Dinosaurs lose their bite
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
(out of four) Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum, Ted Levine, James Cromwell, Isabella Sermon, Toby Jones, BD Wong, Rafe Spall, Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith and Geraldine Chaplin. Directed by J. A. Bayona. Opens Friday at major theatres. 128 minutes. 14A Recall the shudder of pleasure we all felt, 25 years ago this summer, as the incredible dinosaurs of Jurassic Park first lumbered across the screen. It was the collective recognition that computerized special effects had changed movies forever, for better or worse. That was the better; now for the worst.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is upon us, the fifth movie in the franchise and the second in the rebooted narrative, and the interior rumble it provokes is more akin to a bout of indigestion. It’s time for these dinos to become extinct again.
Directed at breakneck speed by J.A. Bayona ( The Orphanage), this misbe- gotten blockbuster plunders plotlines and characters from previous Jurassic treks and stitches them to an environmental theme that amounts to a lazy attempt at social relevance.
Worst of all is the sad realization that the dinosaurs no longer have the power to make us gape. For the most part, they’ve all dissolved into a CGI mass of grey skin, beady eyes and gaping teeth, with even the new Indoraptor hybrid model — billed as “the most dangerous creature that ever walked the Earth!” — failing to impress. They’re all just aimlessly hungry lizards, waiting to leap from the darkness whenever a human is stupid enough to stand in their path, which is often. Lordy, are these humans stupid! They include dinosaur hucksters turned do-gooders Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) who, having barely escaped with their lives following the theme park calamity of Jurassic World, foolishly return to Isla Nublar. (Ditto for their erstwhile romance.)
Bankrolled by dotty billionaire Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), Owen and Claire seek to round up and relocate the dinos to a new island sanctuary, but time and nature are against them: a newly active volcano, spewing the cheesiest of computer-generated lava, is about to do to the beasties what a giant meteor did to their ancestors.
The bad guys aren’t any brighter than our heroes, and their devious plan is even dumber: they hope to weaponize the dinosaurs, or maybe use them to make drugs, but mainly they just want to own them, like kids collecting plastic action figures.
The villains are led by creepy capitalist Gunnar Eversol (Toby Jones), a gun nut named Wheatley (Ted Levine) who likes to call women “sweetheart,” and a snivelling fellow conniver whose identity will be made known.
And there can’t be a Jurassic movie without a resourceful kid.
So we get Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), Benjamin’s granddaughter, who actually proves to be an intriguing character, with young Sermon maybe the only actor in this picture who isn’t just cashing a paycheque.
Everything goes wrong and the dinos run amok, but you already knew that. Nobody ever learns in this franchise, a reality noted by a cameoing and doomsaying Jeff Goldblum (the “chaos theory” egghead of Jurassics past) to a congressional subcomittee investigating the Nublar nuthouse: “How many times do you have to see the evidence?”
There’s even a big red button that somebody pushes that should have been labelled, “Press Here to Have Dinos Run Amok.” A dinosaur with a battering ram head — I think its scientific name is Buttheadsaurus — is used to break out of a prison made of stone and steel.
People do and say stupid things, especially after the action ridiculously moves from Isla Nublar to Lockwood’s Gothic mansion, where the raptors can run riot under the scolding glare of Benjamin’s housekeeper Iris, played by Geraldine Chaplin.
(It does not inspire confidence that screenwriters Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow also penned the next Star Wars movie.)
There are a couple of moments of excitement, both of them occurring underwater. The film has a thrilling opening whereupon two disposable thugs in a mini-sub become a giant sea beast’s snack after stealing a dinosaur bone.
And there are tense moments as Owen struggles to free Claire and a computer geek named Franklin (Justice Smith) from a bubble-shaped park rover that suddenly becomes a submersible vehicle. The most memorable scene of the movie comes from the least threatening of all the animals: a long-necked brachiosaurus, the “veggie-saurus” from Jurassic Park, which is left stranded on a dock as a cloud of hot volcanic ash engulfs it.
The forlorn look on the dying dinosaur’s face seems to say, “Is this what it’s all come to?”
I can only nod in sad agreement.