“If I don’t make it back… remember that you’re the one that made me come here.”

Justin’s rating: That is one big pile of sh…

Justin’s review: Listen, when the Jurassic Park franchise semi-rebooted back in 2015, I wasn’t exactly overwhelmed by its originality. Jurassic World played it safe and, yes, fun by creating a modern update to the original hit. We got a fully functional park, the failure of said park, some interesting characters to follow, cool tech, cooler dinosaurs, and more than a few nods back to the original film.

It made a bazillion dollars, so of course this became a money-printing machine where a new entry was going to come out every few years and suck a little more of our souls away. Like Star Wars. Like Marvel. Like every ’80s and ’90s blockbuster that is getting furious blood transfusions because Hollywood has been incapable of creating any new successful franchises for well over a decade now.

But there’s a wide difference between pumping out a lazy sequel made out of a template and an abomination that loses its way completely and then seems to forget what this series is even about. Dinosaurs? Maybe?

I’m aghast how bad this was. Let me put it this way: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom makes Jurassic Park III look like a timeless classic. At least that film had a bit of an imagination.

At first, I really thought that Fallen Kingdom was taking a cue from the sequel setup for The Lost World. We have people going back to the island, nominally to rescue the dinosaurs but really it’s a ruse for mercenaries to steal them. The good guys help some dinosaurs to escape, there’s a boat bringing them back to America, and some get loose. Steven Spielberg picks up another paycheck as executive producer, and the toy companies rake in big bucks selling chunky plastic lizards to our family because my eldest is a Jurassic Park nut.

But in what may be the biggest plot miscalculation of all time, Fallen Kingdom blows through all of the interesting parts of its plot… in the first 30 minutes. That’s when we get the island, the bulk of the dinosaurs, some adventures in the jungle, and a huge set piece with an erupting volcano (which has the slowest-moving pyroclastic flow ever).

Then the movie’s like… huh.

Crap.

What do we do now?

Can’t go back to the island, it’s all blown up and stuff.

Can’t have huge adventures with lots of dinos, because we blew the budget on the first half-hour.

Well, guess we’ll make a monster movie in a rich guy’s mansion.

And that’s what they do.

Fallen Kingdom grabs the plot stick shift, jams it into reverse, and makes this a low-rent Alien clone. Heck, it actually reminded me more of 1997’s The Relic, with a monster loose in a museum-like building.

In this case, it’s the new and improved Indoraptor stalking Chris “I’m sleepwalking through my Guardians of the Galaxy persona” Pratt, Bryce “I was the actual villain of the previous movie” Dallas Howard, a kid, and some comic relief characters. They even trot out Jeff Goldblum to ramble in a couple disconnected scenes about how bad it is to bring dinosaurs back to life, as if he hasn’t been beating on that drum since 1993.

None of it is that interesting. None of it does anything we haven’t seen before, both in and out of this series. I’d heard this was a stinker, but I guess I had to see it for myself.

What makes this such a head-scratcher is that they could’ve just stayed on the island for the entire movie, with the volcano providing the huge climax. We could’ve gotten intrigue, more adventures, and more exploration of the now-degraded theme park (which was built on top of another degraded theme park, so I guess we’ve got layers here).

That wouldn’t have been a tale for the ages, mind you, but it wouldn’t have been an outright embarrassment like this ended up being.