Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic Park was a master class in creating tension. The way it built up the danger of the t-Rex, the slow burn of the kitchen chase, the climbing of the electric fence, all of these scenes made sure you understood the stakes and you felt the danger if the gamble didn’t pay off. But is also knew that tension requires the viewer to give a damn about the characters. It defined them and it built them up so that when they were in danger, you wanted to see them come out of it. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom doesn’t try any of that. It just dumps action spectacle upon action spectacle on you, and never gives you any reason to think anything bad will happen. These spectacles are well staged, sure, but they’re still emotionally empty, and the characters exist just so the action has a reason to happen. There isn’t a plot to speak of, just a series of scenes that require moronic contrivances by the stupid characters (or dumb chance) to happen. It’s the kind of movie that absolutely requires you to check your brain at the opening credits. And it wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for Jurassic Park. That movie’s shadow is long and heavy. This movie not only can’t escape it on its merits, it can’t even get by on good will. It feels willfully ignorant — even defiant — to embrace what makes the original work. What that leaves you with is something noisy and explosive. This isn’t a Jurassic Park movie. This is a first grader explaining Jurassic Park.