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Despite receiving mostly mixed reviews from critics, Jurassic World was a massive success. On a budget of $150 million, the movie grossed over $1 billion worldwide and set numerous box office records. It became the first film in cinematic history to gross over $500 million in a single weekend and was the third-highest-grossing film of all time in the US and Canada. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 2015, right behind Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, and it’s gone on to be the highest-grossing film in the Jurassic Park franchise. Naturally, with this insane box office success, Universal was going to move forward with a sequel. This time, however, Colin Trevorrow would not be returning as director but would serve as a producer and co-writer alongside Derek Connolly. Instead, the director’s chair was handed over to J.A. Bayona, who previously directed The Orphanage, The Impossible, and A Monster Calls. Returning from the previous film are Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and BD Wong. Some notable actors who were brought in included Toby Jones, Ted Levine, and James Cromwell, and Jeff Goldblum was brought back for a small role as Ian Malcolm. So, with all this talent coming together, how does Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom compare to the last film and the other films in the franchise?

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Taking place three years after the previous film, the island of Isla Nublar has long since been abandoned, with all the remaining dinosaurs living in peace. At the beginning of the film, we see a group of mercenaries go to the island to retrieve a DNA sample of the Indominus Rex from the last film. Despite being attacked by a T-Rex and the Mosasaurus from the previous movie, the mercenaries manage to make off with the DNA sample. Meanwhile, the US government is debating whether or not to preserve the lives of the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar once it’s discovered that a previously inactive volcano has become active and is threatening to kill them off. Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) even voices his opinion, saying the dinosaurs should be killed off to correct the mistakes that John Hammond unintentionally started. At the same time, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who was the park manager from before, has started a charity organization dedicated to preserving the lives of the dinosaurs. With hoping seeming lost, she’s invited to meet with Benjamin Lockwood, played by James Cromwell, who worked alongside John Hammond back in the day. With his assistant Eli Mills, played by Rafe Spall, Lockwood plans to move the dinosaurs from Isla Nublar to another island that will serve as a sanctuary, where they’ll be left alone and kept safe and sound. While they’re confident they’ll be able to find all the dinosaurs, Mills is concerned about finding Blue, the last surviving velociraptor from the last film, so Claire decides to recruit Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to help her rescue the dinosaurs. Also along for the ride are Franklin Webb, played by Justice Smith, who works with Claire as a systems analyst and hacker, and Dr. Zia Rodriguez, played by Daniella Pineda, who also works for Claire as a dinosaur veterinarian. Once they make it to the island, it becomes a race to save as many dinosaurs as possible and find Blue before the volcano explodes and they’re engulfed in lava.

Anyway, that’s all I can really say about the plot without spoiling things. However, I will say that the trailers really only tell you about the first half of the movie. Without giving too much away, let’s just say that the second half goes in a direction that you wouldn’t see coming. Just to get this out of the way, while I found the movie enjoyable and entertaining enough, it is easily one of the weaker films in the franchise. It’s not a completely worthless film as there are plenty of good things about it. For one, the film is very well-made. Having not really since any of J.A. Bayona’s previous work as of the writing of this review, I was impressed with his skills as a director, and I am now curious to see how his other movies compare. Also, much like the last film, while I am still a bit upset about them using mostly CGI for the dinosaurs, I will say that the dinosaurs do still look impressive and are cool to look at. Plus, there is some fun spectacle to be had, especially in the scenes on the island and some of the stuff that happens in the second half. What also helps is that the actors do elevate the material, as Chris Pratt is still likable and fun and makes the movie worth watching, while Bryce Dallas Howard owns her role and does a lot more than she did before. I’d also like to shoutout Justice Smith, who starts off a little annoying with his screaming and constantly acting afraid of everything but does improve as the movie goes along, and Daniella Pineda, who is a very fun character and has her moments to shine. Plus, I was impressed with newcomer Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood, whose honestly not that bad for a child actress and actually does have her moments.

Now to get into the stuff I didn’t like, and there’s quite a bit. For one, this movie is insanely dumb. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of dumb movies that I love, but there’s a difference between the kind of dumb that you can enjoy and the kind of dumb where it feels like the filmmakers think the audience is dumb and doesn’t know any better. Ordinarily, I don’t complain too much when characters do stupid things since a lot of times the stuff they do is something I can see at least somebody doing. But here, the characters keep making stupid decision after stupid decision to where you just get mad at the characters for not realizing how stupid this is. Also, one thing I don’t understand is that a lot of people, including myself, found the whole weaponizing the dinosaurs subplot from the previous film to be one of the weaker elements of that movie, and yet here, they bring that back and put it in the forefront, especially when the movie gets into the second half. The villains are so cartoonishly evil that it’s ridiculous, especially with how this movie tries to play itself so seriously. These guys, especially Mills, Mr. Eversoll (Toby Jones), and Wheatley (Ted Levine), might as well be twirling mustaches and gloating about how rich they’re going to be. Going back to taking elements from the last film, they repeat the whole create-a-dinosaur-with-genetic-splicing bit from before, and it honestly seems like a lot of this is just a repeat of the previous film.

I’ll fully admit that I went into this movie wanting to sing its praises up and down the streets. Like I said earlier, there were some entertaining moments and some of the cast made the movie slightly enjoyable, but overall, this just feels like a movie that was simply made because the previous one was a hit and honestly seems to double-down on what didn’t work in the previous film. For fans of the previous films in the franchise, I’d just stick with any of those (mostly the first one), because Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a highly-flawed yet slightly enjoyable film that’s probably best as a rental.

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After the box office disappointment and mixed critical reaction of Jurassic Park III, Universal decided to put the franchise on hold. For the next 14 years, plans for a 4th movie were in development with numerous directors considered, concepts discussed, and screenplays written that were all over the place. Over the years, many of the original cast members, including Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Richard Attenborough were either in talks to return or expressed interest in reprising their roles. After Joe Johnston declined returning to direct the fourth film, people like Alex Proyas and Brad Bird were considered to direct the film before Colin Trevorrow, who previously directed Safety Not Guaranteed, was ultimately chosen. There were several writers working on the initial scripts, including William Monahan, who eventually left to work on Kingdom of Heaven, John Sayles, who also wrote the original Piranha and The Howling before being nominated for Passion Fish and Lone Star, and Mark Protosevich, who also wrote I Am Legend and the first Thor, until Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver from Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were ultimately picked to helm the screenplay. Released in 2015, 14 years after the previous film, with an entirely different cast and crew, how did Jurassic World turn out?

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Synopsis

Set 22 years after the first film (this one ignores The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III), a new park called Jurassic World has been built on Isla Nublar, the island that the original park was set on. However, unlike the previous park, this one is not only fully operational and open to the public, but it has become a huge success and seems to have been in operation for quite a long time. The park is mainly run by Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who is more focused on her work than her personal life. This is made apparent when her nephews Zach and Gary Mitchell, played by Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins respectively, come to the park and are escorted around by Claire’s assistant Zara, played by Katie McGrath. While Gary is overly excited and ecstatic to be at the park, Zach is clearly not having any of this and is more focused on picking up chicks there. Meanwhile, the park’s owner Simon Masrani, played by Irrfan Khan, has hired Dr. Henry Wu, played by BD Wong, to create a new dinosaur genetically spliced from other dinosaurs in order to attract more tourists. Known as the Indominus Rex, this new asset, as its referred to, is being touted as the biggest, baddest, and meanest dinosaur they have to offer. Before unveiling it to the public, Masrani wants to have an expert evaluate it, so he has Claire bring in velociraptor expert Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt. Grady warns them about having the dinosaur kept in isolation, and through a series of circumstances, the Indominus Rex ends up escaping and it’s up to Grady and Claire to track the dinosaur down before it kills the tourists.

