JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
Lava + dinos = disaster.
Twenty-five years ago, Sam Neill and pals didn’t just have dinotrouble to contend with at John Hammond’s joint. They also faced frightful rain as a tropical storm blew in. Now, containment breaches on the follow-up to 2015’s $1.67bn-grossing fourquel Jurassic World tell us director Juan Antonio Bayona is bringing the saga full circle to usher it forwards with a tale of nature red in tooth, claw… and hot lava.
“We’re literally blowing up the island,” says Chris Pratt, returning as veloci-whisperer Owen Grady. Star-Lord might be over-literal in his description, but Isla Nublar certainly has elemental issues, four years on from Jurassic World. Her relationship with Owen presumably extinguished, Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing
calls on her old squeeze in her new role as Dinosaur Protection Group founder, when the scaly giants face potential extinction (again). Something is rumbling – and it’ll take more than reflective kitchen surfaces to deflect a volcano’s impact.
“It’s a disaster dinosaur movie – a new genre,” says Bayona, who seems eminently equipped to follow Colin Trevorrow as franchise director. The Spanish auteur made his feature debut with 2007 horror The Orphanage, combining old-school suspense skills with a new-school nous for fear roped to deep feelings. Tsunami movie The Impossible and grief fable A Monster Calls showed his chops at natural disasters and working with kids.
“You will find elements of both films in this new one,” says Bayona, who also pays much homage to the 1993 original and a little to its sequel, The Lost World, in spirit and in substance. “My first instinct was to
go back to the reaction I had watching the first Jurassic Park when I was a kid,” Bayona told The Independent, adding, “We wanted to bring back some more scary elements with fear and horror in this one.”
And character elements. While James Cromwell’s Benjamin Lockwood has a connection with Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond, BD Wong also returns as Dr. Wu to create the sense that this sequel is also a fan-friendly, faithful-to-source fivequel. “For Colin and I,” Bayona expands, “it was about finding connections with the old trilogy. That makes it very rich as we are expanding Jurassic World but also finding new connections with Jurassic Park.”
Another connection is Jeff Goldblum, who will, uh, find a way back to the saga as chaos flirt-osaurus Ian Malcolm. “He might have something to say about the current confluence of circumstances around the use and misuse of technology,” teases Goldblum. “With some wry irony, but also some deep, wise, passionate conviction.”
Though Bayona describes Goldblum’s appearance as a “meaningful” one, the director cautions that it’s only a cameo. Malcolm won’t be on dino duty – but he might have recognised one or two beasts from first-hand knowledge. Jurassic Park’s brachiosaurus and titanic T-rex return, while reminders that its 1997 sequel wasn’t an entirely lost cause come in the diminutive shape of the compys, glimpsed in the trailer. Meanwhile, World’s Lassie-like loveable ’raptor Blue returns as a carrot Claire dangles to tempt Owen back to the island of teeth, terror and romantic trauma.
But, as Bayona says, “The challenge of making a sequel is finding the right balance between what people are expecting and what people will be surprised by.” New dinos out to shock us include the trailer-glimpsed baryonyx, a crocodilian creature doubling as a sly homage to earlier Jurassic visits: the baryonyx had a paddock on the original film’s park map and it was teased as an attraction in Jurassic World’s Cretaceous Cruise. The mighty piscivore (who, one suspects, will develop a taste for human-shaped snacks as well as fish) was also name-checked in Jurassic Park III, when youngster Billy Brennan mistook the spinosaurus for our bary.
Also appearing is horned devil the carnotaurus, a creature capable of camouflage and famed for terrorising Michael Crichton’s sequel novel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World; it was also sneak-teased in Jurassic World as part of the Indominus-rex’s DNA mash-up. Something resembling an allosaurus gallops into trailer view as well, while rumours of a new hybrid persist.
As for the dino-menu, new cast-member Justice Smith (The Get Down) looks set to bring some levity to proceedings with his eardrum-piercing shriek. Daniella Pineda, Rafe Spall and Bayona favourite Geraldine Chaplin make Jurassic debuts, while returning talent includes Jurassic World composer Michael Giacchino, who promises a “darker, more moody and more suspenseful” film than its predecessor.
And, perhaps, less CGI-heavy, as Bayona enthuses about practical tools: “I think animatronics bring soul and reality to it. We’re trying to find the balance between animatronics and CGI in order to cheat the audience so they don’t know what they’re seeing.” If creature shop head Neal Scanlan does for dinosaurs what he did for cuter animals in porcine classic Babe, he may yet silence the ’raptor-clawed gripes about CGI that dogged Jurassic World.
And should anyone be sharpening their claws, practical footwear will also be worn. Asked if Claire will be rocking heels, Dallas Howard is emphatic. “No. Oh, no. That’s over. Claire is prepared. Claire would never wear heels in a situation where she was planning to run.” On which note, Ian Malcolm’s wisdom bears revisiting: there will be running. And, uh, screaming. KH
‘We’re trying to find the BaLanCe BetWeen animatroniCs and Cgi’
JuAN ANtoNIo BAyoNA