Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom

I had already done a review on the first Jurassic World movie, which you can read HERE, and now here's my review on the second installment of this new trilogy centered on the characters of Claire Dearing and Owen Grady

Claire now works for the preservation of dinosaurs, which might seem surprising given her attitude at the beginning of the previous film—but not if you remember how moved she was by the dying long-necked dinosaur left mortally wounded by the Indominus, which she and Owen found. It's also likely influenced by Owen’s demonstration that even the fearsome raptors were capable of empathy and relative peacefulness, especially since raptor Blue ended up saving their lives.

The plot kicks off because Isla Nublar’s volcano is about to erupt and vanquish the dinosaurs there, and the government decides it has no obligation to save the products of a private company. However, an old friend of Jurassic Park's founder John Hammond, Mr. Lockwood, calls Claire to his mansion, asking for her help in creating a sanctuary where the dinosaurs can live in peace. (Why not Isla Sorna, where the dinosaurs were originally created and even thrived when they were recaptured for the new park on Isla Nublar?) Lockwood’s assistant, Mills, tells Claire that they specifically need her to reactivate the park’s tracking system and to convince Owen to help them capture Blue.

Claire and Owen are no longer together, and when they talk, it seems their relationship faced issues realted to Owen’s preference for a peaceful, solitary life in a mobile home as well as, possibly, not compatibilizing each of their own strong and quite controlling personalities. Though, interestingly, when Claire visits him, he’s building a house. Still, Owen agrees to go, motivated by the chance to save Blue. They head out with two of Claire’s colleagues, Zia and Franklin.

At first, things go smoothly with the soldiers or mercenaries waiting on the island. But things quickly turn sour when they deliberately leave Claire and Owen behind to be eaten by dinos or incinerated by the volcano, which had erupted right after capturing Blue.

What follows is a mix of dino terror and volcanic chaos, with powerful scenes of dinosaurs fleeing in panic, helpless against the natural disaster, while Claire, Owen, and Franklin struggle to survive.

They manage to board the ship just in time and end up at Lockwood’s mansion along with all the captured dinosaurs. It’s revealed that the elderly Lockwood has been deceived by Mills, who takes on the role of the greedy, villainous capitalist in this film—similar to Hammond’s nephew in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Mills plans to auction off the dinosaurs and successfully sells a few (surprisingly cheap, if you ask me) before Owen and Claire unleash a medium-sized herbivore to disrupt the auction. (Funny how the supposedly reinforced walls crumble so easily when they were meant to withstand impacts from even larger dinos.)

In the chaos, the villainous soldier that had abandoned them in the island releases the new hybrid dinosaur created by Dr. Henry Wu—the Indoraptor—believing it to be sedated, though it’s only pretending. The name Indoraptor comes from its genetic base, the Indominus Rex, but with an enhanced velociraptor component. This makes it smaller and more agile than the Indominus, yet larger and more muscular than Blue. The Indoraptor becomes the primary threat, hunting Owen, Claire, and Maisie—Lockwood’s granddaughter—throughout the mansion. Luckily, they have Blue’s help to survive.

The best parts of the film are the characters of Claire and Owen, both solid leads, alongside strong supporting roles from Zia, Franklin, and Maisie. As with the first film, everything related to the dinosaurs is quite well executed, although we don't have as much of a final showdown between dinos like at the end of Jurassic World 1, still, whether it’s the chaotic scenes on the erupting island or the suspenseful sequences inside Lockwood’s mansion, the movie delivers good dino action. The Indoraptor, with its high intelligence and smaller size—allowing it to hunt indoors—is a great final dinosaur antagonist.

On the downside, the issues from the previous movie—awkward humor and forced romance—are toned down here because the film attempts them far less often. As a result, the few comedic moments work well, offering relief without breaking the tension. There’s also virtually no romance this time, with Owen and Claire seemingly reconciling simply by working together again in life-or-death situations.

In all, I liked more the first Jurassic World movie, but this one is very enjoyable too.

Dr. Ian Malcolm also returns, the chaos theory expert from the first two Jurassic Park films. He appears at both the beginning and end of the movie, testifying before a U.S. government committee. At the start, in line with his original trilogy views, he argues in favor of letting the volcano naturally wipe out the dinosaurs. However, by the end—after many dinosaurs have been scattered across the world due to Mills’ auction and the breakout from Lockwood’s mansion—Malcolm warns of the dangers humanity faces when wielding technology it can’t control, specifically genetic engineering. He ends with the ominous message that we now live in a Jurassic world, and humans will have to coexist with dinosaurs.

However, while this final scene is dramatic and works well cinematically, it felt a bit exaggerated. There weren’t that many dinosaurs released to pose a global threat. Sure, their sheer size makes them highly visible and attention-grabbing, but many wouldn’t even be able to reproduce due to the frog DNA gender-switching mechanism. So, the real risk lies with the current generation, and once they die of old age, most would naturally go extinct again. The real danger would come from creating more, especially genetically engineered ones designed as bioweapons—like the Indoraptor.

And this, of course, sets up the plot for the third movie.