Movie Review- Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom

The Jurassic Park franchise has come a long way since Stephen Spielberg’s groundbreaking original in 1993. Watching the franchise’s 5th iteration, you get a sense that “white privilege” is not just a concept in the real world. It exists too in the fictional world of movies.

Seeing how vehemently opposed the West is to nuclear proliferation and the development of other weapons of mass destruction in the real world, you wonder how come in movie world, they seem so blasé about the genetic tinkering rich white folk are constantly engaged in in the Jurassic Park franchise. When you recall white privilege, it all then makes sense even though it does not quite make sense.

In Lost World, Jeff Golblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm uttered the very instructive line “Taking dinosaurs off this island is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas”.

Given the utter destruction each installment in the franchise has inflicted on the world, you would think by now there would have been a move along the lines of the Sokova Accords to rein in the genetic tinkering inclinations of White Anglo Saxon Protestant Billionaires who are always playing God.

Five movies into the franchise and it would seem the world has still not learnt its lesson. In Fallen Kingdom, it has been 3 years since the tragic events of 2015’s franchise reboot, Jurassic World.

As is to be expected, Fallen Kingdom opens with an underwater expedition to retrieve a sample from the remains of Indominus Rex from Jurassic World. In keeping with Murphy’s Law, the expedition goes tragically awry albeit the retrieval of the sample was successfully done.

At a Senate hearing in which Dr. Malcolm is testifying, we learn that Mother Nature is about to re-enact (albeit on a less grand scale) the event of 65 million years ago which led to the extinction of dinosaurs.

This time, instead of a meteor shower from outer space, Mother Nature has opted for a volcanic eruption on the island of Isla Nublar where the remaining population of genetically-engineered dinosaurs are safely quarantined

But mankind (read white people) would not be a confirmed dumbosaurus if some moral dilemma is not introduced into Mother Nature’s expedient solution to mankind’s stupidity in resurrecting an extinct deadly specie in the first place.

The moral conundrum of whether to let the impending volcanic eruption bring an end to the Age of resurrected dinosaurs or whether to rescue them out of some moral obligation takes hold, and forms the premise of Fallen Kingdom.

Returning to reprise their characters from Jurassic World, the services of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are engaged to assist a mercenary mission to Isla Nublar to rescue the dinosaurs before the volcano erupts. But, of course, that’s just the half of it. Something else more sinister and less noble is afoot.

While Jurassic World provided us with the misadventure of parlaying genetically–engineered dinousaurs into a theme park, Fallen Kingdom provides us with the misadventure of weaponising genetically-engineered dinosaurs.

This is where the movie’s idea of weaponised dinosaurs becoming a commercially-lucrative choice of debauchery for mostly rich white people proves ludicrous.

Granted mankind (from our antecedents ) is a few strands of DNA short of a dinosaur’s naturally-inclined feral savagery but the very idea that with all the possibilities for savage self-destruction that mankind could possibly engage in with the advanced technology available to us in this day and age, weaponising dinosaurs just screams implausible.

For a rebooted franchise riding on old glory, the one area in which Fallen Kingdom truly excelled is in the ultra-realism of its special effects. The last 2 installments in the franchise have clearly upped the ante in special effects from the equally impressive effects Spielberg achieved in Jurassic Park.

But hard as it tried and impressive special effects notwithstanding, at its very heart, Fallen Kingdom lacked sufficient blood to pump the oxygen required to achieve an emotional investment in its story.

Owen and Claire’s on-again and off-again relationship or hints at it lacked the magic or at least the pull it achieved in Jurassic World. Ted Levine’s villainous mercenary, whilst mildly engaging, was as stand-out as a park ranger’s khaki uniform on a safari. Even the obligatory child character meant to heighten suspense when in danger and tug at heartstrings seemed to take a deep on the cute-o-meter the minute her genetically engineered origin was disclosed.

Given the utterly incomprehensible level of stupidity that has seen man repeating the same deadly mistakes tinkering with genetically engineered dinosaurs in the franchise, this installment should have been aptly named Jurassic World: Folly of Man.

Fallen Kingdom felt like another theme-park ride after multiple rides. Sure enough the excitement was still there but the thrill of it having waned with successive rides; it fills you more with ennui than adrenalin high. 6/10