We’ve been to a park full of dinos, then other islands, then other theme park islands, and now the dinos have come home with us; now is the time for these creatures to truly change the way that life and the world works, right? Well, it’s another Jurassic sequel so of course disappointment is the answer. Literally dinosaurs are everywhere - truly gigantic invasive species returned to dominate the Earth after millions of years - and we get a big fat nothing. It would be like pursuing, applying, and landing a role The Bang Gang, a reality show where 20 porn stars are put on a luxury island full of booze and hormones for months, but there is no f*cking going on. Conceptually, it is a let down of massive proportions. I want dinosaurs wreaking havoc, eating kids, taking over the world, but no. Honestly though, that is just the first domino of discouragement to fall in this cinematic chain of failure.
The entire film is so soooo dumb. Logic, consequences, character motivations - none of it is there. The world being is totally unchanged, which on a basic level you have to address. It’s like if someone flooded the world and gave everyone jet ski boots wherein they focus on how fast people are moving around and how cool it is, but not the fact that the fabric of ordinary life and ongoing human existence would be over. There was zero thought put into the making of this fictional reality beyond what the plot dictated for the next scene.
Dinos are the focus, be they are tired CGI plot hurdles, it is the people that leave you to exhale in empty defeat. Has there ever been a gathering of characters that are more vacant & lifeless that are portrayed by actors with less charisma and draw in an ongoing blockbuster franchise than these film stick figures. I don’t care about a SINGLE person here, and the amalgamation of their disparate aims and plot engagements leave only more emptiness and entropy. They also have these side characters, like Omar Sy and Justice Smith’s characters - are these characters we are supposed to know, remember and care about? Because I did none of the above.
There is the addition of DeWanda Rise’s supposed-to-be “dark Indiana Jones” black market pilot with a heart of gold and Dichen Lachman’s Vanessa Kirby from Mission Impossible-lite villain. Both would be fine in bigger and more important roles, but here they are side-quest nadas.
And then there are the further nostalgia throw-ins. “Hey! You remember all those characters and actors from the brilliant (and should have been singular) Jurassic Park? Well, they are all BACK. COME SEE!” The 3 principal characters have returned, whole heartedly shoved in with no purpose or meaning beyond mashing them in with the new franchise stalwarts. It was like a Star Trek Generations of dullness. That’s along with BD Wong, who can’t help but shift their character alignment constantly, and the “oh so desired” original flick callback character of Dodgson, recast because of sexual misconduct. Just more nostalgia filler, I guess.
Then you get to the plot, in which there isn’t a moment to breathe or have anything mean anything. It’s the clunkiest and regurgitated tripe. I truly don’t think there is a single scene that makes complete sense. Like it’s a boring Axe Cop, but instead of a fun 5-year old brother dictating the plot, it's a homeschooled anti-social Sheldon. From these ridiculous action scenes with no consequences, fumbling “surprise” plot twists, or these asinine late payoffs (cameras watching everything but no one looks at the cameras until after the fact, bass ackwards character motivation flips and Deus-ex machina plot mover pieces - the key plot is explained to a character & then rebelled against but later explained exactly the same way to the same person and they embrace it); nothing works. And none of this even gets into the long-term non-dino consequences of the film, as it has a lot to do with Monsanto-esque global grain production & destruction that leads to the end of the human race in months-to-years and massive cloning paradigm shift with unfathomable consequences - NONE OF WHICH IS EXPLAINED OR CARED FOR.
There is so little to dig in this film. It is only hitting the same beats as the last films, constantly stuck in this nostalgic rehash death spiral plaguing so many of Hollywood’s desired moneymakers. It is much MUCH too long. I would complain about the dark murky CGI nonsense, but who cares about these video game creatures, the dead eyed characters or what is even happening? Let us all hope that, like the dinos they keep trotting out every few years, that these insanely dull and perpetually disappointing Jurassic films are now extinct.
