movie review

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

How should a dinosaur movie be? The makers of the first dinosaur movies, clearly drunk on their imaginations and the way their visions could be realized with then-new effects technology, did not have the self-consciousness to ask the question. The two early landmarks, 1925’s “The Lost World” and 1933’s “King Kong,” in which the giant creatures roamed the modern world courtesy of stop-motion animation conceived and executed by Willis O’Brien, were straightforward spectacles with nasty racialized touches, but they’re still valid (and in many respects thrilling) because they do their jobs: creation and destruction, things you’ve never seen before wreaking havoc on the world you live in.

Reviewing the 1993 “ Jurassic Park ,” my friend and colleague Janet Maslin wrote about the film’s potent frights and then added: “Much scarier, however, are those aspects of ‘Jurassic Park’ that establish it as the overnight flagship of a brand-new entertainment empire. Even while capturing the imagination of its audience, this film lays the groundwork for the theme-park rides, sequels and souvenirs that insure the ‘Jurassic Park’ experience will live on. And on. And on.”

While “King Kong” spawned one sort-of sequel, and a spinoff, and a couple of remakes, what Maslin was talking about here was something different, and has absolutely come to pass. As such, what a dinosaur movie should be is now, with “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” what the entertainment empire demands.

Directed by J.A. Bayona from a script by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly , “Fallen Kingdom” opens with a few DNA pirates on a stealth mission at the now-abandoned-by-humans island park where the dinosaurs still roam. These bootleggers get away, not quite clean, of course, because we need the pre-credits chomping sequence the way a Bond movie needs a non-diegetic stunt opener. After this we learn that a volcano is about to rock said island and make fossils of all the lizards once more. Should they be saved? Jeff Goldblum ’s Dr. Malcolm speaks to a congressional committee with metaphors that limn a global-warming allegory—the only time the movie tries to make anything resembling a statement—and says, let nature take its course. Bryce Dallas Howard ’s Claire, however, now running a save-the-dinosaurs nonprofit, is frustrated by congressional inaction and heartened by a call from Eli Mills, who’s now running the concern that manufactured the dinos in the first place. Mills, played by Rafe Spall as if channeling Alessandro Nivola , shows Claire a new sanctuary he’s carved out for the creatures. He has a particular interest in super-smart raptor “ Blue ,” who was so sensitively trained by Chris Pratt ’s Owen.

So yes, we’re getting the band back together. Joining up are two new members, from Claire’s crew: feisty dino-medic Zia Rodriguez— Daniella Pineda , whom some may recognize from the indie comedy “ Mr. Roosevelt ”—and computer nerd Franklin, played by Justice Smith in a characterization that suggests TV’s Urkel as reimagined by Wes Anderson . Once on the island whilst dodging dinosaurs and lava—“Oh God, it’s hot!” “It’s about to get a whole lot hotter.”— the foursome discovers a double cross perpetrated by a head hunter played by Ted Levine . After nearly drowning in a pod, dodging balls of hot lava, and fleeing other CGI-generated perils, Claire and Owen and party stow away on the ship transporting captured dinosaurs to who knows where. After a refreshing sleep, the two leads awake with perfect hair and makeup and not a scuff on their skins or clothing. I know it’s pointless to complain about realism in movies such as these but I laughed.

The movie then shifts in tone and structure, from a standard out-of-doors mayhem fest to a Gothic mansion tale— Charlotte Bronte with thunder lizards. I’m not kidding here. This is the section where director Bayona gets to flex whatever muscle his corporate overlords permitted him to muster. Mills operates from the estate of mega-millionaire Benjamin Lockwood ( James Cromwell )—a supposed partner of John Hammond who wants to carry on the great work yada yada yada. But Mills’ vision is very different from Hammond’s or Lockwood’s. He wants to weaponize the engineered creatures, and the mansion is to be the site of a grand auction of the captured animals. There’s no sanctuary.

Throwing a spanner in Mills’ works is Maisie, Hammond’s bright but enigmatic granddaughter. (Here the screenwriters want to get a little cute, as much of the action hinges on what Maisie knows, or at least finds out.) Cared for by an equally enigmatic nanny (played by Geraldine Chaplin , a regular presence in Bayona’s pictures, including the terrific 2007 “ The Orphanage ”), Maisie’s just crazy about dinos, although she may have second thoughts if the vicious “Indoraptor” that Mills and B.D. Wong’s Dr. Wu have bred in the basement gets loose. Which of course it does.

The film stomps through its two-hour running time hitting a lot of action beats that the series has hit before; the variations therein are along the lines of equations you used to do for homework: D (dinosaurs) over VE (volcanic eruption) times 4 characters the audience may or may not have any emotional investment in equals effective sequence, especially given the precision of the special effects. Here, then, is what the dinosaur movie is: bloodless, soulless, bereft of personality or idiosyncrasy, delivering only meticulously engineered thrills based on repeating what has worked in the past.

This is a movie that’s annoying in part because it doesn’t care if you’re annoyed by it. It doesn’t need you, the individual viewer, to like it. It just needs a crowd to see it. Whether you’ve been entertained or enlightened is immaterial. It’s Barnum time. You don’t like it? This way to the egress.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Toby Jones as Gunnar Eversoll
Rafe Spall as Eli Mills
Justice Smith as Franklin Webb
Geraldine Chaplin as Iris
Chris Pratt as Owen Grady
Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm
Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood
B.D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu
James Cromwell as Sir Benjamin Lockwood
Ted Levine as Ken Wheatley
Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing
Daniella Pineda as Dr. Zia Rodriguez
Bernat Vilaplana
Colin Trevorrow
Derek Connolly
Juan Antonio Bayona

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Reviews

“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is a blast (on the most giant screen possible), but with weak foundations, it’s hard not to feel disappointed and wonder what could have been.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

"Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," continues the feral frolic only to go a little too far and throw smarts out the window next.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 4, 2023

As good-looking as the movie is, it's not enough to change my mind: this is one of the worst films of 2018. An excellent cast, some mind-blowing CGI, and a great director... all wasted due to an extremely flawed screenplay and paper-thin new characters.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Jul 25, 2023

I found myself constantly puzzled by the creative decision-making and lack of aim.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 22, 2022

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has a few primal thrills and bouts of humor, but a story structure that remains distractingly uninspired.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 11, 2022

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is not a dumb movie. It's a terrifying movie about dumb, greedy people who do dumb, greedy things and are made to suffer for their misdeeds and stupidity.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2022

If you don't think you'll enjoy watching 2+ hours of dinosaurs dying in every depressing, horrible way possible, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom probably is not for you.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Nov 21, 2021

Falls victim to the same problem that has plagued every sequel to the iconic film: it makes the mistake of thinking bigger is better.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 21, 2021

At its core, this is an action-packed summer blockbuster that, if I'm honest, would probably be forgotten by the end of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 17, 2021

Trevorrow's vision for this trilogy might have the right concept overall, but the writing and foundation of it is simply too weak.

Full Review | Original Score: 3 / 5 | Jun 24, 2021

The end promises even dafter things to come. Call me a fool, but I'm all in.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2021

This isn't the feel-good movie of the year ... You may find yourself crying over imaginary dinosaurs. It's OK. It happens to the best of us.

Full Review | Jan 28, 2021

This latest endeavor suggests that a never-ending series of monotonous, formulaic, CG-heavy blockbusters will be all that this property has in store for the future.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Dec 7, 2020

The script is downright terrible with horrible dialogue and unrealistic actions taken by the characters. Yes, it's about dinosaurs, but you still want some sense of plausibility.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 4, 2020

The film disappointed me and my modest thumbs down comes with the acute awareness that I'm someone who sees far more films than the average human being.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.0/4.0 | Sep 13, 2020

A disappointingly dark fifth installment that offers a few fleeting moments of nostalgia, while taking a giant dino step backward for a brand that was once beloved for all the right reasons and now exists for all the wrong ones.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 29, 2020

They say that life finds a way, but Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom proves to be quite an exception.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jul 24, 2020

The times when Fallen Kingdom aims for gravity or sincerity fall flat.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 18, 2020

It is a cash grab in the worst possible way, stuffed with callbacks, cameos, and thinly veiled fan service. It is a spectacular disappointment.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Jul 9, 2020

There's no excuse for a movie with dinosaurs to be so painfully dull and dreary.

Full Review | Original Score: D | Jul 1, 2020

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‘jurassic world: fallen kingdom’: film review.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reunite — this time to both escape and save the dinosaurs — in J.A. Bayona's sequel.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

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In the franchise’s eponymous 2015 reboot, the place called Jurassic World was a “world” only in the Disney World sense: a bigger park, with ever-escalating attractions and ever-more places for families to fork over their cash. Finally making good on its name, J.A. Bayona ‘s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom says goodbye to the park for good, not just carrying the de-extincted dinos off the island but freeing itself from the genre trappings of the previous four films.

Here, working from a script by the last pic’s Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow , Bayona not only nods to the history of classic monster movies and the legacy of original Jurassic helmer Steven Spielberg, he brings his own experience to bear, treating monsters like actual characters and trapping us in a vast mansion that’s as full of secrets as the site of his breakthrough 2007 film, The Orphanage . Audiences put off by some dumb characterizations in the last film have much less to complain about here, while those requiring only some spectacular predators and exciting chase scenes should greet this outing as warmly as its predecessor.

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Film Review: ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’

The fifth 'Jurassic' movie is the first that pretends to be more than a ride. It's the film's dinosaur action that still rules, though maybe not enough.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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Where have all the dinosaurs gone? That’s a question that may occur to you during vast stretches of “ Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ,” the fifth entry in the “Jurassic” series, and the first that plays less like a thunder-lizard spectacular than a ’70s disaster movie run amok. Oh, don’t get me wrong: The film provides plenty of encounters with our stomping, gnashing primeval-beastly friends — yet for much of “Fallen Kingdom,” they are caged, shackled, sedated, wounded, and otherwise subdued. They’re right up there on screen, but too often they don’t feel like the main event.

On Isla Nubar, site of the now-decimated Jurassic World theme park, a billowing volcano is about to erupt and consume the island. Owen Grady ( Chris Pratt ), that hearty bro of a raptor whisperer, and Claire Dearing ( Bryce Dallas Howard ), the former park manager who now leads a dinosaur-rights activist group, have come to rescue the dinosaurs that still roam there by taking them to a new sanctuary. They’ve been hired by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall), the majordomo of the Lockwood estate. It turns out, though, that he’s using them for their tracking system and has other, more sinister plans for the dinosaurs’ future.