Review

When this movie was first announced, like most other people, I was very excited to see this movie since I really loved Jurassic Park. Plus, this was right after Guardians of the Galaxy came out, and Chris Pratt just exploded on the scene. So with all that said, when I finally did see the movie, I was largely entertained by it, but there were still things about the movie that bugged me. First, let me get into the positives. For one, the cast in this is terrific. Chris Pratt, as always, is both funny and insanely charismatic. Bryce Dallas Howard, on top of looking gorgeous, does her job well in spite of the material, and she actually does go through a character change, which is nice. Also, while they aren’t as good or memorable as Lex and Tim from the first film, Zach and Gary are still fun characters and both Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins play off each other really well. While it is a shame that a lot of the original cast members don’t return for this one, it is nice to see BD Wong reprise his role from the original for a minor supporting role here. Plus, it’s cool to see Vincent D’Onofrio in a movie. Also worth mentioning is Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus as Lowery and Vivian respectively. While Johnson is more memorable and fun, Lapkus is also enjoyable and she and Johnson play off each other nicely. Aside from the cast, the dinosaurs do look impressive and are a fun spectacle. While I would’ve preferred more of a blend between practical effects and CGI like in the previous films, I can’t deny that the CG here looks good. Even though John Williams didn’t return to score this film, they did bring in Michael Giacchino as the composer, and he does a solid job mimicking Williams’ style of music.

Now here’s where I get into everything about the movie that either doesn’t work or just really annoyed me. First off, for a movie written by two writers who before have written great material, this movie is not exceptionally well-written. A lot of the characters in here feel more like archetypes than actual three-dimensional characters, i.e. Pratt as the confident and gruff action hero, Howard as the uppity business woman who’s all about business but learns the meaning of life or something like that, and D’Onofrio as the stereotypical military-minded guy who wants to weaponize the raptors despite how terrible of an idea it is. Speaking of terrible ideas, I normally don’t complain about characters doing things that seem idiotic or nonsensical since it’s only a movie and you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief, but the characters here make some dumb decisions. For starters, Masrani says he wants a dinosaur with tons of teeth and who is very aggressive, but doesn’t oversee what sort of dinosaur DNA is used in the creation. Also, for a park that supposedly has a state-of-the-art security system, a pair of kids can easily roam free around the park while the workers just stand there and do nothing. And whenever a dinosaur is on the loose, a lot of the characters, except for the leads, seem to not know how to handle the situation. Sure, the security system was breached in the first film and the characters were unsure of what to do to survive, but in its defense, the park wasn’t open to the public, and aside from Hammond and the staff, none of the main characters had ever been to the park or even seen these dinosaurs, so of course they wouldn’t know what to do. Here, we have people who not only work at the park, but they have personal experience working with the dinosaurs and have extensive knowledge of these creatures. Going back to the effects for a minute, there’s only one scene in the whole movie where they have a practical dinosaur. It’s very brief, but it does look good, so my only question is: if they could create a dinosaur practically, why was every single other dinosaur CG? Admittedly, some shots I can understand why they were digital, like the pteradons flying through the air or some of the bigger dinosaur fight scenes, but I don’t understand why a film with this large of a budget couldn’t have done CG and practicals like before.

Complaints aside, while this movie is nowhere near as good as the original Jurassic Park, it is arguably the best of the sequels. It’s definitely not as boring as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and it is slightly better than Jurassic Park III even though I kind of liked it. Still, if you’re going into this expecting not only the great, three-dimensional and complex characters of the original, the well-written and subtle social/moral commentary, and a wonderful mixture of practical and CGI, you are going to be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a fun ride that still has impressive-looking CGI, fun though generic characters played by actors above their given material, and some pretty fun set-pieces and spectacle, Jurassic World is still enjoyable to watch even if it fails in recapturing the magic of the 1993 original.

Buy Jurassic World from Amazon: https://amzn.to/49yvzeH.

Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link, which means that, at no additional cost, I will earn a commission if you click through the link and make a purchase.

