There are few things as universally enduring as the mystique of dinosaurs; much more enduring than the animals themselves ironically, who had millions of years to make a proper go of things but promptly jacked it in at the first site of a potentially world-ending asteroid. Quitters. They're still digging bits of them up and using science to make a slew of variously plausible and not so plausible theories about a bunch of bus-sized lizards; I think the voracity of the claims depends mainly on whether you have an array of degrees from prestigious Universities or a crib sheet from the internet which is why Walking with Dinosaurs can make wild assumptions about an animal's mating behaviour based on a two inch segment of its thigh bone and a few half-formed footprints. Admittedly I am a bit old fashioned, in terms of I think dinosaurs would look stupid with feathers so I choose to ignore that particularly discovery.
Jurassic Park is two and a half decades old. Just let that sink in for a second and when you've come to terms with the terrifying existential dread brought on by the knowledge of how old you are (I may be projecting a touch here) we can get on with things. It was a wonder to behold, a true Spielberg classic and is proving to be timeless. I'm willing to stick my neck out for at least the first of the sequels but probably not Jurassic Park 3 which was stretching it a bit. It was the right decision to go into hibernation at that point, just as I don't think it was a terrible decision to come out of hiding for Jurassic World. It was decent fun, nice to see dinosaurs back on the screen after a bit of a lie-in and all was well with the world. We all know how it ends though, as all franchises eventually do; one step too far. Fallen Kingdom then, is exactly that step.
There is a definite trend in movies nowadays to have some sort of moral context beneath the special effects and plucky heroes and this is no exception. The whole premise of the movie is that they're trying to save the man-made dinosaurs from re-extinction at the hands of a conveniently reactivated volcano; at least that's the set-up for the following Dino-shenanigans. Of course, saving endangered species is a very serious and noble cause and the world would undoubtedly be a better place with a few more species other than humans on it. The problem that everyone seems to be forgetting is that these aren't endangered species at all; you could very easily replace them all almost at will using the exact same scientifically ropey genetic engineering that put them there in the first place. They did exactly that to fill Jurassic World if you recall, so just let them die out and replace them with brand new ones; you already did it once in very recent memory, it's not really a biggie. It's only then that you start to realise that actually, none of that is important other than to get our heroes on the island and that yields yet further epiphanies that actually that's all any of the sequels have done; think of relatively reasonable sounding ways to get people into contact with carnivorous dinosaurs and let genetically modified nature take its course. It's not the cleverest or most inventive of storytelling if I'm honest, but at this point what else are you going to do?
The first act gives way to an inevitable double cross and we discover that this is much closer than we imagined to the plot of The Lost World; conservationalists at odds with a company trying to use the Dino assets for its own ends, only this time it's as bio-weapons not theme park exhibits. Of course, all havoc breaks loose and... well things happen, but none of it is terribly exciting. There's literally no suspense here at all. They've created yet another uber-dangerous big bad dinosaur who is the Superman of the genetically ressurected carnivore world, cunning, intelligent, relentless etc. It can open doors, set traps, respond to certain commands, the whole nine yards but it's still too stupid survive three grown adults and a small child. Not afraid of retconning, we get a hitherto unheard of former partner of John Hammond who is effective just a John Hammond stand-in, the prerequisite greasy lawyer-type, interchangeable mercenaries and swarthy arms dealers. Everyone is paper thin as a character and most are either pointless or stupid enough that nobody cares when they become squealing fodder. There are a bunch of fanboy nods; Claire's very sensible footwear gets its own establishing shot, a goat reprises its cameo from the original and the T-Rex is almost falling over itself to accidentally save our hapless heroes on a at least a couple of occasions.
There are some really big miss-fires for me though. Blue for one; our hero raptor from Jurassic World gets more character development than some of the humans but its really forced. Are we genuinely meant to believe that of all the raptors, Blue is capable of empathy and emotion toward what is ostensibly lunch? Surely it was better to believe she (the script goes to great pains to affirm the dinosaurs gender as if it actually mattered) had an animalistic respect for the Alpha of the group rather give her a conscience? Some thing doesn't sit right. She was happy to turn on the humans when the Indominus Rex became él Jefe, but now when faced with something potentially that outstrips even that, Blue suddenly decides to defend the humans? I'm not buying it. Oddly, they actually miss a massive trick with one of their own plot twists; (incoming spoilers, be ye warned) when you find out there's been a Sixth Day Violation and a touch of the old human cloning... they literally do nothing with it. It's a clumsy reason behind some pointless retconning and a weird set up for a tiny part of the finale and the probable sequel but ultimately everyone just sort of takes it in their stride and carries on like they have a couple of human clones knocking around at home they crack out if they fancy a day off work. I know they're clearly saving the 'dinosaurs randomly roaming the Earth' thing for the next movie, but they probably should have done that this time round and saved us the prolonged set up.
Ultimately Fallen Kingdom is a really empty experience. The dinosaurs are faultlessly executed, as you'd come to expect but there's just no drama. Partially this is a casualty of one of the worst trends in modern cinema; the overly descriptive trailer/marketing campaign. You know exactly what's going to happen before the opening titles and you just sit there waiting for the set pieces to string it all together. Hopefully they'll learn from history rather than being doomed to repeat it and not deliver another Jurassic Park 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment