Since
its inception some 25 years ago back in 1993, the five films of the ‘Jurassic Park’
(now ‘Jurassic World’) franchise have earned over $4.5 billion (and counting) at
the worldwide box office, proving to be one of the most popular and enduring
franchises in cinematic history. Michael
Crichton’s (may he rest in peace) greatest fictional creation captured our imagination
while providing pulse-pounding suspense, even if the movies adapted from his
work misfired critically more often than not.
The latest entry in the series and second in the rebooted ‘Jurassic
World’ franchise, ‘Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom,’ is no exception.
Chris
Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron’s daughter) reprise their roles as Owen
Grady and Claire Dearing in ‘Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom,’ set some six
months after the “What could possibly go wrong???!!!” disaster that befell the recreated
dinosaur theme park in 2015’s ‘Jurassic World.’
Their excuse for returning to the place they left behind? To save the dinosaurs, of course. You see, volcanoes on the island where
Jurassic World is sited are about to erupt and render the surviving dinosaurs
extinct for a second time. Just as the
world turned its collective back on the dinosaurs’ grim fate, Claire and Owen
are recruited by the charitable billionaire Benjamin Lockwood and his unscrupulous
aide Eli Mills to rescue as many of them as they can. Or so they thought.
The
five movies in the JP/JW franchise ranged from decent (JP, JW) to pretty bad (JP2:TLW,
JP3), and this latest installment carried on the tradition. JW2:FK is fun but flawed, an imperfect
vehicle that made the most out of its limited material and ambitions. But that’s okay, because the only thing
audiences love even more than sharks are dinosaurs (especially genetically
enhanced super T-Rexes and Raptors with the prefix “Indo”) running amok and
wreaking havoc, and we get that in spades in JW2:FK. You might even say that in JW2:FK, the
stereotypical bad guys are truly FK’ed.
Grade: B
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