Fallen. For You?

This weekend, I took in the newest Jurassic Park film, Fallen Kingdom. It was something of a mixed bag -- better by a touch than the franchise's previous installment, but not without its flaws.

The smartest move of the movie was to set the bulk of it off of the island. After a first act that sees our heroes returning to Isla Nublar to rescue dinosaurs from an impending volcanic eruption, the rest of the movie turns to a billionaire's mansion on the mainland. It's a Victorian environment perfect for old-fashioned horror thrills, a dank fun house perfect for interesting set pieces.

On the flip side of things, though, the film doesn't really use the new setting to do much that's new. The vast mansion becomes the setting for the same schtick -- running from stampeding dinos, watching mustache-twirling villains get their come-uppances via snapping jaws, and so forth. And these films literally keep trying to one-up themselves by always introducing a new "baddest dinosaur you've ever seen."

Not that the movie doesn't have a bit of novel and different in it -- it's just that most of that comes before the change in setting. There's a sequence of underwater peril that's new for a Jurassic film. There's also a fun "Don't Wake the Dragon" style scene that's a welcome change of gears. Still, they do miss an opportunity to really exploit a "The Floor Is Lava" scene for the most blockbuster-like spectacle possible.

The character work is perhaps a notch above standard for these movies, and certainly better than in the last film. Claire, Bryce Dallas Howard's character, is the main protagonist of this story, with Chris Pratt's Owen being the sidekick. She's the one with more screen time, and the one with a personal journey that affects her more by the end. It's more subtle than, say, movies like The Last Jedi, that are unafraid to put female characters unabashedly front and center, but it's still a nice pivot for the series.

The film also does something interesting with its obligatory child in peril. The Jurassic movies always have to have one, it seems. This one does too, and she starts out with the same justification as all the others we've seen -- this is a relative of one of the characters. But as the plot unfolds, there's a bit of a surprise in this child's role in the overall plot.

I'd say Jurassic Park: Fallen World rates a B- overall.... though close to being a B, where the previous installment was closer to dropping to a C+. As these dinosaur-sized action movies play better on the big screen, you should probably go out to see it now if you plan to see it at all. If you'd been thinking you'd skip it though, well, I can't really say it's "must see" fare.