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On the island, we get token glimpses of the dinosaurs in and out of action. “I want to see this!” shouts one of Claire’s workers, climbing out of a jeep to stare up at a brachiosaurus, in a shot that takes us right back to that very first sighting in “Jurassic Park”: the moment that launched the age of digital cinema into orbit. There’s a nifty Spielbergian prelude that features a ginormous set of underwater jaws, and Owen wakes up in a daze to find himself being licked by the dripping tongue of a triceratops. At one point, Owen and Claire draw blood from a caged and sleeping T. rex, scrunching up against its fearsome head; there’s a poignant shot of a brachiosaurus being left on the island to be consumed by smoke and lava. And let us not forget Blue, Owen’s favorite velociraptor, who’s the most anthropomorphic of them all — a keenly intelligent specimen who, with her slight smile, looks like a cross between a domesticated T. rex and E.T.

Yet it must be said that none of these moments produce a hint of the awe, the gargantuan fairy-tale wonder and surprise, that has sustained the “Jurassic” franchise for 25 years. Spielberg’s original “Jurassic Park” had a storyline that was more functional than inspired, but it worked as a frame on which the director could hang his brilliantly imagined, breathlessly choreographed stomping-reptile magic.

The movies, after Spielberg’s 1997 sequel, have declined steadily in quality — “Jurassic World,” in 2015, was an orgy of deadly overkill, all prose and no monster-fantasy poetry — so it makes sense, in a way, that “Fallen Kingdom” adopts a new strategy. It doesn’t pretend to wow us as if the sight of digital dinosaurs were still eye-poppingly unprecedented and amazing. It tries, instead, to tuck the dinosaurs into a busy and “topical” conspiracy adventure thriller. The movie was directed by J.A. Bayona, the Spanish filmmaker best known for the atmospheric 2007 horror movie “The Orphanage,” and though he does a competent job in “Fallen Kingdom,” keeping the action thrusting forward, there’s not much he can do to transcend the script (by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly), which is a kind of furrowed-brow disaster-movie pastiche.

In the ’70s, if you went to see a film like “The Towering Inferno,” it was generally brimming with plot and character and even a social “theme” (that one had some malarkey about the recklessness of building too many skyscrapers), but really, everyone had come to see the people trapped in hellfire, the burning bodies crashing down in a trash spectacle of disaster porn. “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” is a liberal pulp message movie, yet it treats itself with even more sobriety. The dinosaurs, it turns out, have been targeted by Mills to be sold off to the highest bidder — yes, it’s the first cautionary dinosaur-trafficking movie — and at certain points you may find yourself ticking off the themes. Greed gone rampant among the globalized gilded class? Check. The sinister potential of genetic engineering? Check. The need to protect endangered species? Check. The privatizing of military action? Check. The eerie implications of cloning? Check. The danger of weaponized dinosaurs? Check.

I didn’t find any of this stuff especially “fun,” though the cast members certainly treat the political/genetic/social fodder as if it meant something. Chris Pratt tones down the dude factor and exudes a lean-and-mean sincerity, and Bryce Dallas Howard projects a luminous concern for God’s ancient revived creatures. Justice Smith, as a tech geek in aviators who is scared, almost mythologically, of being in the same room as a T. rex, comes on like a nerd version of Will Smith (no relation), and he’s intensely appealing.

The movie culminates in a dinosaur auction scene that carries echoes of “King Kong,” but it just makes you wish that the air of poignance surrounding these creatures were more sustained. At this point, a “Jurassic” movie needs its dinosaurs to be both victimized innocents and giant-teeth-gnashing predators, and there’s something hackneyed and opportunistic about the facile (if not mindless) way that “Fallen Kingdom” switches back and forth between those two modes.

The film takes a long time to build up to its climactic battle with an Indoraptor, and it’s effectively done, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before — and when it arrives, you realize that this is what these films will always, at heart, be about: not “social responsibility” but monsters who want to eat us. The first “Jurassic World” was, quite simply, not a good ride. “Fallen Kingdom” is an improvement, but it’s the first “Jurassic” film to come close to pretending that it isn’t a ride at all, and as a result it ends up being just a so-so ride. I hope the next one is an all-out ride — but that for the first time since Spielberg’s 1993 original, it’s actually a great one. The audience for this series has proved that it will turn out in mega-droves. But it deserves more than a passable rerun taking itself too seriously.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, New York, June 5, 2018. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 128 MIN.

Production: A Universal Pictures release of a Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Perfect World Pictures, Legendary Entertaintainment release. Producers: Frank Marshall, Belén Atienza, Patrick Crowley. Executive producers: Steven Spielberg, Colin Trevorrow, Thomas Tull.
Crew: Director: J.A. Bayona. Screenplay: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly. Camera (color, widescreen): Oscar Faura. Editor: Bernat Vilaplana. Music: Michael Giacchino.
With: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum, Ted Levine, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, BD Wong, Rafe Spall, Daniella Pineda, Geraldine Chaplin, Kamil Lemieszewski, Justice Smith, Peter Jason.

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Review: ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ Brings the Gang Back. Sigh.

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Anatomy of a Scene | ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’

The director j. a. bayona narrates a sequence with chris pratt, bryce dallas howard and a slumbering t. rex..

Hello. This is Juan Antonio Bayona, director of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” You’re watching a scene that takes place halfway through the story. We find our characters, Claire and Owen, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, inside a boat — a massive boat full of dinosaurs. And they just survived a big volcano eruption. And we still don’t know why the dinosaurs are there, what is the purpose with them, and we still don’t know where are we going. This scene came with the idea that we needed a thrilling moment into this long section of the movie that felt a little static, but we didn’t have many elements. I came with this idea that because the characters were performing a surgery on a velociraptor, on Blue, later on, maybe they will need some blood to get a transfusion before they perform the surgery. So I suggested to Steven Spielberg to get a moment of comedy and tension, where the characters are inside this truck with a T. rex, trying to get blood. And he loved the idea. [screams] “Oh. Ugh.” NARRATOR: It was a moment very open to improvisation. It felt very organic, so I gave a lot of freedom to the actors, and they came with brilliant lines. And of course, we had to create this big animatronic. And it was great because the actors were able to perform in front of something real. There was a lot of excitement on set, and they used that. There’s a combination of animatronics with CGI as the scene moves forward in order to be able to make the dinosaur perform movement that would have been very complicated with an animatronic. Also, Chris came with this idea of finishing the scene with Owen jumping through the mouth of the T. rex, and I felt that was very exciting. It was a real stunt that he performed no more than three times because it felt pretty dangerous, and we wanted to take care of him. And we didn’t force him to make it more than three times. [panting] “Did you see that?” ” Uh huh!”

By A.O. Scott

June 20, 2018

The posters for “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” promise that “The Park Is Gone.” Perhaps that’s meant to be foreboding, but it mostly sounds like an end to fun. The “Fallen Kingdom” part is also frankly a little obscure. The mistake, however, might be to suppose that these words mean anything at all. Sense is a thing this movie doesn’t have much interest in making.

Which is far from the worst that can be said about it. When the first “Jurassic Park” movie ( based on a novel by Michael Crichton ) opened in 1993, it was both a parable and an example of extravagant human ambition. One well-intentioned, misguided visionary (Richard Attenborough) used genetic engineering to revive of long-extinct species. Another (Steven Spielberg) used special effects to the same end. The results were a little ridiculous, but also scary, thrilling and intermittently thought-provoking.

That was hubris. This is business. The reawakening of the slumbering franchise in 2015 gave birth to “Jurassic World,” one of the highest-grossing terrible movies of all time, a lumbering walk in the rebooted park that squandered the charisma of the big lizards and the charm of the human cast in a witless farrago of blockbuster self-importance. “Fallen Kingdom,” directed by J. A. Bayona, is in most respects a dumber, less ambitious movie than its immediate predecessor, and also, for just that reason, a little bit more fun. Some of its high jinks have a hokey, silly, old-fashioned mad-scientist feeling to them, especially when the dinosaurs are chasing people or vice versa. Which is reasonably often.

Mr. Bayona and the screenwriters, Colin Trevorrow (who directed “Jurassic World”) and Derek Connolly (who was a co-writer of it), try to atone for the sexism that was one of the most remarked-upon features of the last installment. This time, Bryce Dallas Howard is outfitted with practical footwear. There is a “nasty woman” joke and a visual gag at the expense of President Trump’s hair. None of this should be mistaken for topicality. The semi-interesting ethical questions that have hovered around Jurassic Park since the beginning — what are the limits of human tampering with nature? What obligations do we owe to imaginary creatures? — have been stretched to almost invisible thinness. The park is gone! It’s time to go into the house.

Because the filmmakers decided that the best thing to do with the rampaging digital dinosaurs was to bring them indoors. The tropical island off the coast of whatever is emptied out so that the giant proto-birds could be moved to a mansion in Northern California. Supposedly the creatures are there to be protected from a cruel re-extinction policy, but actually they are pawns in a diabolical scheme to breed super-weapons that can be auctioned off to a gathering of international bad guys.

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review

08 Jun 2018

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

“Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?” asks Claire Dearing ( Howard ) in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom . We do. When Steven Spielberg’s photoreal prehistoric predators hit multiplexes in 1993 they changed cinema forever. And they were terrifying . To paraphrase Dr Ian Malcolm, after the “oohs” and “ahhs” came the running and screaming. But the original Park ’s perfectly-attuned moments of pure suspense (the tap-tap-tapping velociraptor claw, the water rippling in a T-Rex footprint) have never been matched — until now. Enter J.A. Bayona , director of The Orphanage , who injects his gothic horror sensibilities into the series’ DNA and conjures a new instalment steeped in tightly-wound tension. Hold onto your butts.

But Bayona doesn’t just pull off the carefully crafted white-knuckle frights you expect of him – he also goes bigger than any other Jurassic film. Where The Lost World and III struggled to deliver convincing motivations for their characters to willingly return to dinosaur-filled terrain, Bayona and Colin Trevorrow (director of Jurassic World , who produces and co-writes here) crack it with a time-bomb premise: Isla Nublar’s no-longer-dormant volcano is about to blow. Is humanity obliged to save the creatures it brought back from extinction? Or has life, uh, found a way of course-correcting in explosive style? It’s a set-up which sends the park’s former operations manager Claire – now campaigning for dinosaur rights – and Owen Grady ( Pratt ) on a quest to rescue a handful of species, including velociraptor Blue, from the lava-seeping ruins of the failed park.

