Three years ago the Jurassic Park franchise made it’s mark on the box office once again as it surprised everyone by becoming one of the top grossing films of all time. The series is back, under the direction of J. A. Bayona and looks to pick up where the last one left off, collecting a massive sum of over $450 million worldwide, even before opening in the USA. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are back, reprising their roles of Owen and Claire as they try to keep the rest of the world safe from threat of weaponized dinosaurs.
Responsibility
In many ways, all of the Jurassic films have been about responsibility, but the theme is particularly strong in Fallen Kingdom. It’s three years since the events of Jurassic World and the park has since been abandoned. Isla Nublar’s once dormant volcano is now active, threatening the dinosaurs with another extinction level event. The world must decide what responsibility it has towards these creatures it’s created. Do previously extinct animals, brought back through science have the same rights as other species? Is this volcano an act of God, meant to correct our mistake in bringing them back? As the world wrestles with these question, time is running out for the dinosaurs.
The film brings the question of responsibility a little closer to home through the characters of Claire and Owen. As the plan to weaponize these animals is unfurled, Claire is reminded that she also once exploited these animals for profit. She was instrumental in creating the Indominous Rex, keeping it in a cage, keeping all of the animals in cages for the benefit of the bottom line.
Owen is reminded that it was he who helped prove that a creature like a raptor could be trained, yet had failed to see the applications his research could be used for. What’s fascinating is that Owen, as he’s training these raptors, especially Blue, there’s almost a Garden of Eden feel to it. He’s connecting with one of the most dangerous predators to have ever roamed the earth and him doing so is innocent. In fact, he’s really living out the first great commission from Scripture, to have dominion over all the animals. Owen’s dominion here is the relationship God had in mind pre fall, a care and stewardship of these creatures for mutual benefit. Owen is the antithesis to who Claire use to be and the villain of this movie, Eli Mills.
Accountability key here. What is our responsibility with the things we create as humans? How should we use the technology we create? What about the cities, political structures or even our own children? The movie shows two ways of doing things. We can treat everything as if we’re nothing but consumers, seeing everything through the lens of what we can get out of something monetarily or how it can benefit us. Or, we can be stewards, people that think through the implications of our actions of creation and how we accountable for those creations. Isn’t that what Malcolm was trying to get at in Jurassic Park?
Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun…
If I may… Um, I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here, it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it…
Yeah, yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.
And Malcolm is right. Too many times our responsibility in creation is neglected because the creation of something is driven by something much more temporal and mundane, money, and the carnage in it’s wake is what happens while we’re busy scheming for something more. Honestly, the message that resonates through each Jurassic movie the most is, humans make crummy gods.
The Movie
In some ways this movie is a spiritual successor to The Lost World, yet it works better. The reason for taking the dinosaurs off the island makes a lot more sense, especially in light of Jurassic World. They’re not being saved, they’re being exploited, once again. Sadly this time, the entire world is being put at risk just to line the pockets of a few.
Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard have real star power. Rafe Spall as Eli Mills is sufficiently skeevy as the villain. James Cromwell as Sir Benjamin Lockwood adds a whole new wrinkle into the story and to what is possible with genetic power and his granddaughter played by Isabella Sermon is a wonderful addition to the cast.
The effects are fantastic, even better than Jurassic World. The times when someone touches one of the dinosaurs, it looks so real. Giacchino’s music is on cue, using themes from the Williams’ scores and his work on Jurassic World perfectly. The movie does have it’s flaws, it’s a little too derivative, but honestly, it’s better that Jurassic Park III and The Lost World (all this particular reviewer needed it to be), a worthy addition to the series. It’s rated 3.75 out of 5 stars.
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