Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Dir J.A. Bayona

Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, James Cromwell, Ted Levine, Toby Jones, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong.

Several years have passed since the devastating events at Jurassic World – and the park is now closed, with Claire now working as a dinosaur activist. When a volcano threatens to kill all the dinosaurs, an old friend of John Hammond quests Claire to go to the island to help rescue them, and take them to a island reserve.

Pretty average ‘fifth’ film in the series – with an almost both forgettable, and laughable premise. It starts off quite strong, but meanders into a fairly disappointing second half. New characters who are introduced offer not much other than more silly plot points.

The primary villain is a little forgettable, yet Ted ‘Buffalo Bill’ Levine seems to be having fun as the secondary villain – but he seems too close to the Vincent D’Onofrio character from JW1.

There are some half decent action sequences – with the volcano eruption in the first half of the film – and some solid direction with a well shot ‘one shot’ with two characters in one of the rovers as it sinks into the ocean.

Some of the minor characters are a little poorly written and just plain unlikeable – and the ‘American’ accents of some of the British cast is a little on the nose.

Original characters Wu (Wong) and Malcolm (Goldblum) return for unnecessary cameos that feel like they are completely different characters.

Only slightly passable.

2.5/5