Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

** SPOILERS **

With Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the Jurassic franchise jumps the Mosasaurus into full-on Terminator franchise territory: taking a tidy, elegant, initial idea - what if there was a theme park full of dinosaurs? - and sending it careening out of control to keep the billion-dollar money train rolling. It's true that the franchise had to evolve; Fallen Kingdom is the fifth time humans ventured to the doomed island Isla Nublar and were chased by the cloned dinosaurs that rule it. The previous film, Jurassic World, soft-rebooted the original trilogy to show the theme park John Hammond dreamed of fully operational before the dinos ran amok. Fallen Kingdom is the next step - making the title manifest by bringing the dinosaurs into the mainland at last. By the end, the planet (starting with America, naturally) threatens to become a Jurassic World, for better or worse.

The plot is simple: Isla Nublar suddenly has an active volcano about to blow and wipe out all of the dinosaurs. Despite the fact that InGen took all the embryos off the island and can make more dinosaurs, Congress debates whether the Jurassic World dinosaurs classify as an endangered species and warrant protection (their answer is no). Nonetheless, Bryce Dallas Howard, now a dinosaur protection crusader, is bamboozled by Evil Businessman to recruit Velociraptor whisperer Chris Pratt and return to the island to rescue Blue, the raptor he raised and taught to follow human commands. Blue is the last of her species, they argue - again forgetting they have the embryos and can create more Velociraptors for Pratt to train if need be. Still, they go back to the island and are immediately doublecrossed by the military guys who are secretly there to traffic the animals. 

The fact that Pratt, Howard, and their two assistants Justice Smith and Daniela Pineda, survive their ordeal on the island stretches believability to its snapping point - and that's saying something for a dinosaur movie. The four manage to elude certain death many times over from a dinosaur stampede as volcanic fire rains from above and then miraculously don't drown despite dinosaurs plummeting into the ocean all around them. Their escape from the island is so frantic and impossible, it's simply not believable. This is followed by sea travel so ridiculous that it makes the travel in Game of Thrones look reasonable: Isla Nublar is 100 miles from Costa Rica. The Lockwood Mansion, where the second half of the film takes place, is in the Pacific Northwest. You cannot travel from one to the other by ship overnight - unless you're in Jurassic World. 

Regardless, the latter portion of Fallen Kingdom takes place entirely in a gloomy gothic mansion complete with a Museum of Natural History-like dinosaur gallery. This madhouse also has a sub-basement containing a secret genetics lab, a dinosaur holding facility, and even an auction era - apparently all built without the knowledge of sickly billionaire James Cromwell, who we learn was the best friend and business partner of the late John Hammond. Despite already being established as expendable and the targets of attempted murder, for no good reason other than the movie needs them alive to be its heroes, Pratt and Howard are inexplicably kept alive by the mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Evil Businessman auctions off the dinosaurs captured from Isla Nublar and then unveils Fallen Kingdom's newest Big Bad: the Indoraptor, a hybrid dinosaur which will be the lynchpin of a ridiculous plot to sell Indoraptors to be used as military-grade weapons (because "Indoraptors can take commands better than human soldiers"). Of course, the Indoraptor escapes and massacres everyone except Pratt, Howard, and their friends, who can miraculously outwit it. There's also the revelation that dinosaurs aren't the only thing InGen has the power to clone - Fallen Kingdom introduces the concept that perfect human clones are a thing in the Jurassic universe. Repeat: PERFECT HUMAN CLONES exist and no one bats an eye about this. But Emperor Palpatine will be pleased; he can summon a Clone Army to fight the dinosaurs.

As Jeff Goldblum (largely wasted in a mere walk on) warns, humans are irresponsible, will be the cause of our own demise, and boy, do we deserve it. As such, Fallen Kingdom - while containing a few thrilling and outright terrifying sequences well-directed by J.A. Bayona - boasts an illogical and nonsensical script by franchise architects Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connelly that eschews wonder and heart. Instead it is a deeply cynical and violent exercise in stretching a franchise out while condeming human beings for being the worst creatures on Earth. It makes abundantly clear humans are the villains, populating the film with ruthless, greedy businessmen, international arms dealers looking to weaponize dinosaurs, and paramilitary animal traffickers who have no qualms about leaving the film's heroes to die horrifically on an island about to be destroyed by an erupting volcano. Wheras the previous films feasted on humans being eaten by dinosaurs (they usually deserved it), Fallen Kingdom is the first Jurassic film to show humans murdering other humans in cold blood. 

