Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Screenplay by Emily Carmichael and Colin Trevorrow
Story by Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow
Based on characters created by Michael Crichton
Music by Michael Giacchino
2022
CAST
Chris Pratt- Owen Grady
Bryce Dallas Howard – Claire Dearing
Laura Dern – Ellie Sattler
Sam Neil- Alan Grant
Jeff Goldblum – Ian Malcolm
DeWanda Wise – Kayla Watts
Mamoudou Athie – Ramsay Cole
Isabella Sermon – Maisie Lockwood / Young Charlotte Lockwood
Elva Trill- adult Charlotte Lockwood
Campbell Scott- Lewis Dodgson
BD Wong – Dr Henry Wu
1993? Thirty years ago virtually. That’s when I took my kids to see the original Jurassic Park. In those days you would buy a plastic dinosaur or two in the gift shop, along with a pencil with NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM on the side. A year later we drove out from Calgary to the dinosaur museum in Alberta. We got stuck in the mud looking at the hoodoos. My son did an art project and thesis on the animation in Jurassic Park. A dinosaur museum opened in Dorchester and another in Lyme Regis.
Now there are at least three kids comics on sale in your local supermarket with a dinosaur theme. Lego and Playmobile do dinosaurs. We have a two and a half year grandson who knows what’s a T. Rex and what’s a stegosaurus or a pterodactyl. Our five year old can name around thirty different ones. He’s no longer scared when we say ‘There’s a T.Rex in those bushes,’ but it still works with the little one.
So here we are, thirty years of animati… sorry CGI later. The original trilogy was Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997) and Jurassic Park III (2001). They were followed by Jurassic World in 2015, then Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018. Also there are thirty years of new knowledge, like feathers on dinosaurs. We’re back to watching it on an iSense screen too- the first time we saw iSense was with Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018. It’s #6 in the series. Our general attitude? We had the first two on VHS, then we had them on Laser Disc. Laser disc? I hear you say. It was an ancient format that was still alive when the first two films came out. Thats how long ago it was. We have two boxes of them, because the word is that they’re steadily increasing in value. They’re 12″ square, just like an LP,so easy to frame in LP frames. The films look awful on a modern flat screen TV (if the player still works) but apparently look great on older projection systems.
We never bought the DVDs or blu-rays.We do have the John Williams soundtracks of the first two on CD.
So only the first two were bought to keep. Is that a comment on the series? Yes.
The trailers were worryingly awful, and we thought too young for a 12A film … a new Minions, Superpets, another Thor. Unremitting trash. The final trailer was Baz Lurhman’s Elvis, clearly an absolute must-see film.
The new Jurassic Whatever reunites Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum for the first time since the original 1993 film. Effectively we have two goodie teams, the film switching between them very frequently, with what I thought was jumpy and clumsy editing. There’s the original “Jurassic Park Team” (Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum) and the Jurassic World Team (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.) BD Wong is still there after thirty years as Dr Wu. The best joke in the film is when the teams are introduced to each other (finally). Owen says he worked at Jurassic World and Dr Malcolm (Goldblum) says, ‘Jurassic World? Not a fan.’ I took the point.
No plot spoilers … there IS a plot in this one. Or even three or four plots. I’m sparing with photos because IMDB mainly have numerous shots of everyone staring at camera, and responding to ‘Look scared! Mouths open wider. More scared! And more!’ from the director. They’re not giving away the spectacle.
Basic background.
It’s in a new era, where humanity has had to get used to dinosaurs on the mainland.They have managed to cover the world in four or five years. Breeding like rabbits dinosaurs. Plausability can’t really be discussed in the context, but the world has decided that 57 (?) deaths a year from dinosaurs is acceptable and that the savage beasts should be protected and nurtured.
We have pictures of cute and lovable dinosaurs like baby hippos. (This is anthropomorphism gone berserk). OK, a mock news report announces there are those 57 dino deaths a year, which is such a tiny fraction of US gun deaths (45,000 in 2020) that you can see the statistics making sense, but only in America. Bears kill eleven people in the USA a year on average.
Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) have hidden themselves away up in Alaska with the 14 year old Maisie. They need to protect Maisie from kidnap and exploitation, because she is Dr Hammond’s granddaughter, and genetically identical to her mother, Charlotte Lockwood. They also have a raptor living in the woods that has a baby. Really? Dinosaurs laid eggs. It’s a bit frightening, but, hey, Owen still has the dino-trainer stare from working at Jurassic World, and an upraised palm works too in calming the beast. The baddies, employed by Biosyn, are after Maisie and the baby raptor. They get both. Owen and Claire have to pursue the baddies via Malta to the Dolomites. Malta is a lawless place with a criminal wild dinosaur market. (Highly reminiscent of scenes in Star Wars I might add). After truly spectacular dinosaur chases through the extremely narrow ancient streets of Valetta, they go off by plane to Biosyn’s lair, and the elderly Flying Boxcar C119 plane is piloted by the laconic Kayla (DeWanda Wise )who rescues them both and then becomes part of their team.
A sheath knife is always useful against a house high dinosaur
Down in Texas there is a Biblical plague of giant locusts. Really giant. Ellie (Laura Dern) investigates. The locusts only eat non-GM crops but don’t touch the GM crops of Monsanto Biosyn. So Ellie goes to consult Alan Grant (Sam Neill) who is digging up original dinosaur bones in Utah. Biosyn claim they are using the biotech that re-created dinosaurs to solve all human disease. They need to infiltrate Biosyn and find out what’s really happening. After all, these guys could be lying! Biosyn have set up a dinosaur sanctuary in the snowy Italian Dolomites where they suspect they are breeding these GM giant locusts. Biosyn (BIO + SIN, geddit?) is run by Dr Lewis Hodgson, who may just resemble an eccentric and autistic Apple / Microsoft / Tesla / Facebook boss. The company is mentioned in Michael Crichton’s original Jurassic Park novel as a company trying to buy stolen dinosaur DNA. Apologies, I do wish I didn’t know that.
They find Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) lecturing at Biosyn, and Ramsay (Mamoudou Athie ) Dr Hodgon’s chief assistant. Dr Wu is there and wrestling with his conscience over the locusts destroying the entire planet’s food supply so as to sell Biosyn’s cereal crops. He also reveals her origins to Maisie, now a prisoner.
All the goodies. Dr Malcolm, Grant, Ellie, Claire, Owen, Maisie, Kayla
That’ll do you for plot. We do get to see feathered dinosaurs, which look superb. I suspect the paucity of images is that they only look real when they’re moving. Stills don’t make it.
The chases are all good. The plane crash is terrific as is the scene on the frozen lake. You do get fed up of T-Rex heads looming in and filling the screen at opportune moments too often. The thud of feet and the general noise is overwhelming in iSense. Our seats shook.
The ending is beyond awful. Dinosaurs are living creatures and worthy of respect. Respect! No, they’re not in the story. They’re artificially bred, have spread like wildfire and are mainly vicious. Sanctimonious twaddle about all living creatures being worthy, and films of dinosaurs and horses and dinosaurs and elephants trekking calmly towards the Tree of Life while undersea dinosaurs cavort. A small kid plays with a pet dinosaur. If you had a T Rex in your local park, you’d call in the air force and blast the teeth out of its gaping blood-dripping jaws. Put with the GM crops and the evil manipulators, we are getting hit over the head with a large shovel on ecology. Fair enough, it might be necessary for those just moving on from Minions and Superpets, but SOME degree of subtlety would be welcome.
It’s long. Too long, in the end. Cutting the last 5 minutes altogether would help. Characters being chased by a slavering dinosaur in confined spaces is repetitious. So is dinosaurs smashing through apparently protective bits of metal. There’s far less blood and gore than you might expect, but small children would find the sheer level of noise scary, let alone the growling dinosaurs. The death count is lower than in the previous episodes, I think. Telling you how low might remove too much tension.
In the end, you won’t be bored. This is what it’s really about. That’s Kayla’s plane being attacked by a Quetzalcoatlus. Then there’s Owen and the baby raptor and its doting mother. That might be Maisie too,
I remember why we don’t own the earlier ones on DVD. The natural place to see these is in a cinema with a huge screen and massive sound system. On effects and chases and some humour, it gets four stars: ****.
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