Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom

In those childhood days when Jurassic Park used to get telecasted in Star Movies, I remember getting excited to see the dinosaurs and also the nail-biting tension-filled climax portions of the movie.  Well with the growth in the visual effects technology, that excitement has definitely got reduced as we are frequently getting to see such stuff. The very last trailer of the new movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom gave me a feeling of the vintage Spielberg version. But compared to that expectation, the movie isn’t offering much to remember.

So the park in Isla Nublar has got destroyed and now there is a new problem as there is an active volcano on that island. The government decides not to intervene in this to save the dinosaurs. But the former employee Claire wanted to save them. She suddenly gets an offer to help from the park’s old owner John Hammond’s partner in cloning. She along with Owen, a former dinosaur trainer decides to go to the island to get the dinosaurs and the movie revolves around that operation and its consequences.

Whoever edited that last trailer of The Fallen Kingdom deserves a round of applauds. I was so excited to see this film after that trailer as it gave the kind of chills which most people had when Spielberg managed to scare us with that water jar on the car dashboard (I might have exaggerated it a bit, but it was really edgy and scary). I am saying this because most of the sequences that looked really scary turned out to be slightly funny ones. I am not talking about unintentional comedy; they sort of made it slightly comical. And a huge chunk of this film is happening inside a castle-like setup and you have dinosaurs walking on top of mansions (those roof tiles are STRONG), fighting with one another, the humans in the frame are getting eaten, getting saved by a whisker etc. I would have loved this film if J A Bayona was able to add that element of agony to the treatment.

Chris Pratt seems to have improvised a bit in scenes as some scenes had his typical humor coming out occasionally. Owen was believable in his hands. Bryce Dallas Howard was also pretty convincing as Claire (Hair looks better this time). The couple shares a good on-screen chemistry. Isabella Sermon was good as Maisie. Rafe Spall, Toby Jones, and a few more names are there in the list of actors.

J A Bayona has this task of taking the animals out of the park and let them be a part of the world in a sensible way. While the structuring of this script looks fair enough, there are certain areas where I found myself thinking about the logic of certain things. Owen and Claire escape from the island by sneaking into a ship and to be honest, I was wondering why they were never captured by the enemies until they reached the estate. This may not be a really important thing, but the lack of conviction in these minimal things sort of makes the overall experience a bit tiring. Because the film isn’t taking off to a different level here. We get to see the usual routine of things going out of hand, people running for their lives, bad guys eventually getting killed mercilessly and the good ones escaping by mere luck factor. The movie largely has these predominantly dark frames. The texture of the skin of the creatures looked extremely real while the dynamics were a bit awkward. The edits occasionally have that sharpness to keep us on the edge of our seats.

Collin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World felt like a promising prospect as the core story looked like a possible outcome. But for me, Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom was a movie that was pushing things way too much to achieve very little. The pause they gave in the close-up shot of Maisie’s eyes definitely suggests where the sequel might go. I hope to see a better story in that.

Rating: 2.5/5