Four stars. Rated PG-13, for relentless action violence and all manner of dino rage
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.22.18
This film is a cautionary tale that hearkens back to the immortal line from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, which has been paraphrased — in movies, TV shows and other books — many times since:
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| With a particularly nasty Indoraptor loose in her family's private Cretaceous museum, young Maisie (Isabella Sermon, far right) hopes that Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) can keep her alive. |
“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge.”
Its function as a klaxon-blaring environmental warning aside, this fifth installment in the Jurassic series also is a rip-snortin’ rollercoaster ride. Director J.A. Bayona and editor Bernat Vilaplana maintain an impressive level of intense, edge-of-the-seat suspense for two full hours. Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow’s script is cleverly structured into three distinct acts, each laden with distinct goals, challenges and dangerous pitfalls.
At the same time, a thoroughly unsettling message percolates beneath the surface, until finally blossoming — nay, exploding — during the climax.
That’s a problem. The care with which Connolly and Trevorrow have built their plot suddenly sags beneath the weight of too much extraneous exposition during the final 15 minutes: one genuine surprise, a failure to resolve, and a lingering catastrophe that has been foretold by Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm (and it’s very nice to see him again).
We’re left with enough open-ended material to fuel two or three more films ... which, frankly, is quite irritating.
Up to that point, however, Fallen Kingdom is a lot of fun, in great part because Bayona, Connolly and Trevorrow wisely follow — and often reference — many of the ingredients that made Steven Spielberg’s 1993 handling of Michael Crichton’s original novel so thoroughly absorbing.
Stalwart heroes: check. Well-meaning scientists with their ideals shattered: check. Greedy corporate villains: check. One (and only one) comic-relief character: check. A child in peril: check.
Plenty of unexpected jump-attacks by swiftly moving dinosaurs: Check-check-check.