Howard and Pratt develop their characters beyond the archetypes they inhabited last time.

The island is where Bayona’s disaster movie credentials come into play. He invokes the relentless intensity of The Impossible ’s harrowing tsunami in a thunderous stampede sequence as the volcanic eruption escalates, boldly providing the film’s biggest set-piece at the midway point. Such mass destruction is a new flavour for the Jurassic series, and Bayona wisely punctuates the bombast with human-scale peril — an underwater sequence with Claire and her scaredy-cat tech nerd colleague Franklin (Smith) trapped in a sinking gyrosphere is a breath-holding highlight.

While the volcano cranks the Isla Nublar action up to 11, back on the mainland Bayona holds a tight focus on the creaky, creepy Lockwood Estate — the mansion home of John Hammond’s former business partner — orchestrating beautifully-framed, precision-tuned scares with his scaly new star: the Indoraptor. Yes, InGen has been up to its gene-splicing tricks again, cooking up a new nightmare hybrid that, of course, is soon on the loose. With such hissable baddies as Ted Levine’s trophy-collecting mercenary Ken Wheatley and Toby Jones’ Trump-wigged auctioneer Gunnar Eversol on site, watching it wreak toothy havoc is a scream.

As for our heroes, Howard and Pratt develop their characters beyond the archetypes they inhabited last time. Claire 2.0 is more engaging and sympathetic — and yes, she wears sensible shoes this time — while Owen’s more brash, chauvinistic edges are rounded off. The pair have real chemistry, best evidenced during a hugely entertaining sleeping T-Rex sequence that delivers laughs, gasps, and top-notch animatronic effects. You wanted more ‘real’ dinosaurs this time? You got ’em.

There are niggles — one character’s mysterious identity is telegraphed far too heavily, Goldblum’s cameo is well-conceived but extremely brief, and Michael Giacchino’s score underuses the John Williams fanfare. But despite some familiar echoes of The Lost World , Fallen Kingdom also takes big, ballsy, irreversible strides, deriving tantalising logical conclusions from Michael Crichton’s original premise and setting up a brave new World for this trilogy’s final chapter.

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Jurassic world: fallen kingdom.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 43 Reviews
Kids Say 150 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Intense dino sequel has scary, jump-worthy violence.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 13+?

Several jump-worthy, potentially terrifying scenes of sustained tension and peri

iPhone, MacBook, MSNBC, BBC World News, Bentley, Budweiser, Beck's beer, John De

Words used include "pissed off," "hell," "damn," "Jesus!," "a--hole," "son of a

Flirting/banter; a climactic kiss.

One scene takes place in a bar, where Owen and Claire both have a couple of bott

Any Positive Content?

Science and nature can't be controlled, and animals shouldn't be treated as pred

Owen is brave, protective, compassionate toward the dinosaurs, but also realisti

Violence & Scariness

Several jump-worthy, potentially terrifying scenes of sustained tension and peril. More than once it seems like even a child will be killed. Dozens of people die (including key supporting characters); they're eaten (whole or in pieces), dismembered, ripped to shreds (sometimes in graphic ways), trampled, burned in a volcanic explosion. Most characters are injured in some way. One dinosaur is especially frightening; it tracks and attempts to kill a young girl. Bloody fights between dinosaurs, which slash, hunt, kill one another. Also weapons-based and close-combat violence between humans: tranquilizer guns, automatic guns, hand-to-hand fighting. A mercenary likes to steal the teeth of dinosaurs he's caught. Parts of the movie show animal/dinosaur cruelty.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

iPhone, MacBook, MSNBC, BBC World News, Bentley, Budweiser, Beck's beer, John Deere. Also lots of tie-in merchandise available in real life.

Words used include "pissed off," "hell," "damn," "Jesus!," "a--hole," "son of a bitch," "holy sh--" (cut off before completion), "bloody," "nasty woman," "beefcake," "hot rod," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One scene takes place in a bar, where Owen and Claire both have a couple of bottles of beer in front of them, and other patrons are also drinking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Science and nature can't be controlled, and animals shouldn't be treated as predictable and easy to manipulate. There's an ethical line between science and cruelty. Teamwork, bravery, determination, and compassion are important when dealing with animals -- and other people.

Positive Role Models

Owen is brave, protective, compassionate toward the dinosaurs, but also realistic about which are too dangerous to save. Claire believes in her mission to preserve the dinosaurs, is willing to put herself in danger to do it. Zia and Franklin are courageous, selfless. More female characters in this installment. But villain is fairly one-note (greedy, ambitious, cowardly).

Parents need to know that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is just as violent and terrifying as its predecessor, 2015's Jurassic World . Although the action no longer takes place inside a tourist-filled dinosaur theme park, there's still a large body count (mostly armed mercenaries and billionaire moguls). And there are lots of intense scenes of sustained terror, suspense, and peril, including a prolonged sequence in which a very scary genetically modified dinosaur tracks and tries to kill a young girl. People are eaten, torn to shreds, trampled, and severely injured. Language is infrequent (occasional use of "damn" and "Jesus!" and one "holy sh--" that's cut off before completion). There's only one real kiss (and some flirting). Expect a fair bit of product placement, especially Apple products and luxury cars. On the upside, there are more notable female characters in this installment than the last, and the movie has themes of teamwork and bravery. Families who enjoyed Jurassic World will be able to handle this sequel, but younger viewers sensitive to violence and menacing creatures may not be ready for all of the people-chomping. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard again co-star. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (43)
Kids say (150)

Based on 43 parent reviews

Underrated, amazing, the best in the franchise

Dinosaurs in the suburbs...oh no, what's the story.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM takes place three years after the catastrophic events of Jurassic World left the revamped Jurassic Park abandoned. When the volcano on the island where the park was located is forecasted to erupt, Claire ( Bryce Dallas Howard ), who now works for the Dinosaur Preservation Group, is asked by the billionaire who helped start the original park to go on a secret mission to rescue the remaining dinosaurs so they can be taken to a special preserve. She asks Owen ( Chris Pratt ), her now ex-boyfriend, to accompany her on the trip in order to track Blue, his beloved velociraptor. During the trip, it's clear that Claire and Owen are in over their heads; eventually they're forced into a life-or-death situation -- both for themselves and for the dinosaurs they want to save.

Is It Any Good?

Despite this action-packed sequel's uneven tone, director J.A. Bayona continues to thrill audiences with jump-worthy suspense and to create a bond between viewers and the dinosaurs. The elements of a summer blockbuster are all there: charismatic stars, smarmy villains ( Rafe Spall , who's inherited his father Timothy 's ability to play eevil quite well), plucky/adorable child (Isabella Sermon, in her first role), swooping score (Michael Giacchino, doing a wonderful job of channeling John Williams), and lots and lots of heart-stopping action. But something keeps this sequel from ranking up there with the best of the Jurassic films. It explores too many avenues and doesn't close the loop on a few of the issues it raises.

While the story requires suspension of disbelief in several places -- and Spall's character is all but mustache-twirling in his stereotypical villainy -- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom still delivers where it ultimately counts: the dinosaurs. The intricate computer-generated creatures are so convincing and so terrifying that audiences will likely grab their armrests or their seatmates during key moments. One scene in particular involving young Maisie and a foodchain-topping dinosaur will definitely tie stomachs in knots. So go for the action and the dread, but don't expect a movie that's nearly as iconic as the original Jurassic Park .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the amount of violence in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom . How does it compare to the previous movie? Did some of the scenes affect you more than others? Why? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

What makes the Jurassic World films scary? What's the difference between horror and suspense? Which has more impact on you, and why? When are kids ready for horror movies?

Which characters do you consider to be role models ? Which character strengths do they exhibit?

Do you think there should be more of these movies? Which elements of the story were left open-ended?

Movie Details

In theaters : June 22, 2018
On DVD or streaming : September 18, 2018
Cast : Bryce Dallas Howard , Chris Pratt , Ted Levine
Director : J.A. Bayona
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Dinosaurs
Character Strengths : Teamwork
Run time : 128 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril
Last updated : May 21, 2024

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For the film franchise that coined the term “Life finds a way,” the Jurassic Park movies have done little evolving of their own over the course of five pictures, clinging to the DNA crafted by Steven Spielberg in the groundbreaking 1993 original. Time and again, we’ve returned to tropical theme parks where dinosaurs roam, each new outing rendering a little less of that awe-struck magic that made Jurassic Park such a wonder to behold. With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom , the awe begins to creep back in and, finally, the franchise takes steps toward necessary evolution.

Set three years after 2015’s franchise reboot Jurassic World , Fallen Kingdom begins with a chilling cold open prologue that finds a paramilitary scientists breaking into Isla Nublar to snatch a sample of dinosaur DNA and, naturally, getting more than they bargained for. It’s the best opening scene since the original Jurassic Park and immediately establishes director J.A. Bayona ’s playbook for the film — when in doubt, crib from Spielberg, just make sure you do it with style. And Bayona’s got style. The prologue paints a stormy world of inky blacks and piercing bursts of bright red light, where monsters lurk around every corner, and for the first time in a long time, Bayona makes those dinosaurs a little bit scary again.

jurassic-world-3-chris-pratt-bryce-dallas-howard

Back on the mainland, we learn that Isla Nublar is about to blow. A dormant volcano has roared back to life an as the “extinction level event” nears, threatening to wipe out all remaining dinosaur life on the island, a national debate rages on about how to handle the incumbent disaster. Should dinos be protected like any other endangered species, or should mankind take the catastrophe as an “act of god” that will undo the arrogant scientific meddling that brought the dinosaurs back in the first place? Bryce Dallas Howard ’s Claire is leading the charge to save the animals, heading up a volunteer organization dedicated to rescuing the prehistoric critters from their second doom.

Enter Benjamin Lockwood ( James Cromwell ), a heretofore silent parter of Jurassic Park creator John Hammond, and his smarmy associate Eli Mills ( Rafe Spall ), who recruits Claire for a rescue mission. A self-funded Noah’s Ark, the goal is to take a team back to Isla Nublar and relocate as many species as possible to a remote island sanctuary. Except they need Claire’s handprint to tap into the park’s security and they need Owen ( Chris Prat t) to find his old raptor pal, Blue. This is all very silly, and it’s just the beginning. Fallen Kingdom has no pretensions about being a completely ridiculous movie, but that’s part of its charm.

Like a prime pair of fools, Claire and Owen head back to the island that almost claimed their lives with the help of a wise-cracking dino-biologist Zia ( Daniella Pineda) and a neurotic, genuinely funny tech wiz Franklin ( Justice Smith ). Once they’re back on Isla Nublar, Bayona manages to conjure some of that awe and wonder the franchise has been sorely missing, and serves up easily the best set-pieces since Spielberg left Jurassic behind. Bayona also conjures a surprisingly effective (if heavy-handed) through line of empathy for the dinos, culminating in a heartbreaking shot of a Brachiosaurus in peril that pulls on all the nostalgia heartstrings.

jurassic-world-fallen-kingdom-image-bryce-dallas-howard-justice-smith

That empathy, a bleeding heart for Frankenstein’s monster, becomes the drive of the film, and when Claire and Owen’s team are betrayed and left for dead by a merciless mercenary ( Ted Levine ), they follow the action back to the mainland and Lockwood’s sprawling gothic mansion, where they team up with a peculiar young girl ( Isabella Sermon , an amazing find) and Bayona flexes his spookshow muscles. Bayona directs the hell out of the script from Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly , eagerly playing with light and shadow to bring Jurassic Park back to its horror roots and punching up the action with a thrilling sense of danger. Set loose in a gothic manor, Bayona shoots his dinosaurs like they're the stars of a haunted house picture, putting all the best tricks he learned on The Orphanage to grand use.

And it’s not just Bayona’s visuals that elevate Fallen Kingdom above its predecessor, he also mines better performances from his actors — especially Howard, who gets to move Claire away from the her wide-eyed incompetence in Jurassic World toward a much more compelling version of the character (who also has much more sensible footwear, thank you very much) and mercifully. Owen is more enjoyable this time around too, and Pratt’s killer comedic skills are given bigger room to breath. He even gets a full-on fisticuffs fight scene. What’s more, the character’s actually seem to like each other and Fallen Kingdom seems to like its characters more too. At least the good guys. You’ve never seen a more archly villainous group of baddies in a Jurassic film ( Toby Jones is a particular delight as a hammy black market auctioneer), which means they’re prime for dino-chompin’.

As for the dinosaurs, they take center stage in Fallen Kingdom . The film is woefully CGI heavy, and if Bayona conjures some Spielbergian awe for his dinosaurs, he never nails the practical elements that made the original so breathtaking. All the same, it’s nice to see the dinosaurs in the spotlight again. Blue is the standout (and gets an incredible “cool guys don’t look at explosions” moment all her own), but there’s also fun to be had with the Indoraptor and a delightful baby-dino who smashes more than the Hulk. And of course, the T-Rex gets some time to shine too -- Fallen Kingdom is nothing if not reverent of the franchise OGs (too reverent at times). Speaking of which, don't come for Jeff Goldblum , he's barely in the movie, but it's nice to see Ian Malcolm prattling on about chaos theory again, even if only for a moment.

There are plenty of valid criticisms to be lobbied at Fallen Kingdom. For some, the franchise evolution will be too little too late, and it's fair to say that Fallen Kingdom is essentially a transitory chapter, a means of leaving the park behind in favor of the larger game Trevorrow clearly wants to play. After steaming full-speed ahead in the same direction, the Jurassic franchise is changing direction, and at times that makes it feel like it's spinning in place. It's also a movie that will leave some fans agog at the logic leaps and full-tilt absurdity within. The film has a blackmarket dinosaur action, for goodness sake. It plays fast and lose with the idea of genetic engineering and revels in the absurdity of dinosaurs on the mainland, but again, that's part of it's charm. When it's firing full blast, Fallen Kingdom feels like an EC comic brought to life with the backing of a blockbuster budget; a midnight movie for the masses. Your mileage may vary, but it's a whole heap of fun if you can lean into it.

jurassic-world-fallen-kingdom-image-dinosaur

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‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ review

'jurassic world: fallen kingdom' brings some dark intensity to the franchise.

The formula for the Jurassic Park films has always been relatively simple: Take an island full of dinosaurs, add humans, and let chaos ensue.

The recipe has been tweaked a bit here and there, but the fundamental ingredients have always remained constant — much like audiences’ excitement for the films, which has made the Jurassic Park franchise one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing series ever.

While it would be difficult to match the success of 2015’s record-breaking blockbuster Jurassic World , there’s a lot to like about the latest installment of the franchise, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom , which lacks its predecessor’s sense of wonder, but offers a darker, more intense adventure than previous films.

Directed by J.A. Bayona, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom brings back Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as dinosaur behaviorist Owen Grady and former park operations manager Claire Dearing, respectively. The pair are recruited to rescue the remaining dinosaurs of Isla Nublar after the island’s volcano suddenly becomes active, but their mission takes a deadly turn when they get caught up in a diabolical scheme to weaponize the surviving dinosaurs.

Bayona is best known for his work in moody horror films, with 2007’s The Orphanage first catching the attention of critics and audiences, and 2016’s A Monster Calls showcasing his knack for dark fantasy and effects-driven scares. Those skills are on full display in Fallen Kingdom , which feels significantly darker than Jurassic World and any of the earlier Jurassic Park films, both in its palette and its overall tone.

There’s a lot to like about the latest installment of the franchise.

Where many of the earlier films were satisfied to leave the scares to the dinosaurs, Fallen Kingdom features some of the franchise’s most overtly villainous human characters so far, with motivations far more sinister than the usual, theme-park-related aspirations. After four films that exhaustively explored just about every corner of the dinosaurs-as-attractions premise, the shift in theme gives Fallen Kingdom a unique feel in the franchise, but it’s likely to polarize fans with its willingness to abandon some of the series’ more traditional emotional cues.

Although 2015’s Jurassic World was essentially a reboot of the franchise, its success in capturing the sense of wonder and beauty in the notion of bringing dinosaurs back from extinction — before all of the running and screaming, that is — was a big part of what worked about the movie. Of all the films so far, it was the closest in spirit to Steven Spielberg’s franchise-spawning Jurassic Park , and like that 1993 film, Jurassic World kindled that sense of amazement with breathtaking visual effects and cinematography.

Fallen Kingdom feels like a smaller movie than Jurassic World (or Jurassic Park , for that matter), as it doesn’t seem interested in evoking that sense of wide-eyed astonishment at dinosaurs walking among us. Instead, it wants to show audiences the terrifying possibilities in mixing dinosaurs with mankind’s worst impulses. The movie’s protagonists spend as much time avoiding the jaws and claws of dinosaurs as they spend hiding from the guns of mercenaries and the machinations of evil men in Fallen Kingdom , making for a distinctly different approach to the premise than previous films have taken — and one that’s likely to generate some strong reactions from its audience.

Both Howard and Pratt seem comfortable in returning to their Jurassic World characters, but their roles don’t hold much in the way of surprises in Fallen Kingdom . Howard’s character has warmed a bit since the events of the previous film, and Pratt’s character appears to have picked up some serious hand-to-hand combat skills, but otherwise it’s running, jumping, and dinosaur-evading business as usual for both actors, who have the charisma to keep things entertaining even when the events feel familiar.

Fallen Kingdom is a masterpiece of visual effects that makes every scene look fantastic.

Although the newcomers to the franchise in Fallen Kingdom all do well in their roles, the film doesn’t offer any truly standout performances. It’s nice to see Jeff Goldblum reprise his original franchise role as Dr. Ian Malcolm, but even his part feels more decorative than necessary.

As with all of the films in the Jurassic Park franchise, Fallen Kingdom is a masterpiece of visual effects that makes every scene look fantastic, even in the story’s most terrifying moments. The dinosaurs are not only amazing to watch in action, but also rendered with a level of detail that makes each dinosaur distinct, even when the action is at its most hectic. In other films, digitally created creatures often blur together when they tussle or otherwise group up closely in a scene, but the level of attention they’re paid in Fallen Kingdom — and all of the Jurassic Park movies, for that matter — goes a long way toward making them viable characters in the story.

Still, despite the fresh spin on the Jurassic Park franchise that Fallen Kingdom provides, the film falls a little short when it comes to engaging with the deeper philosophical questions it brings up.

Bayona’s dark tone gives the ethical issues explored by the film the perception of extra weight, but the story stops short of actually dealing with all of the overarching moral dilemmas its characters face. The question of whether humanity should let the dinosaurs die off again or save them, possibly threatening our own existence in doing so, is brought up over and over in the film, but never explored any more deeply than to wonder aloud about the right decision. The moral issues surrounding cloning — as it pertains to dinosaurs and humans — are introduced at various points but never tackled with any sincere narrative effort.

Fallen Kingdom is an ambitious film, certainly. It succeeds in bringing the Jurassic Park franchise in a new direction and offers a peek at the wider storytelling potential of the films, but it stumbles a bit in its efforts to use that premise as a vehicle for exploring more cerebral, philosophical themes. That said, it’s just as beautiful a film to behold as its predecessors were in their time, even if it filters its dinosaur-filled world through a dark lens.

While the film is certain to have a fair share of detractors who feel the absence of wonder a little too acutely in Fallen Kingdom , the story’s willingness to take the franchise in new directions feels like a risk worth taking, and the final product is a visual spectacle that’s well worth experiencing.

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‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ Is Sprinkled With The Joy And Wonder That Made The Original Special

The Jurassic World movies’ main concern has always been to raise the stakes. It’s right there in the name: Jurassic World. It’s not just a park anymore. The park is gone, in fact, as its posters repeat, an ominous slogan splashed across scenes of dinosaurs roaring in terror as their island explodes. It’s a scene anyone has seen if they’ve ever picked up a picture-book that addresses the end of the dinosaurs — except now (in the world of Jurassic World) it’s real, and it’s our fault.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom picks up three years after the first Jurassic World left off, with the revamped park on Isla Nublar in shambles and about to succumb to a newly active volcano. Building a theme park on a volcanic island seems pretty par for the course for a bunch of people who thought a dinosaur theme park would be a good idea. Anyway. The question then becomes, do we save these dinosaurs artificially created by man’s hubristic science, or do we let nature take its course? In a particularly cold cameo, chaos man Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum, picking up his check) explains to a room full of decision-makers that the best thing to do is to do nothing.

But, of course, we can’t have that, and, Hammond-style, an elderly gentleman with lots of money (James Cromwell, carrying John Hammond’s amber-tipped walking stick) contacts our two heroes from the first Jurassic World and entreats them to go with his crew on one last mission to save at least some of the species from their second extinction. Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing — introduced stiletto heels-first (a not-so-subtle joke for those of us irritated by that in the first movie?) in one of those up-the-body shots that I really thought someone like J.A. Bayona would have been too good for — and Chris Pratt’s all-American boy Owen Grady find the prospect of saving Blue, the good Velociraptor, too tempting to resist, and go along with the plan, unwittingly helping a group of exotic species traffickers to kidnap a bunch of dinosaurs to sell to a group of billionaire bidders. Oh, and, yet again, there’s a new hybrid dinosaur that’s even bigger and badder than the Indominus Rex that some villains think they’ll somehow be able to sell as a trained weapon.

Claire and Owen are joined on their journey by dull romantic chemistry and two young members of the Dinosaur Protection Group environmental nonprofit, a hacker named Franklin Webb (get it???) played by The Get Down ’s Justice Smith, and a palaeoveterinarian named Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda), who, though she calls herself a palaeoveterinarian, had never actually seen a live dinosaur before she set foot on the island. Both are fun, interesting characters, particularly Franklin, whose stereotypical dislike of being outdoors and queasiness around anything remotely frightening are offset by Smith’s hilarious physicality. At one point, when someone asks him if he’s okay after some harrowing chase scene, he incredulously yells, “No??”

The dinosaurs in Fallen Kingdom do look much better than the ones in Jurassic World , though it still kills me that these movies have utterly sacrificed the slow menace of practical-effects creatures for ones that move fast but are completely made up of pixels. One thing I will say: Fallen Kingdom , unlike Jurassic World , really gets how much we love the dinosaurs that have become familiar to us over the years. Both the Brachiosaurus — the very first dinosaur Alan Grant and his group see when they get out of that Jeep — and the Tyrannosaurus Rex from Jurassic Park have big moments in this movie, as if to remind us that these are the characters who have followed us through all five chapters of this story. One of my favorite dinosaurs, Pachycephalosaurus, gets a big feature in this movie, generally causing chaos wherever it goes and ramming its thick-skulled head into anything that stands in its way (the animators even gave it slitted goat eyes, a fun touch).

It’s been interesting to see, over the course of the two most recent movies, how our relationship to the dinosaurs has changed. Ever since Jurassic Park III , the T. Rex has become the character who saves the day. Jurassic World went even further with the Velociraptors, treating them like dogs or dolphins that can be trained and empathized with, rather than creatures we know next to nothing about who were probably really, really good at killing stuff. Fallen Kingdom at least doesn’t treat the dinosaurs like zoo animals, or pets, but we’re still a long way off from the affecting mixture of fear and respect the creatures were treated with in the first movie.

There is a little bit of the wonder and joy that made the original so special embedded deep within Fallen Kingdom, which I credit to Bayona, whose primary drive, even in genre fare like this, has always been to sprinkle just enough emotion into the stories he tells. The plot of this feels less forced, and overall less cynical, than Jurassic World , though I don’t think I could ever believe that in the reality of these movies dinosaurs are treated like a boring commodity, bought and sold and updated and improved upon in order to still be interesting — much like how Universal has treated this whole franchise, forcing it to evolve without considering whether or not it can, or should, survive.

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom review: Action-packed dinosaur sequel has so much momentum holes in the plot are hardly noticeable

Dir, ja bayona, 128 mins, starring: chris pratt, bryce dallas howard, ted levine, rafe spall, toby jones, justice smith, bd wong, james cromwell, jeff goldblum, article bookmarked.

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The dinosaurs are back in JA Bayona’s rip-roaring, highly entertaining sequel to the 2015 reboot of the Jurassic franchise.

This is a summer popcorn movie with all the trimmings – action, cheesy in-jokes, startling visual effects and a storyline with a moralising, eco-friendly subtext.

It’s a 12A certificate – so we know that even if an occasional baddie gets his arm bitten off or disappears down into the digestive tracts of some prehistoric beast, matters will never be allowed to become too gruesome.

Chris Pratt’s dinosaur whisperer, Owen Grady, will always crack a joke at the most hair-raising moment while Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, Claire Dearing, will still find time to explore her conscience, whatever creature looks on the verge of eating her.

There will always also be time for a closeup of her looking anguished, with her piercing blue eyes reflecting guilt and doubt about her part in the dinosaurs’ woes.

As the film begins, a volcano is erupting on Isla Nublar. Three years have passed since the collapse of the Jurassic World theme park there. Now, it appears, all the dinosaurs are about to be burnt up anyway in the flood of lava.

Back in the US, Jeff Goldblum’s Dr Ian Malcolm (who appeared in the very first Jurassic Park a quarter of a century ago), is warning the politicians that humanity is on the verge of “man-made cataclysmic change”.

This is a long-winded way of saying we are all about to die – and it is our own fault. Claire is desperately lobbying to save the dinosaurs. At first, no one seems to care.

However, the venerable Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), the old business partner of Jurassic Park founder John Hammond (the Richard Attenborough character whose portrait is hung in a prominent place), is hatching plans to rehouse the creatures on their own island sanctuary.

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Here, they will be safe and free from humans. First, though, they need to be rescued. Claire persuades Owen, who has been living in a van in the wilds and drinking too much beer, to help her in the mission to save them from the volcano.

As ever in Hollywood blockbusters, the most deceitful villains are played by British actors. Rafe Spall is in unctuous, smirking form as Lockwood’s clammy, two-faced business partner. Toby Jones also pops up as a mercenary type who wants to auction dinosaurs off to rogue regimes around the world as if they’re impressionist paintings.

Just occasionally, the production design looks a little creaky and artificial. We see Owen deep in the jungle of Isla Nublar but you can’t help but think that the foliage is a bit on the rubbery side and that we’re on a studio set.

Thankfully, the lava looks altogether more realistic. Just when he is unconscious and it looks as if he is about to be consumed in the molten liquid, a passing dinosaur gives his face a long, slobbery lick and he wakes up in time to roll out of the way.

The filmmakers throw in some very vivid, old fashioned stunts. For example, we see Claire driving a truck at high speed off a harbour just in time to land it on the ramp of a departing ship. We have underwater rescues and jailbreaks. In the final reel, there is a lot of tiptoeing over rooftops and clinging to ledges.

Owen’s rugged, outdoor heroism is contrasted with the cowardice and squeamishness of the computer whizz kid, Franklin (a nicely judged comic performance from Justice Smith).

A key subplot involves Lockwood’s young granddaughter, Maisie, a doe-eyed little girl who never knew her mother and who has been brought up by a Mrs Danvers-like housekeeper (Geraldine Chaplin).

At times, the portrayal of this mischievous and mixed-up child rekindles memories of the boy trying to cope with bereavement in Bayona’s previous film, A Monster Calls .

As in Jurassic World , scientists have been playing dangerous games with genetics, trying to build their own test tube dinosaurs. Their proud creation, still at the prototype stage, is the Indoraptor, a fearsome creature that has been developed to be as violent and destructive as possible.

One of the boldest conceits here is to combine the dinosaur action with elements of gothic horror. Some of the story unfolds in the Lockwood mansion, a vast and draughty old pile that comes complete with terraces, greenhouses, underground labs, labyrinthine corridors, dumbwaiters (very useful for hiding in whenever the Indoraptor is nearby) and its own exhibition hall. (This appears to have been modelled on the Natural History Museum.)

Continuity and plausibility both occasionally wobble. We’ll see a character who seems to have a badly damaged leg one moment clambering onto a rooftop in acrobatic fashion the next. For no particular reason, hydrogen cyanide will suddenly be released into the atmosphere or there will be power cuts and random explosions.

None of this matters. The film has such momentum that we hardly notice the holes in the plotting.

Bayona doesn’t just show us the dinosaurs full frontal. We spot their shadows or see heads of humans craning upward to look at them as they stealthily emerge from the undergrowth.

Amid the mayhem and destruction, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard still find time to flirt. As ever, the dinosaurs are more sinned against than sinning.

The cruellest, most violent creatures here are the humans. The film ends on a graceful note, teeing affairs up nicely for what promises to be an even more apocalyptic next instalment.

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is unapologetically B-movie horror, but it cannot escape the sense of diminished returns.

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Before even the opening title card, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom tells you exactly what kind of movie it is going to be. Beginning with a pair of meat sacks who could very well be credited as “Prime” and “Tender,” the first shot follows two poor souls piloting a tiny submarine into the aquatic pool that housed the Mosasaurus in the first Jurassic World . If you don’t recall, that was the water-lizard introduced by swallowing a Great White Shark whole. Up by the shore, another lad who has the whiff of stockyards about him is waiting with his hand on a button. He’ll shut the doors to the water tank once that submarine is safely out of harm’s way.

It’s the kind of scenario that plays less like a scene from a Spielbergian classic, such as Jurassic Park or Jaws , and more like an effectively directed and higher budgeted sequence out of Jaws 3D . And this is the rock and the hard place Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom finds itself between for its entire run time. How do you continue a profitable franchise when, for the story to progress, characters need to make stupid decisions? And not just some characters, or just some of their on screen decisions, but all of the characters, all the time, must make the wrong dino-chomping call. In perpetuity. Otherwise there is no story.

The answer is of course to embrace a narrative where there really isn’t a story, just a series of set-pieces with varying degrees of impressiveness. Thus enters the fifth Jurassic Park movie, a film aware that the nostalgia keg which gave plentifully to the last several entries in the franchise runs the risk of tapping out—so it preemptively scrapes the bottom of the barrel for narrative ideas that include exploding volcanoes and velociraptors rummaging around a haunted house like they’re Christopher Lee.

The setup, for what little there is, involves the unexpectedly timely realization that Isla Nublar’s long dormant volcano is actually about to blow. And while the film acknowledges that Isla Sonar (the island from the original Jurassic Park sequels) still exists, for some unbeknownst reason Nublar is now the only landmass where dinosaurs still roam free. This hook poses an existential question about what to do with the seemingly doomed dinos, however Jeff Goldblum then appears to immediately give the answer. Showing up for a day’s work as the long-missed Ian Malcolm, the actor is at his Goldblum-iest when he tells a group of dithering politicians that the best course of action is to let the volcano take the dinosaurs before they can escape the park and multiply. Hence it’s up to our heroes to do the exact opposite of this.

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So returns Jurassic World ’s Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt). The couple has broken up since the last picture, but they still maintain that dated will-they-or-won’t-they workplace flirtation/harassment shtick from last time, and they eventually band together to save as many dinosaurs as they can for future generations’ children… Well for the children, generally, but also specifically for Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), a dying billionaire who was once the business partner of John Hammond.

