Silver Arts Award
Art Review 1 Jurassic World: Fallen
Kingdom
By Owen Bedford
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the second
movie in the reboot of the CGI dinosaur franchise. The film follows Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and
Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) who both featured as the main protagonists
in the previous movie, Jurassic World (2015), as they try to rescue the
artificially created dinosaurs from the island Isla Nubar which is being
engulfed by an active and deadly volcano.
The film
begins with news broadcasts and clips from a court case that discuss the
morality over whether artificially created dinosaurs should be saved from
extinction or not, which is quite an interesting ethical question which I think
is a theme that doesn’t get explored enough throughout the whole film.
It is a film
of two halves. The first act of the film takes place on the island that
audiences will be familiar with. The CGI dinosaurs roam, roar and rampage as we
would expect and are shot from low angles to show their intimidating presence.
There are plenty of great quality sound effects and an epic soundtrack which
all create the right atmosphere.
However, the story is a bit flat and the characters are not very well
developed. The rescue mission is led by stereotypical mercenaries who I thought
were very two dimensional. Grady and Dearing team up with two other dinosaur
conservationists but they are also weak characters. There are some technically good sequences
such as where the conservationists are trying to escape dinosaurs and lava in a
pod and end up trapped under water. The editing is effective but I didn’t feel
it was as exciting as it should have been.
Although
this part of the film lacks suspense there is quite an emotional part where the
rescuers’ boat, which is like a Noah’s ark of dinosaurs, leaves the island as
it is being engulfed by the volcano. The sound comes down and the apocalyptic
scene of brontosaurus dinosaurs disappearing in the ashen smoke is quite moving
and upsetting.
After this
the film slows down. The dinosaurs are all caged and sedated so they can be
auctioned to the highest bidder. Unlike the first half of the film all the scenes
in the second part are in dark interiors. The film seems to drag on for a long
time without much really happening. Even when the dinosaurs break free I didn’t
think there was enough excitement. I thought the rooftop fight was a bit
lacklustre.
I think the
film would have been better if more had been set on the island and the moral issues
that were introduced at the beginning were developed more. Overall I wouldn’t
recommend this film. The plot and characters don’t have a lot of substance and
the second half lacks the spectacular CGI action of the first half (and the
earlier films).
I enjoyed this review it gave an overall sense of the film using specific scenes as examples. I particularly liked the way in which the review analyses all aspects of the film- the characterisation,the narrative, the plot and the technical aspects - even thinking about the ethical implications of the main plot device. Its well written and detailed giving the reader a real sense of the film and providing enough information for them to decide if they would like to see it. Precisely what a film review should do . have seen this film and concur with everything in this review .
ReplyDeleteExcellent review, well written and giving a clear outline of the film. I liked the reviewer's use of specific scenes and their thoughts on the ethical considerations raised during he film, I agreed with the film review written and thought that it was a very predictable movie, which was dissapointingly boring compared to the first two Jurassic park installments.
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