Okay, so second sequel in a row where I didn’t see the previous movies — and unlike TOP GUN, this one felt like it did leave me at a disadvantage. The reason I was in the theater, however, was because this of course is the JURASSIC WORLD movie where they bring back the original cast of JURASSIC PARK — and it’s funny for me to be interested for that reason, because when I was twelve years old I didn’t particularly like JURASSIC PARK; surly tween Captain JLS wasn’t buying the awe and wonder Spielberg was selling and mostly just wanted to see dinosaurs rend and eat people — which happened, but not enough for my middle school bloodlust. I vibed more with with the grisly sequel a few years later that centered Jeff Goldblum‘s sardonic mathematician Ian Malcolm and featured, among other sights, a T-rex stomping through a backyard and chomping down on a family dog. (Clearly I just have a thing for grim Spielberg sequels; TEMPLE OF DOOM remains my favorite Indiana Jones film.)
The plot that Michael Crichton’s original characters as reinterpreted by Spielberg find themselves embroiled in feels like something that could have been an unrelated Crichton novel; giant prehistoric locusts are wiping out fields across the midwest, but not touching anything grown from seeds sold by the biotech firm Biosyn. Laura Dern‘s Ellie Sattler suspects that they’re Biosyn’s locusts, and recruits her old friend Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to join her at Biosyn’s compound, where she’s been invited by the aforementioned Ian Malcolm, who is now working as some kind of in-house lecturer — and who has a plan to get them all the evidence they need.
