Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

When Isla Nublar's dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen and Claire must mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event. 

REVIEW: I don’t normally do reviews on here for big budget theatrical blockbusters such as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I usually reserve this blog for just low budget cheesy B-Movies and  some horror movies, but the Jurassic Park franchise is my all time favorite (even named my childhood dog Raptor because of Jurassic Park), so screw it, I’m throwing my rulebook out the window for this one.

The first time I viewed this movie, I left with a similar feeling as I did when I left my first viewing of The Last Jedi - There were moments I loved for sure, but my overall opinion on the movie was confusing; I didn't quite know how I felt or what to think. I had a lot that I needed to process before cementing any strong opinion one way or the other.

After a rewatch however, I've come to the conclusion that I really really love Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It’s definitely something different for the franchise, that’s for sure, but different is exactly what the franchise needs at this point, five movies in. Sure, it's not perfect, I'll admit that. It has a few minor issues, such as a couple specific moments that just didn't work for me, and the story structure is definitely a bit wonky (feels more like a two act structure as opposed to the usual three act structure), and there's one moment/reveal that really didn't work for me that seemed ultimately pointless in the end.

But damn it, I had fun. I felt like a little kid again, totally invested in all the fun action sequences and cheesy character moments. Claire I thought was a much more rounded character this go-around than she was in the previous movie, and while Chris Pratt as Owen is still pretty much just Chris Pratt as Chris Pratt, it worked for me and I found him more engaging of a character this time around as well. Likewise, I thought the effects were top level. Much more use of practical effects this time, and even most of the CGI looked greatly improved from the previous movie.

In addition, this entire movie is shot fantastically, and it includes some of my favorite individual visual shots in the entire franchise to date, and the opening scene is one of my all-time top favorite scenes from any of the Jurassic Park/World movies. It also has more of a dark gothic horror vibe during parts of it than the rest of the franchise has had, really emulating almost like oldschool classic Hammer horror, or going even further back, the classic Universal monster movies, the best they could in a family-friendly movie, which as a horror lover I really enjoyed.

After watching this movie the first time, I knew it was probably going to be Last Jedi-level of divisiveness among fans and moviegoers, it seems like most franchise entries these days that try to think outside of the box and actually propel a franchise forward instead of just rehashing the same movie over and over again gets met with that kind of reaction. 

But for me personally, those above-mentioned few issues aside, I loved the hell out of this one and found it fun as all hell, which is exactly what I want from a movie like this. It did take two viewings to come to that conclusion however, but that's just because I wasn't prepared for how forward-propelling the movie was going to be for the franchise compared to the last couple, which were perfectly content just treading the exact same ground that had already been traveled on.

9 out of 10 rooms in the Psych Ward