Lockwood wants to continue Hammond’s dream from previous sequels of opening a preserve on another island for the dinosaurs to be free. Presumably he hopes that one day his granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon), who prowls his palatial seaside estate in Northern California like a ghost herself, will inherit this private island. However, his assistant (Rafe Spall) has different plans—including selling all the dinosaurs to the highest bidder in tiny, breakable cages beneath the mansion’s forested and remote grounds. What could go wrong?

As directed by J.A. Bayona, there are elements to admire about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom . For the first time since Spielberg left the franchise, there is a genuine sense of dread being reintroduced by the director of The Orphanage and A Monster Calls . His strong eye for shadows and love for a more patient pacing help build suspense and make even the most potentially campy concepts—like a Tyrannosaur-velociraptor hybrid lowering itself down from the roof above a young girl’s bedroom window, a la John Badham’s Dracula —have a delicious menace.

This intentionally more Gothic approach also veers away from the nostalgia that was dripping off the frame in Colin Trevorrow’s much more backward-looking Jurassic World . Even Michael Giacchino’s score resists using more than a handful of bars from John Williams’ iconic Jurassic Park compositions. Unfortunately, the film is unable to find anything particularly enticing or exciting to look forward to in the franchise’s future. With a screenplay by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly that is comically unaware of how B-movie its twists and dialogue are, the film still attempts to evoke the wonder of a franchise built on the magic of seeing dinosaurs stomp across the screen, even though the magic is visibly running out.

Whereas Jurassic World coasted by as a breezy summer entertainment by offering the one thing moviegoers all secretly wanted—the chance to go to a fully functioning Jurassic Park— Fallen Kingdom is forced to grasp at the evermore ludicrous rationalizations of a billion-dollar franchise wringing money out of an intellectual property that probably should have only ever been a one-off.

In fact, the film is built around the curious dilemma of human characters acting against their own self-interest to simply give the audience what they want: more dinosaurs. Because even in diminished returns such as these, the dinosaurs are still a splendor. One that it tangibly hurts to see be consumed by volcanic ash and lava, yet is gleefully wondrous to watch devour the rich elite who are buying them at $10 million apiece. More than the human-shaped slices of cardboard they eat, we want to see the dinosaurs thrive.

Which is probably why they will continue to do so, even in films as mediocre as this. Late in the picture, Spall’s weaselly Eli sneers to Claire that “you can’t put them back in the box.” He very well could be speaking about beloved films too, which like the dinosaurs seem destined to be exploited and rebranded into new patents by their oh, so human creators.

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David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

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The Cut Review: Orlando Bloom Takes A Hit In A Physically & Psychologically Taxing Sports Drama [TIFF]

10 things that make no sense about yoda, stephen king shares review for mike flanagan's third king adaptation ahead of premiere: "not what you'd expect from me", jurassic world: fallen kingdom is a fun ride full of adventure - and scares - that builds on the mythology of jurassic park in very interesting ways..

In 1993, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park hit theaters and became a sci-fi/adventure classic beloved by moviegoers young and old. The film was enough of a hit to earn two sequels; Spielberg's return to the world he helped create in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Joe Johnston's Jurassic Park III . The third film was released in 2001, and it wasn't until 2015 that the franchise full of de-extinct dinosaurs was revisited. Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World picked up the thread from the original park and explored a world in which John Hammond's dinosaur theme park became a reality. Now, director J.A. Bayona takes the reins for the next installment in the franchise. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a fun ride full of adventure - and scares - that builds on the mythology of Jurassic Park in very interesting ways.

Fallen Kingdom picks up three years after the events of Jurassic World , with the theme park on Isla Nublar having been deserted by humans, leaving the dinosaurs to run free. However, the long-dormant volcano under the island has become active again, and those around the world are deciding what to do about the dinosaurs - should the U.S. government interfere and save the de-extinct creatures, or should humans allow the act of God to once more wipe out the animals? Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is now head of the Dinosaur Protection Group and refuses to let the dinosaurs be killed by the volcano.

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Chris Pratt

She's recruited by Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) of the Lockwood Estate, established by Hammond's former parter Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), in order to help get the dinosaurs off the island and to a sanctuary where they can live in peace. And in order to rescue the Velociraptor Blue, Claire calls on Owen Grady (Chris Pratt). Along with Owen, Claire brings paleoveterinarian Dr. Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda) and systems analyst Franklin Webb (Justice Smith). However, the mission on Isla Nublar goes sideways when Claire and Owen learn the true goal of Mills' project and what he's actually hoping to achieve. With additional complications like the genetically engineered dinosaur, the Indoraptor, it remains to be seen if Claire and Owen will be able to save themselves from a horrible fate, let alone the last remaining dinosaurs on Earth.

Bayona steps into the director's chair on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom , working from a script by Trevorrow and his Jurassic World co-writer Derek Connolly. Having previously helmed a horror film in The Orphanage , a disaster thriller in The Impossible , and a fantasy drama in A Monster Calls - among other films - Bayona has a unique skillset to bring to the Jurassic World sequel. In Fallen Kingdom , Bayona balances horror with action and adventure for some of the more thrilling sequences in the entire Jurassic Park franchise. The director skillfully directs a scene so as to wring as much tension out and keep viewers on the edge of their seats - or hands over their eyes, preparing for the scare, as the case may be. Further, Bayona infuses plenty of fantastic horror imagery in Fallen Kingdom , again utilizing beautiful visuals to eke out as much emotion from a scene as possible.

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Bryce Dallas Howard Justice Smith

Bayona, along with screenwriters Trevorrow and Connolly, also bring a great deal of heart and tragedy to the world, especially when it comes to the dinosaurs. Fallen Kingdom showcases the wonder and amazement of seeing dinosaurs made real through de-extinction, while also balancing it with the true cost of what it means - not only for humans, but for the creatures who now exist in a modern world. One of the biggest strengths of the Jurassic Park franchise, both the original series and the new trilogy kicked off in Jurassic World , has been the concept of de-extinct dinosaurs and how humans would co-exist in modern day with these creatures. While Jurassic World relegated the dinosaurs to its titular theme park on Isla Nublar, Fallen Kingdom takes the next logical steps to build out this alternate universe - and those steps lead toward a very different and very compelling reality that will be further explored in Jurassic World 3 .

However, like Jurassic World , one of the weaker aspects of Fallen Kingdom is the relationship of its two leads. The on-again, off-again romance of Claire and Owen feels shoehorned into the story simply for the sake of checking some box. For their parts, Pratt brings the same amount of swagger and charm to Owen as in Jurassic World , while Howard plays a more dynamic and matured version of Claire. The supporting players of Smith's Franklin and Pineda's Zia provide equal amounts of fun comedic relief and necessary plot progression. Perhaps the biggest surprise is Isabella Sermon's performance as Benjamin Lockwood's granddaughter Maisie, who turns out to be a compelling addition to the film. And, of course, Jeff Goldblum returns for Fallen Kingdom , reprising his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm. While his performance will be fun for longtime fans of Jurassic Park , it amounts to little more than a cameo.

Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Chris Pratt Bryce Dallas Howard

Certainly, some aspects of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom are retreads of previous Jurassic Park films, with even the movie's Indoraptor repurposing the basic concept of Jurassic World's Indominus Rex - making a man-made dinosaur the main antagonist. Undoubtedly, these issues arise from Trevorrow and Connolly's script, which is weak at times. Fallen Kingdom feels like much more of a fully realized idea and application of the Jurassic World concept. But, the back half of the movie isn't quite as tightly woven as the first, with the script setting up a number of interesting threads and struggling a bit to pull them all together by the third act. Still, it's an entertaining enough third act that sets the stage for Jurassic World 3 to take the franchise somewhere new.

All in all, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom provides the fun and adventure moviegoers have come to expect from the Jurassic Park franchise, while providing a great deal of horror and perhaps even more heart than viewers may be expecting. Further, the concepts and ideas explored in Fallen Kingdom also weave in a little more to think about in terms of the real impact de-extinct dinosaurs would have on humankind's existence on Earth. And, given Bayona's visuals as applied to the big action set pieces throughout the film, this may be one for fans to catch in IMAX. Ultimately, Fallen Kingdom is a more mature and fully realized vision than Jurassic World , offering plenty of entertainment for diehard Jurassic Park fans and casual summer moviegoers alike.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is now playing in U.S. theaters nationwide. It runs 128 minutes and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments!

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

In the follow-up to Jurassic World, Claire Dearing and Owen Grady aim to save the dinosaurs of Jurassic World from an impending volcanic eruption. Though some would see the creatures die and others aim to sell them on the black market, Owen and Claire hope to see humans and dinosaurs live alongside each other.

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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reviews are mixed, but praise director J.A. Bayona

Whether or not you shut off your brain during Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom may determine whether or not you enjoy it.

The first reviews are in for the latest installment of the Jurassic franchise, and they’re somewhat mixed. Some critics, like EW’s Chris Nashawaty, found the movie “absurdly entertaining.” He added, “The less you try to dissect it, the more you’ll enjoy it.” Others reviewers, like The Wrap ’s Dan Callahan, described the Jurassic World sequel as “expected” and “very hackneyed.”

Matt Singer of ScreenCrush wrote , “This isn’t just a film you need to ‘turn off your brain’ to enjoy; nothing less than surgically removing your brain from your body would do the trick.” Most critics, however, seem to agree that director J.A. Bayona ( A Monster Calls ) elevates the material.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their Jurassic World roles of Owen and Claire for Fallen Kingdom . With the park officially dead, they head back to Isla Nublar to rescue as many dinosaurs as possible when an erupting volcano threatens to wipe them out. But, as teased in the film’s trailers , there’s another nefarious plot involving a black market that seeks to weaponize the dinos.

With Bayona at the helm, critics have praised Fallen Kingdom ’s transformation into a “spooky mansion movie” with “Alfred Hitchcock and Hammer horror style suspense.” Colin Trevorrow, who directed the first Jurassic World and will return to helm the third installment , co-wrote the screenplay for Fallen Kingdom with Derek Connolly.

Read more of the first wave of reviews below.

Chris Nashawaty ( Entertainment Weekly ) “Howard, thankfully, gets more to do than the last go round (and in combat boots, no less!), Pratt busts out his Indiana Jones cocktail of can-do heroism and deadpan jokiness, and Bayona and his screenwriters (Trevorrow and Derek Connolly) test the laws of incredulity with varying degrees of success. At least, until the final half hour when forehead-slapping hooey finally win out. Up until then, Fallen Kingdom is exactly the kind of escapist summer behemoth you want it to be.”

