"What could POSSIBLY go wrong?"
Hello everyone!
Then again, any movie in which dinosaurs chase you around is bound to be.
I've had a thing for Jurassic Park since I saw the first movie, way back when. I think one of our television stations had a marathon and all three of the originals aired on the same day/night, so it was quite a treat to sit there and watch the T-Rex chomp his way across the screen.
Of course when they announced a reboot, or sequels, or whatever you'd like to call them, I was all in.
I was a little apprehensive about the nature of the sequels proper, considering you only have so many shots at a masterpiece - but I needn't have worried, because Jurassic World was honestly one of the best movies that year.
So when the time came for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (knowing they'd gotten Jeff Goldblum to do a cameo and some promo stuff), I was stoked!
I'll be linking the previous review down below at the bottom of the post, because yes, I absolutely went and recapped the first of these new movies after it came out. I mean, hello, T-Rex comes to dominate AGAIN.
But if we're super brief about what happened: Isla Nublar had been operating as a theme park for a decade, and they needed something new to attract the crowds, so they made the Indominus Rex, a mix of their own, and because this was a Jurassic movie, it escaped and all hell broke loose, closing down the park and leaving the dinosaurs to roam free over the island.
NOW, however, it's time to get our gear back on.
Because the first shot we get from Isla Nublar this time is when a mini submarine, or whatever it is you want to call it, enters the old park during a dark and stormy night.
I know. Fit setting, right?
They're looking for DNA from the Indominus, and they do actually find it, but as a wise Jedi Master once said ... there's always a bigger fish. Obviously, the sub and its crew don't make it - and neither does the one other person who was on the island to open up the doors for it. The chopper, with the bone fragment, however, takes off and leaves.
What they don't check is whether or not they closed the door behind them - and they didn't.
So you know, that bigger fish?
Fly, monkey, fly!
Ahem.
In a more civilised arena (well, mostly), one Dr. Ian Malcolm is arguing that, considering the volcano on Isla Nublar is about to blow, they should leave well enough alone and allow Mother Nature to correct John Hammond's mistake of cloning the dinos in the first place. So, yes, he's VERY vocal about letting them die.
Then again, he almost got eaten by the T-Rex a couple of times, so he has his reasons.
Meanwhile, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), one of the originals from the first movie and former park manager, has set up a group to try and save the dinosaurs, and gathered a number of like-minded people to her. The Senate goes with Malcolm's no-rescue idea, but Claire gets summoned to the estate of Benjamin Lockwood, who was Hammond's former partner, and whose aide, Mills, want to now try and save as many dinosaurs as possible. But to ensure their safety, they need to track them, for which they need Claire - as someone who has access to the park system.
Also, they need Blue.
Remember Blue? The last surviving raptor, and the one which Owen (Chris Pratt) spent a hell of a lot of time training. She also saved our heroes back in movie one. Yeah, that Blue.
Claire goes to grab Owen along for the ride, though the two haven't been able to make their relationship work, but the spark still seems to be there, and it's Blue on top of it all, so Owen decides to tag along and go see what the fuss is all about.
The fuss, in a nutshell, is this: if you see a big ass volcano errupting into lava ... run.
They successfully track Blue, but during the actual capture, things go really sideways really fast (gee, Owen, I could've told you what would happen without all the trouble - I've seen Jurassic Park 2, remember?), and Owen is tranquilized and left behind to die in the oncoming lava.
Owen is obviously made of sterner stuff - as are Claire and Franklin, the techie who came to help her, because after being locked up in the command centre, they escape from both lava AND dinosaurs, and regroup with Owen to steal aboard the leaving vessel.
Cue my waterworks, however, when they turn around as the ash and lava engulf Isla Nublar, and a lone Brachiosaurus watches them leave from the end of the pier.
But they have bigger problems - Blue is bleeding. Having been shot during the capture attempt, she now needs a transfusion, and paleovet Zia sends Owen and Claire to find a dino on board that has two or three fingers.
If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right.
OF COURSE it's the T-Rex.
Managing NOT to get eaten for the zillionth time, the team rescue Blue and arrive ... dun dun duuuuun ... at Lockwood's estate.
Decidedly, this is NOT the haven Mills originally showed Claire.
