Fallen Kingdom: Let's just leave dinosaurs alone already

If you really think about it, there is only one good Jurassic Park movie. It was Jurassic Park.

Everything after that has been an attempt to up the ante and recapture the magic. Somehow it feels impossible to do. I mean, suspend disbelief all you want, how does Isla Nublar not get fire bombed after the events of the original film?

So that brings us to Fallen Kingdom. Let me give the movie the credit it deserves. The opening scene and first dinosaur attacks are spectacular, as the giant sea-monster-like mosasaurus sneaks up on an unsuspecting private submarine.

The dormant volcano on Isla Nublar, where Jurassic World is located is not so dormant anymore. World governments debate what the right course of action is as an eruption that will kill the last remaining dinosaurs on Earth is imminent. Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her organization, the Dinosaur Protection Group (which let’s all agree is an incredibly dumb name), lobby congress to relocate the animals, but their attempts fall on deaf ears.

Enter Eli Mills (Life of Pi’s Race Spall). He represents the late John Hammond’s partner Benjamin Lockwood. Mills and Lockwood want to set up a refuge for multiple species of dinosaurs. Lockwood tells Claire that John Hammond’s wish was that dinosaurs live in peace, which is a lie. Why would Hammond have brought them back to life and put them in a theme park if he really wanted dinosaurs to live in peace? What is more peaceful than being dead?

The idea is that Clair and a team of mercenaries will capture the animals and transport them without any government help or interference. The only hang up is that they will need Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to help. He is the only one that can get close to the super intelligent raptor, Blue, who is the focus of the expedition.

Once Claire and Owen are on Isla Nublar, they are greeted by Ken Wheatley (Silence of the Lambs’ Ted Devine). He is an expert hunter, there to make sure the animals are safe to transport. He also has a bad habit of ripping teeth from the mouths of sedated dinosaurs.

Visually, there are some really great sequences in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. As the volcano erupts, there is a very exciting dash to safety that leads a number of dinosaurs and people over a cliff and into the ocean. It is a site to behold, for sure.

My biggest problem with Fallen Kingdom, as with all Jurassic Park sequels, is the terrible writing. In this movie it really comes out in the characters that populate Claire’s Dinosaur Protection Group. The two members we spend the most time with are Zia, a paleo-veterinarian that has never seen a dinosaur before, and Franklin, a tech expert who’s name might as well be Nerdly von Comic-Reliefington.

These characters are so simple that there is no reason to care about them. Zia is a strong, no nonsense kind of gal. Franklin is a nerd that is afraid of dinosaurs. LOL! What an idiot, right?

There is also Mills, our human villain. The fact that this character wasn’t given a mustache to twist had to be an oversight. All of his mannerisms and line delivery are straight out of the spoof of a soap opera.

Now, there are some clever nods in here to both the original Jurassic Park and our current political climate. Be on the lookout for a scroll during a TV newscast that reads “U.S. President questions whether dinosaurs exist,” which, like if we lived in a world where Jurassic Park was real seems like a headline we might be reading this week. Wheatley also calls Zia a “nasty woman” after he double crosses our heroes and takes the dinosaurs captive.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is off the rails entirely. The new dinosaur bad guy doesn’t even look like a dinosaur anymore. It looks more like a Xenomorph from Alien.

Look, I am not opposed to a movie about what happens when dinosaurs come to the United States, but why put the Jurassic Park brand on it? Jurassic Park originally was about what happens when humans try to control creatures they cannot have any concept of. The latest iterations are just monster movies. There is no lesson to be learned or underlying theme.

Is Fallen Kingdom better than the first Jurassic World? Yeah, maybe, but again, it is important to remember that there is only one good Jurassic Park movie and it is called Jurassic Park. It was so ambitious and fun and different when it came out in 1994. Maybe it is my personal feelings getting in the way here, but I don’t know how this series could ever recapture that feeling.