Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Here's the thing: "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," the fifth entry in Universal Pictures' lucrative franchise, is bursting with special effects - the majority of them impressive - and acts as a nearly nonstop thrill ride - and it's occasionally thrilling. The thing is, you've seen this all before - say, four times.

Once again, the question of whether man should interfere in nature is posed - as usual by Jeff Goldblum, whose character is only briefly seen, much to the movie's detriment - and a group of baddies posing a good guys attempt to use the dinosaurs for their own nefarious purposes. As always, there are chase scenes involving children fleeing from monstrous creatures. There is, as expected, a new breed of dinosaur that is even more deadly than all the others. And so on and so on. The details may vary, but only to a minor degree.

As the film opens, Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing is placing calls to senators to plead with them to save the dinosaurs as Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm testifies something to the opposite effect before congress. Claire woos back Chris Pratt's Owen Grady, who is of Malcolm's mindset at first, for a mission to travel to the dinosaurs' island to remove them and transfer them to a sanctuary.

This is all done in the name of Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), one of Jurassic Park's original founders, but what Claire and Owen don't know is that a man named Mills (Rafe Spall), who has been tasked with taking over Lockwood's work, has made plans to sell the dinosaurs to the highest bidders, rather than continue any type of scientific work. This leads to the introduction of a whole bevy of bad guys - most of whom we know will all be eaten at some point - played by Ted Levine, B.D. Wong and a phalanx of disposable soldiers under Levine's character's command.

There's a particularly impressive sequence involving lots of special effects near the film's beginning as a volcano conveniently erupts, sending Claire, Malcolm and scientist pals played by Justice Smith and Daniella Pineda - along with a bunch of dinosaurs, large and small - running for the cliffs and then plunging into the ocean. There's also a pretty scary and very large underwater dinosaur that pops up a few times.

In terms of the script, "Fallen Kingdom" not only doesn't reinvent the wheel, it follows the playbook to the letter. Characters who were once bickering will make amends. All of the characters who you think are bad will end up being so. I had a pretty good hint at how the scary new dinosaur - which is unleashed in Lockwood's private estate near the film's end - would die and, wouldn't you know, I was correct. So, while "Fallen Kingdom" has some impressive moments due to millions of dollars being spent on special effects, it doesn't show us anything new - which, for the summer movie season, isn't surprising at all.