Recognized, and locked up, Claire and Owen are told by Mills that the dinosaurs are going to be sold in an auction to the highest bidders. They, on the other hand ... well, they're on death row, but for the time being, they can sit and chill.
Mills has bigger fish to fry. And by that, I mean he goes and murders Lockwood with a pillow.
He probably has nefarious purposes for Lockwood's granddaughter Maisie, too, but the child is much too smart and evades capture. She also realized that she's not actually a child - she's a clone of her own mother, whom Lockwood missed so much after a fatal car accident that he cloned her, and it drove him and Hammond apart.
Children being who they are, Maisie, who had previously located the labs and cells under her family home, now wanders down there again, and just in time, as Owen has recruited a Stygimoloch (or, you know, a dino with a SUPER hard head) to break them out of their cells. While the dino wanders off in search of other targets to bang into (literally), Claire and Owen take Maisie along with them, and she goes to show them the auction which is just happening in the bowels of the mansion.
Side note: I had to rewind the movie when the bad guys mentioned there was a major Slovenian arms dealer in the audience. I think I actually choked on whatever I was eating at the time. I'm not ENTIRELY sure my country has enough money to buy a dinosaur ... then again, I suppose they needed someone Slavic over there that wasn't Russian.
Horrified, Claire and Owen see Dr. Henry Wu in the audience, and just as well, because he helps unveil a completely new dinosaur (when will they EVER learn): a cross between the Indominus and the Velociraptor, an Indoraptor, which has been trained to obey orders by laser gun.
Realizing the thing MUST NOT LEAVE THE ESTATE, Owen goes for his head-banging dino friend and sets him loose in the crowd (can anyone say BOWLING TIME?), while Wu, in the meantime, hastens to get some blood from Blue so he can continue enhancing the Indoraptor. Zia tells him the blood is contaminated - because of the transfusion from the T-Rex. In a resulting altercation, Blue is freed and set loose to raid the mansion herself.
Oh, and the Indoraptor? It pretends it was sedated and kills a bunch of people in the process before deciding it's going to go after Owen, Claire and Maisie.
Playing hide-and-seek with regular raptors was dangerous back in the first movie, doing it with a special raptor now is suicidal, and after it targets Maisie alone, Claire begs Owen to go after the child, saying she'll be alright on her own. The pair exchange a kiss and he goes to do as he's told. Cornered on the roof, things might have ended badly for the duo anyway if Claire didn't prove she IS more than alright, and uses a laser gun to ensure the Indoraptor would do what she wants - and Owen makes sure the thing falls to its death, tangled with Blue who came to the rescue. Again.
So with threat number one exterminated, they race to try and regroup with Zia and Franklin - who're trying to save the dinosaurs left on the premises because a lethal gas is leaking into the cells. Owen and Claire make the heart-breaking decision to let the animals die, but Maisie hits the button and says they should be given a chance to live, as they're living beings, like her.
Oh, and Mills?
Well, he TRIES to get away, with the Indominus bone. But he kind of gets eaten by the T-Rex.
Booyah.
Owen wants to take Blue with him some place safe, but the dinosaur joins other fleeing animals and hastens off into the American wilderness, so instead, he takes Claire and Maisie along to where he's building a cabin. And I'm thinking he might have to make it a little bit bigger.
The movie draws to a close with another Senate hearing in which Malcolm admits they are now in a new, Neo-Jurassic Age, and humans will have to learn to co-exist with dinosaurs. And hopefully live to tell the tale.
Some of them have been bought and are on their way to their new homes; but others, like the T-Rex and Blue, are roaming around, totally free, and are bound to run into Homo Sapiens sooner rather than later.
Then?
Jurassic World 3, I think!
Perhaps not quite as explosive as the first of these new adaptations, Fallen Kingdom still managed to recapture the magic and made sure that the T-Rex and Velociraptor had center-stage, regardless of these new dinosaurs Wu tries to breed every movie. There were also a few really funny call-backs (I'm looking at the wardrobe department and Claire's shoes) and more than enough witty one-liners.
If there IS another sequel, you can count me in!
But can Owen and Claire make it work this time, please?
xx
*poster and video not mine, screencaps belong to me
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