A Few Random Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom Thoughts
Here on THiNC. I bring you different movies. Movies that might be tricky, or require every single one of your brain cells to keep up with it. Movies that double back on themselves, turn themselves inside out? All great fodder for THiNC. conversations. I generally don’t discuss Marvel movies (except to wail about the lameness of said), popcorn movie tripe, or inbred Hollywood sequel fests that are just meant to pad a stock price value. So I bring you movies like 10×10 and In Darkness, Unsane, Thoroughbreds, and the like. But I don’t talk about Franchises, and I especially wouldn’t, in my right mind bring you Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom.
But now? 25 years on? We have 5 Jurassic Park movies under our belt. Jurassic Park 1, 2, & 3… and now we are 2 deep into the Jurassic World series. And basically what we have here is a realish world of cartoon characters and Hollywood talkies capers happening here. We have rules that we have to live by, and we have offenses that we cannot make. So for example, Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt? Cannot die. I do not care what happens to him in the real world, he cannot die in the films. Same goes for Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), no touchy. Sure, scald them, scratch them, put their arms in slings. Fine. But don’t even think about killing them. Also, every single Jurassic Park movie needs a militaristic minded bad guy. A guy in it for money only, and someone who could care less about the rest of the planet. Literally, every time they walk into a room, the lights dim and a shadow falls on the entire movie. Yeah. You know the guy. And most importantly? You need to have a lot of potential stress. Loose dinosaurs is not enough stress to make a Jurassic Park movie. You also need lost children in that park where the dinosaurs have broken free in. And a slew of park attendees just to add to the stress? And heck? Why don’t we add a volcano that could kill everyone in the film that is eminently bound to blow? (You think I’m making this up? That, my friends, is literally the plot of Fallen Kingdom. But that is just the stressors of stage one of said movie. We haven’t even got to the stressors of the back nine. Buckle up, because this thing gets even better when it comes to chaos.
When does a move throw too much at an audience before they just up and say… enough?
I was offered the chance to see Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, well before it hits the theaters on the 22nd, and I thought? Heck, it’s the 25th anniversary. I loved the original, and I actually really enjoyed all the homages to the original with Jurassic World, so I thought… why not? I’ll go, I’ll expect dumb entertainment and ditch my expectation for mind jobs, time travel, and sophisticated science fiction. I’ll revel in the chance to watch a T-Rex tussle with a man made Indominous Rex. Ok. Twist my arm. I’m in. And I literally found myself just laughing at the writing the entire movie long. Not really in a bad way, because heck, I’d love to have a Jurassic Park movie bi-line in my title. But because of the just inanity of the situations that they throw at these characters.
At one point towards the opening of the film we have the main characters running for their lives while dodging dinosaurs. But the dinosaurs? They are dodging each other. All while everyone dodges the exploding volcano. Oh, and there is a cliff coming. Hahaha. This movie is one “just in time” moment after another. Just one incessant tirade of just in time-ness. And I have to admit, it’s fun, asinine insanity. Just a pile of tirades of me going, “Huh, I wonder how the writers are going to write our super heroes out of this mess that they’ve written themselves into. Oh, actually the situation gets worse? Hahahah.” But there was a part of me that marveled at their ingenuity. Part of me that giggled with each new literal cliff hanger.
And while this movie goes much smaller in its scale and scope in the back half, it actually begins to become better as it goes. I don’t think I want to deep dive on the movie, and you’d if you enjoyed the others, you’ll most likely enjoy this one. Obviously evil forces are abusing the dinosaurs to enrich themselves. Obviously the military is involved and they want the dinosaurs for war. Yadda yadda. But overall, it wasn’t too bad. I personally thought that the concentration on people and concentration on smaller scale made the overall movie much better than it should be. I cared more about the characters then in past movies. But maybe you should just see it yourself and tell me what you think overall of this one compared to others.
