258. Jurassic World; Fallen Kingdom; movie review

JURASSIC WORLD - FALLEN KINGDOM
Cert 12A
128 mins
BBFC advice: Contains moderate threat, occasional bloody moments, action violence

Anyone who wonders why film studios are spending vast amounts of money on limp sequels should have been sitting with us in Vancouver's Cineplex on Saturday morning.
"Hold on," you say... "You went all the way to Canada and you spent your time watching Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom?".
In our defence, it is an education watching movies abroad, so Mrs W and I nipped in before adjourning to the International Jazz Festival.
I digress. The crowd were up for J.A. Bayona's movie... and I mean up for it.
The first appearance of a dinosaur was greeted with a loud cheer, a key moment prompted spontaneous applause and there was whooping and clapping at the end.
Now I have a warm feeling about Canadians thanks to a wonderful visit to Vancouver and I really shouldn't judge a nation on the reaction of a cinema audience to one movie but...
Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom is more than two hours of "seen it, done it." and didn't deserve a smile let alone a cheer.
If there was a single bit of originality in this sequel to a sequel then I must have been having a micro-sleep at the time.
This saddened me. I was a huge fan of the original Jurassic Park and was sceptical about Jurassic World but thrilled in how that turned out.
This lacks the charm of either.
Its premise is that the dinosaurs of Jurassic World face being wiped out by a volcano which is spewing lava across their island
It stars Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt as paleontologists who are brought in by one of the scientists (James Cromwell) behind Jurassic Park to help them secure the safe passage to the mainland of some of the dinosaurs.
The benefactor's aim is purely philanthropic but his assistant (Rafe Spall) sees an opportunity for big bucks and brings in an even greedier money man (Toby Jones) to come up with a plan to sell the great beasts off.
In other words, the plot of Jurassic Park has been mirrored and almost like-for-like replacement characters have been brought in.
Oh, with the exception of one who actually talks to one of the raptors.
Yes, Jurassic Park meets Doctor Dolittle in a way which might be intriguing if it were not just plain stupid.
Those who applauded will disagree, but I found this incarnation of what has now become a franchise to be dreary.
I groaned when a follow-up was left in the offing at its finale.

Reasons to watch: Just because it's got the magical word...jurassic
Reasons to avoid: It is an insult to the glorious original

Laughs: Two chuckles at the film and several more at the reaction of the audience
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 5.5/10

Director quote - J.A. Bayona: "The whole film plays more with the idea of suspense.  And I really like that.  I think somehow the first Jurassic was like that.  You had the big T. Rex scene in the middle and then it plays with the suspense of the kitchen scene in the with the Raptors.  And we tried to follow the same pattern."

The big question - Are we going to have to suffer more lame Jurassic follow-ups?

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