All the feels (and a few spoilers) from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Hey Readers,

Last night I went with fellow dinosaur and film loving friends to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and I left the theater wanting more for all of the right reasons.

In general, and in spoiler free terms I can say that the movie was a great way to put everything that fans of the franchise love back up on the screen and it set things up for the next installment in a way that had me wishing that 2021 would come as soon as possible.

Keep reading for all the reasons I loved the movie as well as a few reasons that made me go either “meh” or “huh” while in the theater.

 

Be warned though, spoilers are below.

So, if you’re at this point in the review without watching the film then you’ve essentially walked into an indoraptor cage and deserve what you get.

First and foremost, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was technically amazing! The dinosaurs (several of them puppets or portions of puppets) made things feel as real as possible and had the movie stuck with only CGI it just wouldn’t have been as amazing.  Even if the plot hadn’t been good, the effects still made it worth watching in the theater.

When it comes to plot I really have no complaints. I think that even if the trailers gave too much away regarding sinister reasons to get the dinosaurs off the island to sell or weaponize them, if it had just been about getting off the island it wouldn’t have stood out or moved things forward in the franchise.

 

Even though the plot made sense, I did have a couple thoughts.

When it comes to Maisie, is she only a plot device to build more backstory or is there something about the fact that she was the cloned daughter of a man who helped create dinosaurs going to be relevant to the next movie? I mean she could have just been Lockwood’s granddaughter and nothing about the plot would have changed a bit. So I’m hoping in the next movie there will be some significance to her being a clone.

Regarding character motivations and abilities, I thought that the film did a decent job making sure that characters did what made sense for them. Too often we get movies where it’s easy to shout at the screen and proclaim something along the lines of “NO ONE WOULD WALK INTO AN INDORAPTOR CAGE LIKE THAT!!!”. However, the fact that we already saw Ted Levine’s Wheatley collecting dinosaur teeth it gave him a reason to walk into said indoraptor cage. It was still a very stupid choice, but it made sense because of what his character wanted. I also felt like there wasn’t much of a point to us watching Maisie climb along the mansion as potential buyers were arriving when she could have just overheard things from another location, but then when she needed to do it at the end of the movie to get away from the indoraptor it makes sense that she could do it if she’d done it before (although I think that the rain would have made things too slippery, but oh well).

Thinking about Maisie and the indoraptor going after her, the scene in the bedroom was the fantastical stuff of nightmares.

And If I’m being honest, I assumed the scene was a nightmare when I watched it in the trailer. It was a particularly harrowing scene, since I remember having actual nightmares as a kid with raptors in my room 25-ish years ago after watching Jurassic Park. So that was a scary but fabulous hit of nostalgia.

And when it comes to nostalgia, having the the brachiosaurus featured the ways it was in this film was heart wrenching. For everyone like me who remembers why raptors were scary in a kitchen, we also remember the sheer wonder of seeing the brachiosaurus in the first film. It was an experience wonderfully portrayed by the paleo-vet Zia when they showed up for the first time in this movie. So for a brachiosaurus to be the last dinosaur on the dock rearing up as it was engulfed in smoke and flames as it cried out it’s call one last time was a hard kick right in the feels. I’m tearing up again just typing about it. And yes, I know dinosaurs aren’t real AND I know it’s just a movie, but I don’t care and neither do my emotions.

Oh and one final note on emotions (and jumping a bit back to character motivations), I thought it was great to get more backstory on Owen and Blue. It really made Blue much more of a character in this film and it gave more motivation to Claire being able to motivate Owen to go back for her. Their relationship was much more like that of a dog owner and it made me hug my own pups a little more when I got home. I did also kind of wish my dogs were baby triceratopses though. The movie didn’t NEED a baby triceratops, but I was really glad it had one. I’ve been in love with the triceratops ever since Land Before Time (another dino movie that can balance action and emotions), and I never felt like we got enough of them in the previous Jurassic franchise installments.

My only complaints come from mosasaurus shot from the trailer and the questionable geography involved in its escape. So how do I complain about one of the fiercest and cinematically epic dinos? Well for starters I’m bummed that we maybe only got three minutes of screen time with it.

Additionally I question how the moasaurus was able to escape. Yes the gate to open ocean was left open, but I’m referring to the fact that in Jurassic World, and thanks to this map the moasaurus’ lake enclosure never had a direct connection to open water. It was a contained lake.

And the shot of the indominous rex bones at the bottom confirm that the sub made it into said lake. So unless there was an underground channel leading to the gated off waters surrounding the island, then internal continuity just isn’t really being maintained.

 

Though to be fair, as many may recall in the first Jurassic Park movie we had a T-Rex enclosure that suddenly became a cliff… sooo maybe the island of Isla Nublar just doesn’t follow the laws of physics?

Now, based on how the movie ended it looks like we’ll be seeing more of the moasaurus in Jurassic World III and that leaves me with a final question that I’m looking forward to being answered in 2021. Will more damage to humanity occur because of dinosaurs like the moasaurus and Blue running wild, or will we have bigger problems thanks to the auction and Wu’s research making it possible for individuals to own and weaponize these creatures?

Either way I’m looking forward to the next movie, and whatever havoc these dinos wreak.