Film Reviews

Preview: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

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Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum

Director: J A Bayona

When the once dormant volcano erupts on Islar Nublar, the island where Jurassic World was situated, Claire (Howard) is desperate to save the dinosaurs who live there. She manages to get help from an old friend of Hammond’s, but when she enlists Owen’s (Pratt) help and heads to the island, they find things may not be as straight forward as they seem.

The design and creation of the dinosaurs in these films has always been amazing, and it’s always an experience to watch them come to life. This is as true as ever in this film, where the visual effects technology has only gotten better with time. It’s lovely to see some old friends again, like Blue the (sort of) friendly Raptor and the big bad Indominus Rex from the last film, as well as many others. They’re truly wonderful to watch, especially when they take own and eat people.

And that’s what these films are all about. A guy and a girl lead a bunch of people to safety after science has played with fire and gotten burned. And along with this we get some feels, some funny moments, and some really great set pieces, and some truly awful bad guys come to some truly awful ends. In the last film, there were some moments that lacked real feeling, and some moments that felt like they’d been edited or chopped somehow, but here, we get the spectacle and the emotion, and it’s a truly rewarding viewing experience.

I liked the emotional shifts of this film. Though it’s based in spectacle, it uses the kind of emotions that we felt in the first film to keep you engaged. There’s plenty of wonder, and some tragedy and sadness, there’s human bonding and heroism, as well as selfishness and greed. There’s some laughs too. It’s a more rounded film than the previous installment.

This film isn’t trying to be something it’s not. It poses the question: do you want to see some massive dinosaurs? Do you want to see some people get chomped and things get destroyed? And then it delivers. And sometimes that what films are all about.

See It If: you like dinosaurs. This should please fans of the Jurassic Park films, as well as those of you who like action and adventure films. It’s great fun.

16 thoughts on “Preview: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)”

  1. I’m getting old Hermione, I just can’t drum up enough enthusiasm for this but your review will lend me some optimism. I will say I skipped the last one at the cinema and it was kind of fun. Once I heard the director made it as if the kid would be telling the story it made a lot of sense. The two adults bickering but wanting to make out. The creepy quiet older brother constantly staring at girls. The parents clearly needing to divorce. It became even a little meaningful and I’ve heard good things about this new director so maybe I’ll be eating humble pie in the near future but compare this to say the trailer for Mission Impossible 6 or Ocean’s 8 and I know what I want to see.

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  4. I probably won’t watch this because I didn’t really like “Jurassic World,” I thought it lacked the fun and novelty of “Jurassic Park.” Just out of curiosity (because you didn’t mention that character,) does Ted Levine play a villain? 🙂

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      1. Ted Levine always seems to play a cop, unless he’s playing Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs.” He’s actually a pretty good actor, but he’s always typecast. 🙂

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      3. Well, playing Buffalo Bill must have been kind of fun, in a sick way. He played in a beautifully shot horror film I quite liked called “Dig Two Graves,” playing (surprise!) a sheriff.

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