Ostensibly, Fallen Kingdom is about empathy for the dinosaurs - there are two shots of dinosaurs crying and the most heartwrenching moment if the film is being forced to watch a Brachiosaurus left behind on the island to be consumed by volcanic fire - but virtually none for humans. The final act of the film makes the choice to let the dinosaurs live and allow them to run freely into the world - an errand of mercy for the dinos that nonetheless will condemn countless people and other animals wholly unprepared for a T-rex or a Velociraptor to suddenly storm their neighborhoods to horrific deaths. Fallen Kingdom likes dinosaurs but hates humans. Maybe it has a point, but it's a weird one for a billion-dollar movie dinosaur franchise to make - except that they've got to make another couple of billion, yo.

Jurassic World

JURASSIC WORLD

** SPOILERS **

"You people. You never learn," one character scolds another in Jurassic World, and indeed, there would be no Jurassic franchise if humans didn't make a terrible mistake and follow them up with even more mistakes. Dinosaurs once again bring equal parts wonderment and mayhem in Colin Treverrow's Jurassic World, following in the footsteps (as closely as he can) of Steven Spielberg. An adventure 65 million + 22 years in the remaking, Jurassic World roars as the second best Jurassic movie yet. A successful and sufficient return to form for the Jurassic franchise, Jurassic World leans heavily on nostalgia for and many similar beats to the original, mega-successful Jurassic Park.  Ignoring the previous two sequels, Jurassic World takes place 22 years after the tragic incident on Isla Nublar that curtailed the opening of the previous Jurassic Park (its remnants still buried deep in World's jungles). Since then, John Hammond's dream of a dinosaur theme park destination that would capture the imagination of the entire planet has come true. Now controlled by a multinational corporation run by helicopter piloting novice and billionaire Irrfan Khan, the more inclusively-named Jurassic World hosts 20,000 visitors a day, showcasing over 14 different species of dinosaurs. But of course, if nothing ever went horribly wrong, Jurassic World wouldn't be much of a Jurassic Park, would it?

The best moments in the first half of Jurassic World are when the movie delivers the sights and sounds we came to see: the park and resort in full operation with crowds thrilling to the dinosaur exhibits functioning in the ways Jeff Goldblum and his chaos theory once scoffed at. In Jurassic World, visitors can kayak down a river alongside massive herbivores, young children can ride miniature triceratops, and they can even pilot a sphere in the middle of a dinosaur stampede while Jimmy Fallon narrates the experience on an HDTV. The coolest exhibit seems to be the Sea World-like show where a massive aquatic dinosaur chomps down on a great white shark and soaks several rows of spectators in the process. The dinosaurs of Jurassic World look better than ever, yet they are surrounded by human staffers who are dumber than ever. 

Jurassic World is run by Bryce Dallas Howard, an unpleasantly obtuse micro-manager who is the recipient of several speeches about how she doesn't understand that the dinosaurs are animals and not merely "assets on a spreadsheet." Crass commercialism was embedded in the DNA of Jurassic Park, and it's the same in Jurassic World. World's exhibits are sponsored by Samsung and Verizon Wireless with Ben & Jerry's, Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and numerous other products placed front and center. Everyone sports a Samsung Galaxy phone but when the dino shit hits the fan, Dallas forgets she can simply text her dire warnings when no one is picking up. Jurassic World's hiring practices are also suspect; one ride seems to be run by a surly, bored American teenager, as if Jurassic World is a Six Flags in a suburb employing high schoolers for the summer and not in a hard-to-reach island off the coast of Costa Rica full of deadly animals that requires serious, qualified professionals.

