Had you told me as a teen that I would skip watching a big budget Jurassic Park sequel that prominently featured dozens more species of dinosaurs than in the original and had a huge setpiece around a giant volcanic eruption, I'd have thought you were nuts.
Yet the first Jurassic World movie came out and was such an appalling mixture of pure idiocy, bad characters and a complete fucking lack of cinematic moments, that I not only completely avoided its sequel in the theaters, I've sat on it for four years.
And you know what, it's a shit movie, but taken in the right spirit it's a fun shit movie, more than capably directed by J.A. Bayona. Its not good, but it does manage to be beautiful and well paced and its individual, technical components are made with skill and care.
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| As well-made as the action is, it's just as poorly written and dumb as the rest of the movie. This little guy, for example, somehow tosses a dino twice as big as him through a high window. |
Unfortunately, Jurassic World mastermind Colin Trevorrow provided the script, and it's a wall-to-wall turdfest. Proceeds start out well enough with a short prelude where a group of shady contractor types return to the ruins of the partially submerged Jurassic World park to retrieve DNA from the first film's genetically altered dinosaur baddie find out that -gasp- maybe dinosaurs are dangerous.
This establishes a few important things about the movie, mainly: a) It looks beautiful and has a lot of fun setting up its dinosaur attacks, and b) this is going to be a very, very dumb movie. Also c) these contractor types are really bad at their jobs. How-the-fuck-haven't-they-shot-themselves-as-soon-as-they-were-handed-guns terrible.
After this introduction we jump to the mainland, a few years past the Jurassic World massacre. It looks like a volcanic eruption is going to wipe isla Nublar and its captive dinosaur population; There's some fun speculation about the world's reaction to that, which ends up being a shrug.
Bryce Dallas Howard, a dinosaur businesslady in the first film, now turned dinosaur activist (her character's name is Claire, had to look it up despite just watching the movie) is forced to watch in horror as the situation unfolds. Luckily a millionaire long-time associate of John Hammond's intervenes and offers to fund an operation to rescue them. The old man is played by the redoubtable James Cromwell, so you know he's on the level. His right-hand man, though, is played by Rafe Spall, so you know that betrayal is incoming. The whole setup is tired and obvious.
Claire then gathers a team to go to Isla Nublar: two new completely forgettable characters I won't spend any more keystrokes on, and estranged love interest Chris Pratt the dinosaur whisperer. That character is a large part of why I put off this movie for so long.
I like Pratt as a comedian - and he does get to show off his comic chops here, particularly in a very funny scene where he needs to get away from some lava while heavily sedated - but holy shit he makes for a terrible straight leading action hero in these movies. And the script just piles on the douche on his dialog; It's not just that I find him utterly unconvincing as a rugged outdoorsman badass, I fucking loathe this character.
Anyhow! Once on the island they meet up with a small private army of obvious villains, and at least the film wastes very little time before they betray our heroes and leave them to die in the volcanic eruption.
Meanwhile, the contractors abscond with a bunch of dinosaurs to... sell for profit at an auction. Yes, seriously. That is the villain's plot. I know they're establishing parallels to the original Jurassic Park sequel, but this is dumber in any way that counts.
Inane plot aside, this island sequence is actually the high point of the movie - the protagonists need to flee the island, escaping the volcano and a horde of scared dinosaurs. I mean, stupid stuff keeps happening, but it's beautifully shot and expertly handled. It's exciting! Bayona, a good director who has made good movies, classes up the joint even while serving up nakedly, cynically manipulative moments such as when sad brontosaur is left behind to die in the island and wails piteously at the leaving boat.
The quick pace continues as the dinosaurs are taken to the mainland - to a Resident-Evil-style secret facility built under the mansion belonging to the millionaire that funded the expedition. Sigh. Of course life finds a way during the auction, and people find out the hard way that attending an event with a bunch of live dinosaurs might be a bad idea. Special mention to just how fucking bad security is here; I mean, it's been terrible during the whole movie, but these guys really put some extra effort to earning their Darwin awards. A... lot of really fucking stupid stuff goes down, the good guys escape, the bad guys get their comeuppance. Yadda yadda.
At one point a raptor jumps and runs away from an explosion like an action hero. This is where the dumb script and the talent behind the cameras line up and make the movie shine like... like a really, really dumb diamond.
Of course another genetic hybrid dinosaur is introduced as the main menace, the equivalent to the first Jurassic World's souped up T-Rex.
This carries forward Jurassic World's brilliant insight that dinosaurs are not enough to get viewers interested, what people are after are genetically mutated dinosaurs. FUCK THAT SHIT. I mean, if you're trying to make them sexier, at least have the balls to give them bikini armor, jetpacks and monofilament whips; why the hell introduce these uber dinosaurs if in the end they a) look less cool than regular dinosaurs, and b) fail to do anything regular dinosaurs don't do already? (And of course they're going to get their ass handed by regular dinos in the end, anyhow.)
It's wrong-headed, self defeating and honestly, emblematic of how rotten these movies are at their core.
I'm really surprised to say this, but despite everything this is a worthwhile movie. I would not have had a bad time at the theatre. It's a decent mixture of pure idiocy, bad characters and a lot of awesome cinematic moments.
I'm happy Bayona got to play with such a big budget, and acquitted himself so well. But as always with this sort of thing I'd rather see him return to smaller, more personal stuff. Fun as this is, it's nowhere near as good as The Orphanage or Monster Calls.
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