The driving question at the heart of Fallen Kingdom is an existential one: Should we save the dinosaurs or let them go extinct? After five movies over multiple decades, it's an apt question for the entire movie series that has become increasingly impotent and predictable.
Picking up a few years after the catastrophic events of Jurassic World, a long dormant volcano on the dinosaur island has conveniently reawakened. Hired by an elusive millionaire to rescue as many of the remaining dinosaurs as possible, human caricatures Owen and Claire quickly discover more nefarious purposes behind saving these creatures than originally expected.
Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park was a horror movie masquerading as a heady cautionary tale against human greed and hubris. At its core, the story was quite simple: Don't get eaten by the giant monsters. But it was Spielberg's many deft touches (as I've previously already called out) that elevated Jurassic Park from popcorn fluff to iconic art. It would take an extraordinary movie to match Spielberg's heights. Fallen Kingdom is not that movie.
To its credit, Fallen Kingdom does introduce new textures to the series. After the first act, the usual lush jungle backdrop is replaced by an industrial, mysterious, gothic manor. This setting offers fleeting moments of unexpected artistry - the silhouette of a dinosaur against the wallpaper of a child's room; the cavalcade of tuxedos and gowns gawking at caged monsters. Unfortunately, the movie squanders this imagery in service of an eye-rollingly bland story. Humans are greedy. Don't mess with nature. We get it.
It's an even bigger shame because the movie flirts so closely with genuinely interesting questions, the biggest of which comes near the end of the movie. Among the chaos of rampaging dinosaurs eating people, we learn of an infinitely more ethically complex application of the DNA cloning technology used on the dinosaurs. It's a wholly unique and unprecedented example of this powerful technology. It should land with immense emotional weight; it should challenge our perception of the villains. Instead, it's flatly stated as a line of exposition, then promptly interrupted by another set of dinosaur teeth chomping at the humans.
It's difficult to see this movie as anything but a holding pattern, another carefully curated exercise in brand management. It's a pity because I couldn't help but compare this movie to the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy. Thematically, they examine similar ideas - man's cruelty towards other species; the cost of tinkering with nature; the pitfalls of corporate greed; the nefarious echoes of slavery.
But there is a key difference between the two film series: perspective. The Apes trilogy was so refreshing because it allowed us to empathize with the apes, redefining what it meant to be human. I'm afraid the Jurassic movies aren't afforded this luxury. For five movies now, the dinosaurs, albeit hardly devoid of intelligence, have still been largely limited to one role: predator. They claw and bite and chase. They terrorize. It's an analogy so obvious it's hardly worth mentioning: These movies can't seem to evolve with the times. Perhaps it's time to let them end.