Speaking of surly, bored American teenagers, Dallas reluctantly plays host to her two nephews, Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins. These two certainly wouldn't melt Sam Neill's kid-hating heart like the brother and sister did in Jurassic Park. Too busy and disinterested to deal with her nephews, Dallas palms them off on Katie McGrath, her snooty British assistant, who may be the most appalling person in the entire resort, and that's saying something. (The British assistant's dinosaur-caused demise is the most hilariously giddy comeuppance in the movie.) Meanwhile, InGen, the original company that genetically bred the dinosaurs, is represented by the blatantly evil Vincent D'Onofrio, who dreams of weaponizing velociraptors and dropping them into war zones like Darfur or something. The only human holdover from the original Jurassic Park is genetic scientist B.D. Wong, a Dr. Mengala-type so devoid of morality that he should have genetically engineered himself a mustache so he could twirl it.

To invigorate sagging public interest in the park, Wong's marching orders were to create a new hybrid dinosaur: Indominus Rex. Wong's a great geneticist because he did his job a little too well: with the size of a T-rex and the problem-solving brains of a velociraptor, plus the ability to camouflage itself like a gecko, Indominus Rex quickly breaks free of its paddock and gives itself a tour of Jurassic World, murdering every other dinosaur and as many humans as it can find in a bloody rampage. When Indominus Rex smashes into the park's aviary and lets loose its flock of pterodactyls, Jurassic World enters a highly entertaining zone of batshit-crazy, where pterodactyls snatch humans into the air and impale them with their razor beaks. Suddenly the 20,000 visitors are helpless dino-chow and in these moments, Jurassic World offers giddy thrills that justify the price of admission. After the park's heavily-armed security forces are slaughtered by Indominus Rex, D'Onofrio takes command of Jurassic World and sets his bonkers plan into motion: letting the velociraptors loose to hunt down and kill Indominus Rex. Needless to say, it's a horrible plan that unsurprisingly backfires.

Luckily, Jurassic World has a hero and his name is Chris Pratt. An ex-Navy SEAL who is now the park's velociraptor whisperer, Pratt proves to be the only competent person in the entire park. (When Dallas' nephews figure this out, they smartly opt to stick with him instead of their aunt.) In full steely-stare, square-jawed alpha mode, Pratt literally has to drag Dallas around the jungles of Jurassic World to try to save her nephews. Pratt is often rumored to be the next Indiana Jones and Jurassic World seems to be his audition, with Dallas playing the infuriating Kate Capshaw role in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Pratt does have the single best line in the movie when Dallas assumes he can track her nephews through the jungle by their scent: "I'm from the Navy, not the Navajo!" Through Jurassic World would like us to believe there's romantic chemistry between Pratt and Dallas, the most touching (oddly) relationship in the movie is between Pratt and the four velociraptors he raised from birth, trained, and somehow "trust" him. One of Jurassic World's goofy high points is Pratt riding his motorcycle alongside his pet raptors, all of them on the hunt for Indominus Rex.

By the time Dallas decides the only way to stop a super predator is with another super predator and lets loose the classic, now-beloved T-rex from the original Jurassic Park, Jurassic World goes full-on into fan fiction territory: T-rex and velociraptors, the Jurassic Park O.G.s, versus Indominus Rex. Jurassic Park Class of '93 rules, suckas! All that was missing from their victory was a raptor-T-rex fist bump. The triumph of T-rex and the velociraptor merely cements the fact that no matter how many sequels are cranked out and how many made up dinosaurs the Jurassic franchise dreams up, you just can't top the crowd-pleasing, genetically-engineered perfection of the original T-rex and velociraptors. At this point, they deserve (and will probably get) their own stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After Jurassic World's $200,000,000+ opening weekend, T-rex and the velociraptors must be legitimately counted among the biggest and most popular movie stars on the planet. Really, they have been for over 20 years now, and if there are still movies in the future, they will be the biggest stars in the (Jurassic) world for another 65 million years.

We are the Jurassic World. We are the Jurassic children. We are the ones to make a better day, so let's start eatin'.

— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) June 14, 2015