Review of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) by David B — 17 Nov 2018

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a film of two halves. The first half is a rather dull near rip-off of The Lost World with Owen and Claire helping to rescue the surviving dinosaurs from Isla Sorna before a volcano destroys them all, predictably being double crossed in the process. I appreciate that a film about genetically engineered dinosaurs requires the suspension of disbelief but even with that, the plot just defies all logic. On top borrowing heavily from the plot of The Lost World, numerous money shots are also straight up stolen from the original film. There's just too much nostalgia going on here which just wasn't needed. We also have to endure the addition of Franklin, Zia and JP's seemingly compulsory irritating child character, Maisie. All three characters are annoying and none of them add anything to the film.

Thankfully the second half of the film manages to leave the past behind and moves the series in a much needed new direction. Dinosaurs are now being illegally auctioned which ultimately leads to the escape of the genetically designed Indoraptor. Here JW:FK heads in an Alien styled horror for a 12A audience and for the most part it works with some reasonably intense scenes. The film also ends in a manner that will (hopefully) make JW3 seem fresh, even if how they got there is yet another logic defying moment thanks to the painfully dumb Maisie.

JW:FK has a lot of flaws and takes too long to get to the interesting bits but it's still a decent watch, especially for JP/dinosaur fans.