The tagline of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reads: the park is gone. But they forgot to mention, so is the fun.
Everything in the film is a rush hour candidate, running without a pause, minus reflection as to what have they done to deserve this. It has set pieces that could have been awe-inducing, but in its terrible restlessness, the film reduces the scenes into quick blockbuster beats. Some ethical quandaries also get raised, but they just hang in there, like unquenched ghosts pining on a pine tree.
Even the end is like a giant slap on the face of satisfaction, asking the audience to be prepared to shell out again, because the studio has decided to open the can of giant reptiles on unconfined earth in the next installment. Infinity swear, anyone?
Since Jurassic World gobbled up billions of dollars at the box office, it was only obvious that the sequel would be here. So is Chris Pratt’s Owen and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire, the lovebirds we discovered in 2015. The impatience of the film affects the lovers too, giving them very little space to breathe. Owen, the jock is the same old smooth talker, but for our collective good fortune, Claire’s legs have acquired the wisdom of wearing boots in jeopardy, and not the high heels we so gaped at.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes us back to the park, and Isla Nublar again, the fictional island where the prehistoric monsters roamed around to stir awe and fear in us. The giants are in trouble now since a volcano is threatening to engulf the entire island with its inhabitants. So our lovers decide to get back to the same island to save the same creatures that almost ate them alive last time, with the help of a billionaire and his trusted aide who have plans for rehabilitating the enormous refugees.
Like the trailers, the film employs zero restraint in revealing a conspiracy, and the villains become your usual cutouts. Again, a terrible rush. The scheme is quickly revealed, and the island gets destroyed so hastily that this rush impacts some terrific set-pieces.
For example, a scene involving a numb Owen facing streams of lava gets done in less than a minute. You keep thinking what Spielberg would have done to milk this moment for slow-burn suspense.
Post the apocalyptic eruption of the volcano, the film takes a surprising turn to fit into a haunted mansion story. This is a welcome change considering such blockbuster projects usually expand their scale in the consecutive sequels, but this one scales down to make it more intimate. Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona who showed great skill in the haunted house genre in The Orphanage (2007) engages interesting horror tropes with light and shadow to display terror, and you hope for goosebumps to call on you. But the stakes never go up to rain dread on you, the characters escape the jaws of death too easily too many times, a lot of it goes to the trite plotting by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly which scratches ideas only on the surface, hardly caring to peel the layers.
The most laughable parts of the film include a little girl named Maisie (a wonderful Isabella Sermon) who despite being chased by a dinosaur decides to sleep in her bed only because the film is desperate to visualize ‘monster visiting a kid in bed’ trope. Maisie also leads the viewers to a twist that in the trajectory of the film feels absolutely unnecessary, and unearned.
Despite a quarter of a century with us with all sorts of genetic engineering, Hollywood still imagines dinosaurs without personalities, never bothering to offer an alternate perspective for a change.
No sense of miracle, no pauses for terror, just those generic beasts stomping grounds, much like the Hollywood blockbuster universe.
(The writer is a journalist, a screenwriter, and a content developer who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. He tweets @RanjibMazumder)
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