Critic: ‘Fallen Kingdom’ is ‘dumber, less ambitious movie’

The posters for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom promise that “The Park Is Gone.” Perhaps that’s meant to be foreboding, but it mostly sounds like an end to fun. The Fallen Kingdom part is also frankly a little obscure. The mistake, however, might be to suppose that these words mean anything at all. Sense is a thing this movie doesn’t have much interest in making.

Which is far from the worst that can be said about it. When the first Jurassic Park movie (based on a novel by Michael Crichton) opened in 1993, it was both a parable and an example of extravagant human ambition. One well-intentioned, misguided visionary (Richard Attenborough) used genetic engineering to revive a longextinct species. Another (Steven Spielberg) used special effects to the same end. The results were a little ridiculous, but also scary, thrilling and intermittently thought-provoking.

That was hubris. This is business. The reawakening of the slumbering franchise in 2015 gave birth to Jurassic World, one of the highest-grossing terrible movies of all time, a lumbering walk in the rebooted park that squandered the charisma of the big lizards and the charm of the human cast in a witless farrago of blockbuster self-importance. Fallen Kingdom, directed by J.A. Bayona, is in most respects a dumber, less ambitious movie than its immediate predecessor, and also, for just that reason, a little bit more fun. Some of its high jinks have a hokey, silly, old-fashioned mad-scientist feeling to them, especially when the dinosaurs are chasing people or vice versa. Which is reasonably often.

There are moments when Fallen Kingdom operates in breezy awareness of its own ridiculousness, embracing its second-rate, secondhand status as a way for people with no other plans to grab some air conditioning. But in the current entertainment ecosystem, the good-faith B movie is not so much an endangered species as a genetic impossibility. To survive, you need either aggressive, frantically winking self-consciousness, end-of-the-world portentousness, or both. Fallen Kingdom has neither. It makes a few gestures toward Planet of the Apes-style apocalypticism, attempts a bit of tongue-incheek humor and phones in the rest.

The cast more or less does the same. Pratt’s affable, teddybear machismo grows staler with each movie. Howard’s character has been given a cliché-book upgrade to generic Strong Female Character. Apart from Toby Jones, the villains lack diabolical flair. The dinosaurs show more personality.

But not as much as they used to. Their ability to elicit wonder, terror and empathetic recognition — the whole point of this franchise, after all — has declined even as the capacities of computer-generated imagery have expanded.

Now I think I understand. The kingdom has fallen. The park is gone. Welcome to the petting zoo.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is rated PG-13 for saurian snacking. Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes.