Jeff Goldblum and DeWanda Wise absolutely carried this movie. I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I'm glad the cast had a good time (especially the OG 3, it was delightful to see them together again) but this movie was a mess, there were way too many story threads and not enough time to deal with them all. This needed to be two movies, with more dinosaurs involved. I had such high hopes, especially after seeing how cool the Dino Tracker site they put up was (which, as it turns out, was mostly clips from this movie).
Besides the enormous number of plot threads — we saw probably six different locations in the first ten minutes of the movie — there were some serious problems with the dinosaurs themselves, in my opinion. I came to this after recently binging Prehistoric Planet and also the Camp Cretaceous show, and the differences are glaring. In this, the dinosaurs seemed to be either slightly unfinished-looking CGI or practical effects (either puppets or animatronics or some combination of the two) being handled by people who had never done so before. The closeups on the atrociraptors reminded me of the Goombas from the 90s Super Mario Bros. movie; the teeth didn't make sense, they looked like anglerfish teeth. The lystrosaurus (which I had to look up) looked like some type of Star Wars alien, and not in a good way. The dimetrodons were neat, but we barely got to see them. The dilophosauruses were definitely puppets, and looked/moved like it. I think my favorite was probably the therizinosaurus, a species I only know from playing The Isle, and which looked cool, sounded cool, added tension, and was incredibly badass by the end. Quetzalcoatalus was great too, but not around for very long. But the key to good CGI and good practical effects is having them be realistic enough that the viewer doesn't notice that they're not actual living things. Many, MANY of the dinosaurs in this failed that test.
It wasn't a bad movie. But considering its budget and the acting talent involved and the enormous weight of plot resolution it had riding on it, it should have been an amazing movie. The great thing about the Jurassic Park/World movies is that even when they're pretty bad (looking at you, The Lost World), they're still fun to watch because DINOSAURS!!! This one doesn't quite even manage that, there are too many people and too few dinosaurs. If you're a fan of the series, obviously watch this to wrap up all the plot, but I doubt I'll be watching it again.
At least Rexy's still alive and back on top. Also I guess the ending, with the dinosaurs mingling with regular animals, was pretty cool, if a little hamfisted.
Edit: Alright, I watched it again just so I could properly absorb all of the nonsense that happened. Besides the previous issues I had, I was more aware this time of the number of things that seemed to be happening just because they looked cool, and either served no real purpose in the plot, were never explained, or both. Owen riding a horse and splitting one parasaurolophus off from the group had no point and wasn't explained at all. Owen and Claire have been living with Maisie in that tiny cabin for four years? With no mention of school or jobs or anything? The stuff with the locusts was explained but didn't need to be there; they could have found some other reason for our heroes to go to the Biosyn sanctuary, easily, without the complication of prehistoric locusts. Everything in Malta could have been excluded and covered in some other way, and was entirely to look cool and have dinosaurs running around. I don't know. It was trying to be a Jurassic movie AND Indiana Jones or some sort of espionage thriller at the same time. It was too scattered, too many locations and new species that really WERE there just because, not enough of the old favorites, and again, too many story elements being handled at once. And the dinosaurs are still largely sub-par for this franchise that pioneered modern dinosaurs in movies. I would've much preferred a movie that detailed how humans were adapting to living with dinosaurs around the world, because THAT would've been very interesting to watch.
Review by somnomaniaBlockedParent2022-07-16T10:17:31Z— updated 2022-07-19T02:15:02Z
Jeff Goldblum and DeWanda Wise absolutely carried this movie. I appreciate what they were trying to do, and I'm glad the cast had a good time (especially the OG 3, it was delightful to see them together again) but this movie was a mess, there were way too many story threads and not enough time to deal with them all. This needed to be two movies, with more dinosaurs involved. I had such high hopes, especially after seeing how cool the Dino Tracker site they put up was (which, as it turns out, was mostly clips from this movie).
Besides the enormous number of plot threads — we saw probably six different locations in the first ten minutes of the movie — there were some serious problems with the dinosaurs themselves, in my opinion. I came to this after recently binging Prehistoric Planet and also the Camp Cretaceous show, and the differences are glaring. In this, the dinosaurs seemed to be either slightly unfinished-looking CGI or practical effects (either puppets or animatronics or some combination of the two) being handled by people who had never done so before. The closeups on the atrociraptors reminded me of the Goombas from the 90s Super Mario Bros. movie; the teeth didn't make sense, they looked like anglerfish teeth. The lystrosaurus (which I had to look up) looked like some type of Star Wars alien, and not in a good way. The dimetrodons were neat, but we barely got to see them. The dilophosauruses were definitely puppets, and looked/moved like it. I think my favorite was probably the therizinosaurus, a species I only know from playing The Isle, and which looked cool, sounded cool, added tension, and was incredibly badass by the end. Quetzalcoatalus was great too, but not around for very long. But the key to good CGI and good practical effects is having them be realistic enough that the viewer doesn't notice that they're not actual living things. Many, MANY of the dinosaurs in this failed that test.
It wasn't a bad movie. But considering its budget and the acting talent involved and the enormous weight of plot resolution it had riding on it, it should have been an amazing movie. The great thing about the Jurassic Park/World movies is that even when they're pretty bad (looking at you, The Lost World), they're still fun to watch because DINOSAURS!!! This one doesn't quite even manage that, there are too many people and too few dinosaurs. If you're a fan of the series, obviously watch this to wrap up all the plot, but I doubt I'll be watching it again.
At least Rexy's still alive and back on top. Also I guess the ending, with the dinosaurs mingling with regular animals, was pretty cool, if a little hamfisted.
Edit: Alright, I watched it again just so I could properly absorb all of the nonsense that happened. Besides the previous issues I had, I was more aware this time of the number of things that seemed to be happening just because they looked cool, and either served no real purpose in the plot, were never explained, or both. Owen riding a horse and splitting one parasaurolophus off from the group had no point and wasn't explained at all. Owen and Claire have been living with Maisie in that tiny cabin for four years? With no mention of school or jobs or anything? The stuff with the locusts was explained but didn't need to be there; they could have found some other reason for our heroes to go to the Biosyn sanctuary, easily, without the complication of prehistoric locusts. Everything in Malta could have been excluded and covered in some other way, and was entirely to look cool and have dinosaurs running around. I don't know. It was trying to be a Jurassic movie AND Indiana Jones or some sort of espionage thriller at the same time. It was too scattered, too many locations and new species that really WERE there just because, not enough of the old favorites, and again, too many story elements being handled at once. And the dinosaurs are still largely sub-par for this franchise that pioneered modern dinosaurs in movies. I would've much preferred a movie that detailed how humans were adapting to living with dinosaurs around the world, because THAT would've been very interesting to watch.