Review: JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM Has Some Fun Playing With The Horror Genre
Like all of you, I love the first Jurassic Park film. That movie is so good and after all of these years it still holds up! None of the other films in the franchise have lived up to the bar that that first film set. I do enjoy certain aspects of all the other films in the franchise including Jurassic World, and I was looking forward to this sequel.
While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom isn’t one of the better films in the franchise, it did a few new and interesting things to mix things up. The movie starts out in a predictable way that you’d expect, but then it takes a crazy sharp turn and goes in a completely different direction and turns into a different kind of movie.
After the trailers were released, a lot of people were comparing the film to the Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World, but this movie is not that. This one is unique, and it will be interesting to see how audiences react to it.
The majority of the film takes place in a confined area, a mansion where the Dinosaurs are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. And as you’d expect, things go horribly wrong as the new genetically engineered Indoraptor dinosaur escapes and goes on a killing spree.
This movie plays out more like a horror film with the Indoraptor as the terrifying killer lurking through the confined mansion in the shadows finding pleasure in hunting down and killing people and this new dino is crazy super smart! I actually liked this aspect of the film. Some of the elements work really well, while others don't.
There’s also a big reveal in the film that’s pretty predictable if you’re paying attention as you watch it. I won’t get into any details on that reveal, but I will say that it involves choices that were made that drove John Hammond and his partner and friend Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) apart.
The story concept was ok, I liked the horror aspect of it, but the way it was executed just didn’t seem to work. The story just seemed so rushed, it’s almost like the whole thing happens in the course of a day or two, which is impossible. I also wasn’t a fan of the villain and thought the development of his character was weak.
Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were great in the film. I like the two characters that they play and I'm still interested in where they will go in the third movie. There were a couple other characters that joined them in their adventure, and one of them, a computer hacker played by Justice Smith, was just overly annoying with the silly high-pitched screams he made throughout the film. I know they were going for some comic relief, but I didn't care for it. The gag got old real fast
All in all, I did enjoy the movie. Like the rest of them, it had some fun moments, and I liked that they tried something different. Again, I also liked the horror genre vibe. It just doesn’t hit that high bar set by the original movie. In fact, this one for me is on the same level as Jurassic Park 3.
Not everyone is going to like this movie but it does deliver some good entertainment. If you’re a fan of the franchise, you’ll probably enjoy it.
