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.
That’s not the only nefarious nonsense that Biosyn, led by Campbell Scott‘s Tim Cook look-alike Dr. Lewis Dodsgon, is up to — and if that character’s name sounds familiar, yes, recasting aside, this is the same guy that gave Dennis Nedry the Barbasol can to help steal dinosaur embryos back in 1993. Shady asshole then, shady asshole now. Anyway, it appears that after the events of the last JURASSIC WORLD movie, ex-Velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and former Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) have fled to an isolated remote mountain cabin where they’re looking after and keeping an eye on Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), whose whole deal was apparently a major plot point in the last film — she’s a clone of the daughter of John Hammond’s former business partner, and the whole “actual cloned human being” thing has her on Biosyn’s radar. Likewise, Blue, the lead Velociraptor that Owen trained back in the day, is living free in the woods out by the cabin and has her own genetically-identical offspring that Biosyn would like to get their hands on — and when skeevy folks in Biosyn’s employ succeed in capturing the pair, Owen and Claire jump into ill-advised action to get the girl and the baby dinosaur back.
And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that this trilogy’s main title has truly come to pass — they are, indeed, living in a Jurassic World now, with dinosaurs all over the darned place. And yet, I do have to echo folks who were a little disappointed that it doesn’t feel like it’s REALLY about the dinosaurs — for Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm’s plot, the dinos are just obstacles littering the area around the Biosyn compound, cutting off their escape. The dinosaur-saturated world is mere window dressing to the personal story for the protagonists of the previous JURASSIC WORLD films and the barely-related doomsday plot the OG JURASSIC PARK trio is investigating. The dinosaur set pieces are certainly great entertainment, don’t get me wrong — there are some terrific close calls where I was almost convinced they were about maim a main character, and one villain gets an AMAZING death at the hands of, like, three separate dinosaurs — but boy, the whole set piece in Malta where Owen and Claire wind up in the middle of the black market dinosaur trade hints at things that would have been nice to spend more time exploring in what is advertised as a dinosaur movie.
Despite what feels like a bait-and-switch, I think Colin Trevorrow’s second JURASSIC flick just barely hangs together on the strength of the action & thrills and the charm of the trio his fellow two-time JURASSIC director brought together ’round thirty years ago. On top of that, Scott has some fun doing cheesy affable CEO schtick when he’s not being nervy and ruthless, and DeWanda Wise puts some good adventure hero energy into the mix as cargo pilot Kayla Watts — its her plane you’ve seen a pterosaur tearing apart in the trailers. But god, Owen & Claire are such a pair of sad, earnest drips that it’s a mercy that so much of what they’re doing in this movie IS just running the dinosaur gauntlet; I kind of feel bad for this trilogy’s ostensible stars being given what feels like the short shrift, but also I found them really annoying, so … ehh? And, I admit that I’ve only confirmed this through skimming a synopsis of the previous movie, but even in the theater I was watching B.D. Wong as sad “I’m on my redemption arc” Dr. Wu explaining backstory stuff to Maisie, and thinking, “oh boy, we’re bringing the movie to a screeching halt for a massive retcon” — and I guess none of it actually makes any sense if you’ve seen the other movie, which is always fun. That said, those I think are the biggest sore points, and in the moment a lot of that gets forgotten as the film rolls through its final act, which features some fun moments of long-term payoff, smart callbacks to the very first film, exceptional dinosaur violence, and well-timed quips from Goldblum. All in all, an OK dinosaur action delivery vehicle that would be so much better with less plot and probably more dinosaurs; I’d say its strengths make it worth a trip to the theater, but I’m probably not rushing back to give it a second go.