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Where to watch Jurassic World (2015)

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In 1963, French novelist Pierre Boulle, known for writing the novel that would eventually turn into the 1957 film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, published La Planète des singes, which would become the basis for the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. Starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, and Linda Harrison, written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, and directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, the film became a massive success. The film spawned four sequels, a TV series, an animated series, and was remade by Tim Burton in 2001 to less-than-stellar results. After the disappointment of the remake, the franchise was put on hibernation until 2005, when screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver started working on a concept for a new film in the series, which would eventually become 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

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Synopsis

Set in modern times, the film follows scientist Will Rodman, played by James Franco, who has been working on a cure for Alzheimer’s, partially inspired by the need to cure his father, played by John Lithgow. As is the case with most science labs, they have been testing the drug on chimps, and while giving a presentation to the board of directors, one of the chimps goes crazy and starts rampaging through the office until being shot by security. Considering the project a failure, Rodman’s boss Steven Jacobs, played by David Oyelowo, has the chimps killed and the project shut down. However, a baby chimp that belonged to the one who was killed is saved by Rodman’s assistant, and Rodman reluctantly takes the chimp home to take care of it. Naming the chimp Caesar, Rodman discovers that the ape has heightened intelligence that he inherited from his mother, and he decides to do further research on Caesar while also continuing to find a cure for his father. As time goes on and Caesar grows up, he starts to question things and, after an incident involving a neighbor, is taken by animal control to an ape shelter where the apes are being tortured by the staff, including a young man named Dodge Landon, played by Tom Felton. While Caesar gains dominance over the other apes and starts thinking of a plan to escape, Jacobs is persuaded by Rodman to relaunch the program when Rodman explains that the drug works and can increase intelligence. Purely driven by profit, Jacobs has a stronger form of the drug made and has it tested on apes, particularly a scarred baboon named Koba. However, one of the lab assistants gets exposed to the drug and starts showing symptoms. Eventually, Caesar manages to overpower the shelter staff and leads the apes to escape from captivity and make their way to the San Francisco Redwoods.

Review

When it was first announced that they were rebooting the franchise, I, and I’m sure many others, were very skeptical about how it would turn out. It didn’t help that pretty much all of the apes in the film would be CGI as opposed to being done with practical effects like the other films. However, once people saw the film, they overlooked the effects and saw the film for what it truly is: a well-written, well-acted, and thought-provokingly worthy successor to the original franchise. For me, what really makes the film work are the apes themselves, particularly Caesar. Portrayed via motion capture by Andy Serkis, Caesar transcends his CG nature and become a fully-formed three-dimensional character who you actually care about and want to see survive. Same goes for a lot of the other apes, many of whom have distinct personalities that will be further developed later on. The human cast, for the most part, is also on-point, with the stand-outs being Franco, Lithgow, Oyelowo, and Brian Cox as the head of the primate shelter. The film is full of homages to the previous films as well, such as the drug ALZ-112 being named after the runtime of the original film, the main ape being named Caesar after the character from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, this film having more-or-less the same plot as that film, and an orangutan that Caesar befriends being named Maurice after the actor who portrayed Dr. Zaius in the original.

However, the movie is not without its problems. For one, while there are human cast members that do a pretty good job, there are others who kind of fall flat. For instance, Franco gets a love interest, played by Frieda Pinto, who really serves no other purpose other than to be arm candy for Franco. Also, Felton is such an unlikeable character who has no other motivation other than to just torture animals. On top of that, he has probably the worst line-read/homage to the original film in the movie. I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say his line-read would make Heston roll in his grave. I will say that while the CG does look pretty good, there are a few moments where it does look spotty. Even with that said, I still think this movie largely succeeds in creating a prequel to the original films that also serves as its standalone film. For those who’ve seen the original films, it’s a worthy successor to those films and pays homage to them largely out of respect. For newcomers, it’s a great modern-day story of what happens when man tries to control nature and explore things they were never meant to explore.

And so with the Rise comes the Dawn…

Buy Rise of the Planet of the Apes from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WyxOIB.

Disclosure: The above link is an affiliate link, which means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

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Where to watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

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