Fallen Kingdom - Just monster mayhem

Do you hear that? That ruffling sound ? Scratching and heaving ? Its not an Indoraptor. That is the sound of Michael Crichton turning in his grave.

Well that is what I heard, while watching the Fallen Kingdom in a theatre. With this one, the series has fully entered monster mayhem territory. Except for a few frightening scenes, its largely a forgetful affair. I guess that's good, because I really want to forget I actually watched it.

Fallen Kingdom can be summarized as a monster movie where the monsters conveniently eat up all the bad guys. And the good guys survive, with minor bruises. If you watch all the movies in in sequence, you can see how the focus of the movie moves from  discovery, to wonder, to fear and then flat-out ridiculousness . Although they came out during the summer blockbuster season, the first two movies still had a heart. The man vs nature conflict was continuously debated, the characters were relocatable, and the animals were too adorable that the audience would actually want any of them killed. That changes with the 'World' series, then the new genetically engineered hybrids are so nasty, killing them off would be just that much more better. And I think that is not what Crichton would have wanted.

The underwater opening scenes reminded me of how Titanic opened, for some reason. That 10 minute sequence in the beginning is spot on. The darkness, music and rain heightens the thrill of it. But you can still see the shoddy,lazy writing here. The bad guys could have come into the park any time of the day. Instead, they decided that the best time to pay a visit is during night, with a thunderstorm in the background. You can see that the whole point of that scene was just to get them all eaten.

But then, it falls back into really lazy writing zone. Politics, and economics and what not. By the time they are back on the island, you get a clear picture of who all will survive and who won't. What, all of a sudden the volcano on the island erupted ? Didn't the park builders do a feasibility study on that risk ? And this is all nature correcting man's mistake ? All the creatures run in the same direction ? Thats just beneath the volcano ? Amazing. Now they weaponise the creatures ? To russian mafia ? What the hell ? That scene where they try to take blood from the T-Rex ? Absolute bullshit. Whoever came up with it has to be eaten by that indoraptor.And all the creatures fit conveniently under that castle ? They have already built huge enclosures for each creature ? Including the T-Rex ? And the old man had no idea ? Shouldn't the constant construction have alerted him ? Even the old lady had no idea what was going on . And by the way, what happens to her ?

There were numerous scenes paying homages to the original movie. Clearly, they were expecting the nostalgia to kick in. Like the scene where the huge brontosaurus walks into the midst of the crew. That scene clearly refers the famous "Its a dinosaur" scene from the first.  But this time they were thoughtful enough to add the huge sound of walking, again a reference. The scene where the indoraptor opens locks. And then on entering the floor, taps twice using its middle toe. That is straight from the kitchen scene. Also the scene where the kid tries to open the doors from a computer, but fails. And then opens the wrong one. There is again a scene where Owen shuts down the power in the castle. And then the kid reboots everything and, well, it was a stupid thing to do.

But the first scary scene for me was not the dino-eaitng-human scenes. It was halfway into the movie, when it is revelead that Maisie is a perfect clone of her mother. Damn ! Didn't see that one coming. This fact is revelead to Maisie and the audience at the same time. This opens up a lot of frightening ,ethical questions. Does a cloned human have the same rights a normal human has ? Can they bring back Hammond ? :) Ok, that last one never crossed my mind, but clearly there are ethical boundaries being crossed now.

But again, the focus of the current series has moved away from wonder and awe, to fear and loathing. It is just another monster movie now. There is nothing new to add, and the series has run its course.