John DeFore ( The Hollywood Reporter ) “Here, working from a script by the last pic’s Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow, Bayona not only nods to the histories of classic monster movies and the legacy of original Jurassic helmer Steven Spielberg; he brings his own experience to bear, treating monsters like actual characters and trapping us in a vast mansion that’s as full of secrets as the site of his breakthrough 2007 film The Orphanage . Audiences put off by some dumb characterizations in the last film have much less to complain about here, while those requiring only some spectacular predators and exciting chase scenes should greet this outing as warmly as its predecessor.”

Dan Callahan ( The Wrap ) “The major problem with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — the fifth installment in this dinosaur series, and the second of a prospective trilogy — is that the makers treat the action and suspense sequences in the way most of us go to the dentist. Director J. A. Bayona ( A Monster Calls ) goes through the motions of these scenes, even staging a ‘hiding from dinosaurs’ set piece that was the most memorable section of Steven Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park movie from 1993. But what was exciting and scary then feels expected and very hackneyed now. This new Jurassic begins with a tedious sequence set during a nighttime rainstorm where one of the dinosaurs wakes from its slumber to scare some men. This is shot and edited in such a sluggish way that it comes close to feeling inept, but mainly it suffers from lack of enthusiasm.”

Richard Lawson ( Vanity Fair ) “While the first half of the film is a petty perfunctory rehash of 1997’s The Lost World , with poachers rounding up dinosaurs for profit and a little bit of sport, the second half of Fallen Kingdom does something nifty. Bayona revisits some aesthetics and moods from his lauded 2007 horror film The Orphanage by turning Fallen Kingdom into something of a spooky mansion movie, rainy and atmospheric and full of creeping shadows. It’s an unexpected reduction in scale and commitment to specificity, not what we often see in follows-up to smash hits. But these are proportions that Bayona knows how to work in, and from them he crafts something clever and goofy and jumpy. Of course he’s mandated to enlarge the purview of the film — or, really, of the franchise — by the end, but for a while there he gets to play around on his own terms. It’s a surprising delight.”

Matt Singer ( ScreenCrush ) “Director J.A. Bayona ( The Orphanage ) has a way with striking, monstrous visuals, and Fallen Kingdom has a few. (It also has one extremely clever ‘chase’ scene involving Chris Pratt trying to outrun a wall of lava.) But the plot mechanics by writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow (who also directed Jurassic World ) needed to get from Isla Nublar to the Lockwood home are so laughable, as are any number of events required to bring about the slasher film-style chaos of the third act, that they repeatedly undercut the movie’s thrills. This isn’t just a film you need to ‘turn off your brain’ to enjoy; nothing less than surgically removing your brain from your body would do the trick.”

Eric Kohn ( IndieWire ) “In the wake of the box-office lunacy that drove Jurassic World to become the fifth-highest grossing movie of all time, Fallen Kingdom is a frustrating display of overconfidence. It’s occasionally elevated by director J.A. Bayona’s penchant for taut human-versus-dino showdowns, but fleeting moments of inspired filmmaking can’t overshadow the broader tendency of this material to sag into stupidity. Campy dialogue and ludicrous plot twists abound: The fate of these resurrected creatures remains uncertain, but the formula for their movies will never go extinct.”

Emma Stefansky ( UPROXX ) “There is a little bit of the wonder and joy that made the original so special embedded deep within Fallen Kingdom , which I credit to Bayona, whose primary drive, even in genre fare like this, has always been to sprinkle just enough emotion into the stories he tells. The plot of this feels less forced, and overall less cynical, than Jurassic World , though I don’t think I could ever believe that in the reality of these movies dinosaurs are treated like a boring commodity, bought and sold and updated and improved upon in order to still be interesting — much like how Universal has treated this whole franchise, forcing it to evolve without considering whether or not it can, or should, survive.”

Gav Murphy ( IGN ) “J.A. Bayona feels like the perfect director to take control of Fallen Kingdom after proving he can handle large-scale destruction with confidence but is equally capable of delivering intimate scares. There are echoes of his previous works such as The Impossible (big old natural disaster) and The Orphanage (creepy old secret-filled house) in Fallen Kingdom but more impressive is how it draws on further inspirations like Alfred Hitchcock and Hammer horror style suspense. The latter is definitely felt throughout the film and Bayona’s use of light and shadows to create tension is one of the highlights of Fallen Kingdom . Whether it’s a toothy Baryonyx stalking through a tunnel lit by a menacing drop of lava or the claws of the terrifying new Indoraptor illuminated by a child’s night-light, Bayona’s horror seems classy and rarely resorts to simply jump scares.”

Mark Kumode ( The Guardian ) “Certainly, like the ‘ Indominus rex ‘ at the centre of its genetically spliced action, this cinematic theme park ride is bigger, louder, and has more teeth than either Jaws or Jurassic Park . Yet what it gains in size it loses in terms of dramatic logic and, more importantly, character chemistry. While the 3D beasts are undeniably impressive, their human counterparts remain resolutely two-dimensional thanks to a script that mistakes tone-deaf jumps and starts for emotional arcs. The result is a spectacular summer blockbuster that will doubtless eat the box office alive, but that remains all bark and no bite.”

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens June 22.

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'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'

The Box Office:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom opens today in France and elsewhere for the start of what amounts to a global opening weekend in 49 territories. The hope is that it can snag over/under $140 million this weekend, but we'll see how that plays out. The movie doesn’t open until June 22 in North America, but it will essentially be playing in most of the world by then.

Why the delay? Well, normally I’d assume they were trying to grab overseas bucks before the bad reviews and lousy buzz sunk in. But A) Universal/Comcast Corp. showed the film for some LA/NY critics yesterday and B) I mostly enjoyed the film, so this isn’t another Battleship -like dodge. The overseas schedule seems timed to avoid The FIFA World Cup as much as possible overseas while getting out one weekend after The Incredibles 2 on June 15.

If Fallen Kingdom clicks, it’ll have one weekend of soft-ish releases (the biggest being Sicario: Day of the Soldado ) and then the July 4th holiday where it will fend off The First Purge and Ant-Man and the Wasp . By that point, it will have soared or sunk overseas and in North America so Universal can get to plugging Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper for the July 13 release. No one expects Fallen Kingdom to get anywhere near Jurassic World and its $652 million domestic/$1.672 billion worldwide total.

So, the question is how far it falls and if it’s normal sequel comedown or audiences merely wanting to go back to the island one more time. The Lost World fell 35% from Jurassic Park and then Jurassic Park III fell 40% from Lost World in 2001, so we shouldn’t freak out if Fallen Kingdom doesn’t approximate the last film’s massive success. Either way, when a movie makes $1.672 billion worldwide on a $150 million budget, you spend $175m on a sequel and hope for the best.

The Review:

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a sharp-left run in a franchise that has been somewhat running in place for 25 years. That’s not to say it is infinitely better than the various sequels, or that the previous sequels were bad (they all have their merits, give-or-take nitpicks and qualms), but this J.A. Bayona-directed installment offers both the tropes we’ve come to expect and a few surprises. It peaks in the first act and drags a bit toward the end, mostly due to a certain de-escalation of stakes, but it works as a splashy popcorn entertainment. It also gets points for starting big and getting smaller as it goes along, meaning that there is real suspense since the entire world isn’t at stake.

After a violent prologue which offers plot clues, the film settles down for quite a bit of character interaction and plot set-up. The events of the last dino adventure have had potentially grim consequences for the majestic creatures, in this case, an active volcano that threatens to kill the surviving dinosaurs and render them extinct again. Former theme park boss-turned animal rights activist Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard, amusingly introduced heels-first as a winking nod to the dumbest criticism of the previous flick) is recruited to help lead a grand rescue mission. She ends up convincing Owen (Chris Pratt, dialing down the machismo to a refreshing degree) to tag along. This might shock you, but things don’t go according to plan.

The “folks go back to the island for whatever reason and run from dinosaurs” bit makes up very little of the 128-minute running time. It takes them about 30-minutes to get back to Isla Nublar, and the film starts its slow switching-of-gears soon after that. Without going into spoiler-y details, although the last two trailers gave away quite a bit, our heroes spend the second act trying to survive and the third act attempting to stop a diabolical plot. What follows is a mix of dinosaurs running amok and evil humans making the situation worse while our friends (including Daniella Pineda and Justice Smith as two youngsters operating as a medical expert and tech wiz, respectively) try to save the day.

Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s screenplay offers a few meaty scenes where intelligent characters debate morality and discuss hard choices. If you’re someone who thinks the cloned dinosaurs should die out as intended, then you’ll be happy to know that Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum in a shot-on-a-lunch-break cameo) agrees with you. Howard and Pratt make a more engaging couple this time out, with Owen subtly suffering from PTSD and Howard trying to make amends for the choices she made. They’ve broken up between movies, but they don’t spend the entire film fighting with each other. Pineda and Smith are quite fun as the youngsters, while James Cromwell offers appropriate gravitas in a pivotal role as a quasi-replacement for Richard Attenborough's John Hammond.

I won’t spoil the surprises and the story turns past the first act, but you should know that BD Wong is once again a highlight. I would give your left arm for a Jurassic Park movie centered around his incredibly thoughtful and explicitly principled mad scientist. Watching Dr. Wu discuss his specific morality is as engrossing as any dinosaur chase. As noted above, the film becomes smaller and more claustrophobic as it goes along, which almost qualifies as courageous in this “bigger equals better” era. But even at its most claustrophobic, Oscar Faura’s 2.39:1 widescreen cinematography (give-or-take how it was formatted for our glorious 2D IMAX presentation) feels sweeping and expansive. This is a big-scale presentation of a somewhat small-scale story.

On the con side, scenes of smart people talking to each other declines after the first half-hour and the core plot shows a poor understanding of economics (think Dr. Evil holding the world ransom for one-MILLION dollars). Bayona’s hybrid sequel doesn’t commit to the genres in which it dabbles. It’s barely a disaster movie, it offers little tear-jerking melodrama (there is one remarkable scene of moving animal peril, but this isn’t A Monster Calls ) and it never goes full-horror movie. There is shockingly little onscreen violence as if the filmmakers were reacting to criticism about the last film's copious carnage. Still (vague spoilers), it feels like it’s setting up a crowd-pleasing massacre (think Cabin in the Woods ) but chickens out. Those hoping for Jurassic Relic will be disappointed.

