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penny dreadful — (2014) night work, S01E01 directed by J.A Bayona

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

(Juan Antonio Bayona, 2018)

The most important and immediate thing to say about this movie is that for me, at least after a single viewing, it is a definite improvement on its predecessor. Less of the massively in your face product placement in a blockbuster bemoaning commercialism, less of the bewilderingly stupid directorial choices, and less of the pointless subplots.

Fallen Kingdom is not a movie without problems, it’s certainly not a movie lacking in its own share of stupidity, but for me it seems an all together tackier affair in general, and given the entirety of the movie from the almost B-movie monster movie type opening to the absurdity of its slasher film-like final act seems to embrace that fact and wear it proudly on its sleeve... The whole thing feels more comfortable in its own skin, and goes down far easier on account of it.

Don't get me wrong, Fallen Kingdom still tries to get its deeper, more thoughtful qualities across, but for the most part that stuff remains relatively subtextual, touched on, but never really belaboring the point, for a movie so primarily concerned with being a riotously mad time at the movies I would say that aspect of the writing definitely meshes better with all that’s going on around it.

Another massive key to the movies success is the way in which it takes what was one of the very stupidest things about the previous movie, the let’s call it humanizing of the dinosaurs, and capitalizing on the fact that this concept has now been established sort of runs with it, and completes the evolutionary process that Juliette Binoche saw coming right from the start when she declined to be involved with the original movie a quarter century ago... That the dinosaurs are the most interesting things in these movies, and this particular chapters transformation of them into the most empathetic characters on display works (maybe ridiculously, but) totally in its favour.

Good thing too, because Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are both far less interesting, and seemingly into this than they were the last time around, far too little is made of the great James Cromwell and the greater Geraldine Chaplin. Jeff Goldblum is brought back and put to very effective, but still mightily minor use. BD Wong is another sadly underutilized considering how much emphasis there was on him the last time round, but Rafe Spall seems handily invested on dastardliness duty, and aiding him are a couple of unforgettably vivid character turns from Toby Jones and Ted Levine proving the two human highlights of the film. Some credit must also go to Daniella Pineda, and Justice Smith for bringing a little bit of energy and laughs, and Isabella Sermon for bringing the heart, much needed qualities that Howard and Pratt seem to have left at home this time around for the most part.

Still, as already touched on this is really not the humans movie, from the sauropod left behind in as moving a scene as you’ll ever see featuring a CGI creature, to the trapped masses at the end, to the pachycephalosaurus who steals the movies final act, Blue the raptor who is essentially the hero of the film, and old Rexy of course, this movie is absolutely dominated by its CGI creations, which when it comes down to it really is a pretty smart choice.

Credit for so much of what works here must go to Bayona, a clearly infinitely more skilled hand at this kind of thing than Trevorrow was. He handles big set pieces better, and as he proved in The Orphanage, A Monster Calls and The Impossible he’s so good at blending that big, computer generated spectacle stuff with the intimately human stuff. Truthfully this movie doesn’t have that much use for the latter quality, but the small doses it does inject into the craziness are very effectively handled. Bayona seems far more in control of what he's doing, so even though he’s working with a far sillier movie, a movie that dabbles in a lot of the same conceptual territory as the last one did, he makes it all work because he knows how to bring it all cohesively, fluidly together without calling any attention to itself, without any particular aspect sticking out like a sore thumb to take issue with.

All in all this is still not on the level of that iconic original, but to expect that would be to expect too much, and the biggest issue with it is the exact same issue that there was with the last movie, the idea of fake dinosaur as monster, not a bad idea to make use of in a movie, but given the inevitable toys that will be shipped in their thousands and marketed to little kids... an irritating choice. Should dinosaurs be sold as monsters, and should creatures that never existed be mixed in with ones that did, and exposed to children who given the power of Hollywood may end up thinking the Indominus Rex was an actual thing? Granted, the science in these movies has never been especially on point, and the franchise has already helped spread more than one dino myth, but this seems a step too far in the wrong direction.

I think back to the original film and it’s featuring one of those great, understated movie moments, the panning across all the memorabilia for a theme park that would never open. It’s a shame that people in Hollywood can create moments like that without heeding the wisdom in them. This movie may be part of a franchise primarily concerned with making money through as many avenue streams as possible, but thank the lord for Juan Antonio Bayona, and his getting the art at least a little bit more under control.