A crucial reveal makes sense in the moment but is mostly ignored as if it’s merely a set-up for Jurassic World 3. Fallen Kingdom comes close to being a “feature-length prologue for the sequel you really wanted to see” exercise. It gets away with it due to the overall entertainment value, and by not merely rehashing or nostalgia-baiting what’s come before. It’s still kid-appropriate, but it’s less of a gee-whiz spectacle than the previous film. That is both a commercial flaw and an artistic strength. Fallen Kingdom is a gorgeous, mostly enjoyable blockbuster that looked great in IMAX. That it doesn’t cash all the checks it tries to write is why it’s merely a good movie instead of a great one.

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Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom movie review: A new low for the iconic franchise; extinction is the only cure

Jurassic world movie review: despite chris pratt and bryce dallas howard’s charms and director ja bayona’s horror-centric approach, fallen kingdom is the worst film in the series..

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Director - JA Bayona Cast - Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, James Cromwell, Justice Smith, Jeff Goldblum Rating - 2/5

Significant changes have been made to Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard’s characters.

For a film series that was born out of reluctance, the success that the Jurassic Park franchise has seen is nothing short of miraculous. Steven Spielberg didn’t want to make the first film. In fact, he was ashamed of it. He saw ‘dinosaurs chasing jeeps’ mostly as an unwanted distraction from his real job: directing Schindler’s List. “It built a tremendous amount of resentment and anger that I had to do this,” he said in a recent interview, reflecting on 1993, the year he created history by releasing these two landmark movies. But now, 25 years and billions of dollars later, we have our most forceful sign that extinction might be the only cure to save the Jurassic Park series.

When a volcano threatens to erupt on Isla Nublar – home of the Jurassic Park – the governments of the world contemplate whether or not to evacuate its majestic residents. When the impending doom is declared to be ‘an act of God’ it is decided that humanity’s best interest lies in letting the dinosaurs die, and in a way, reverse the hubristic act of man that resurrected them.

But one seemingly benevolent old businessman has an idea. He offers our heroes from the first film – Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and Owen, played by Chris Pratt, who’s doing his annoying movie star thing again – an opportunity to smuggle 11 species off the island.

Surprise, surprise, the old man – or at least his smug second-in-command – has different plans. The crony intends to sell the rescued dinosaurs to the highest bidder in an almost farcical auction held at his manor-like home.

Chris Pratt is a reluctant hero, despite having been established as an active character in the previous film.

JA Bayona, like any filmmaker who grew up on a healthy diet of Spielberg’s movies, is clearly a fan. In his four features so far, he has hopped genres with the energy of a Velociraptor, but has never made an outright action spectacle. But, regardless of the sandbox he finds himself in -- he has made a disaster film and a fantasy drama -- he can’t resist returning to his roots: Horror. At least half of Fallen Kingdom – and I was as surprised by this as you’re going to be – is a haunted house picture; claustrophobic, tense and significantly better than the preceding hour or so.

But there’s shocking cruelty on display here, way too much, in my opinion, for a film that will be seen by children. Images of dinosaurs drowning, being engulfed by flames, shot at with guns and tortured with cattle prods, have no place in a kids’ movie.

Fallen Kingdom is perhaps the closest any Jurassic film has come to invoking the underrated horror elements of Spielberg’s original movie, which is strange because dinosaurs are inherently terrifying creatures -- and not just the T-Rex, but even the gentle herbivores. But having Bayona in the director’s chair certainly ensures that there is a different tone at work in Fallen Kingdom than its immediate predecessor, director Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World.

Other than Avatar, no film has been as bafflingly successful at the box office as Trevorrow’s aggressively ordinary reboot. It was a film that charted the same route as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, but without any of the passion. Nostalgia was its only move, like an awkward uncle on the dance floor who keeps repeating the same steps because he once got whistles for them. Fallen Kingdom feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the previous movie – not once did it play John Williams’ iconic theme in its full glory, and no, the end credits do not count.

The film spends very little time on Isla Nublar.

But this was to be expected. Trevorrow and his writing partner, Derek Connolly, appear to have taken all of Jurassic World’s criticisms to heart, and with their staggeringly poor script, have shackled whatever novelty Bayona might have brought to the table. You can hear his voice, fighting to break free like so many of the film’s dinosaurs, but no one can recover from that first act.

Almost every scene is written with an escape plan in mind, and every set piece – regardless of whether it is action or horror – has an exit strategy. This is true both literally and thematically, and it’s a cowardly way of writing a story. There are only so many times a movie can get away with a Deux Ex T-Rex, especially when already established characters are robbed of all humanity.

The Jurassic movies (are supposed to) appeal to a very specific, childlike corner of our minds. There’s no getting over that, no matter how many sophisticated plotlines about genetic experimentation they weave into these films. At the end of the day, when the park has closed, they’re only movies about dinosaurs – perhaps the most fascinating creatures a child could ever imagine. It was because of dinosaurs that we learned – however inadvertently – about our irrelevance in the grand scheme of things. Dinosaurs taught us about mortality – if such magnificent, such powerful beings could be destroyed in the snap of a finger, then what chance do we have?

A lack of Jeff Goldblum is never a good thing.

These are ideas that have been explored, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, in each of the Jurassic movies. But not this one. The only time it comes close to tackling these Greek themes is when it chucks Jeff Goldblum at you – who, in an unforgivable turn of events, has little more than two minutes of screen time in the film.

As someone who grew up with these movies, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom represents a new low in this iconic franchise. I’ve never wished for these films to end, but I’m on Goldblum’s side on this one.

Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar

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Jurassic World Rebirth

Five years post-Jurassic World Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough. Five years post-Jurassic World Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough. Five years post-Jurassic World Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.

Gareth Edwards
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Trivia Gareth Edwards "dropped everything" to direct the film, stating before production, "I was about to take a break and I started writing my next idea for a film and this is the only movie that would make me drop everything like a stone and dive right in. I love Jurassic Park (1993) ...so this opportunity is like a dream to me. And to work with Frank Marshall and Universal and David Koepp , who's writing the script, I think they're all legends. So I'm just very excited."
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Movie Review
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'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Movie Review: A Familiar Story, Told
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom movie review (2018)
As such, what a dinosaur movie should be is now, with "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," what the entertainment empire demands. Directed by J.A. Bayona from a script by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly , "Fallen Kingdom" opens with a few DNA pirates on a stealth mission at the now-abandoned-by-humans island park where the dinosaurs ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review
The latter is definitely felt throughout the film and Bayona's use of light and shadows to create tension is one of the highlights of Fallen Kingdom. Whether it's a toothy Baryonyx stalking ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 11, 2022. Cory Woodroof 615 Film. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is not a dumb movie. It's a terrifying movie about dumb, greedy people who do dumb, greedy ...
'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom': Film Review
Movies; Movie Reviews 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom': Film Review. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reunite — this time to both escape and save the dinosaurs — in J.A. Bayona's sequel.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
It's been four years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment. Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles. When the island's dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from ...
Film Review: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'
Film Review: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'. The fifth 'Jurassic' movie is the first that pretends to be more than a ride. It's the film's dinosaur action that still rules, though maybe not ...
Review: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Brings the Gang Back. Sigh
The results were a little ridiculous, but also scary, thrilling and intermittently thought-provoking. "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" has big-name actors, yes, but the stars here are clear ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom review: Life finds a way in absurdly
The same holds true for the preposterous-but-effective Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.The less you try to dissect it, the more you'll enjoy it. Directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, A Monster ...
'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' review: Dinos are great; everything
★★ "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith, Rafe Spall, BD Wong, Jeff Goldblum. Directed by J.A ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review
The fear factor is back. This is a Jurassic sequel that plays it both adrenaline-pumpingly huge and thrillingly small. A summer ride that will drive kids out of their minds, and maybe even give ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: Directed by J.A. Bayona. With Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith. When the island's dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen and Claire mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Movie Review
Our review: Parents say (43 ): Kids say (150 ): Despite this action-packed sequel's uneven tone, director J.A. Bayona continues to thrill audiences with jump-worthy suspense and to create a bond between viewers and the dinosaurs. The elements of a summer blockbuster are all there: charismatic stars, smarmy villains (Rafe Spall, who's inherited ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review: A Pulpy Prehistoric Romp
The film has a blackmarket dinosaur action, for goodness sake. It plays fast and lose with the idea of genetic engineering and revels in the absurdity of dinosaurs on the mainland, but again, that ...
'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' review
Fallen Kingdom feels like a smaller movie than Jurassic World (or Jurassic Park, for that matter), as it doesn't seem interested in evoking that sense of wide-eyed astonishment at dinosaurs ...
'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Review: Sprinkled With Joy ...
The dinosaurs in Fallen Kingdom do look much better than the ones in Jurassic World, though it still kills me that these movies have utterly sacrificed the slow menace of practical-effects ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom review: Action-packed dinosaur sequel
Dir, JA Bayona, 128 mins, starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ted Levine, Rafe Spall, Toby Jones, Justice Smith, BD Wong, James Cromwell, Jeff Goldblum
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is unapologetically B-movie horror, but it cannot escape the sense of diminished returns. Before even the opening title card, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom tells ...
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Movie Review
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a fun ride full of adventure - and scares - that builds on the mythology of Jurassic Park in very interesting ways. In 1993, Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park hit theaters and became a sci-fi/adventure classic beloved by moviegoers young and old. The film was enough of a hit to earn two sequels; Spielberg's ...
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom reviews: What critics are saying
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reviews are mixed, but ... staging a 'hiding from dinosaurs' set piece that was the most memorable section of Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park movie ...
Review: 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' Finally Escapes The Island
The movie doesn't open until June 22 in North America, but it will essentially be playing in most of the world by then. ... The Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a sharp-left run in a ...
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom movie review: This Chris Pratt starrer is
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom movie review: This Chris Pratt starrer is a film of our times Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom movie review: It's a film of our times. As scientists underline that we are now into the 'Anthropocene epoch' -- or a human-influenced age, for the first time in Earth's history -- and as man plays God with nature, Fallen ...
Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom movie review: A new low for the iconic
Jurassic World movie review: Despite Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard's charms and director JA Bayona's horror-centric approach, Fallen Kingdom is the worst film in the series.
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
Jurassic World Rebirth: Directed by Gareth Edwards. With Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Ed Skrein, Mahershala Ali. Five years post-Jurassic World Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.

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