'There's the Road!'

In the 1970s, movies like Jaws, Star Wars, and Alien re-invigorated Hollywood by infusing B-movie storylines with A-movie talent. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom continues in that tradition by feeling like the demented fever-dreams of Roger Corman on a $250 million budget. However, instead of invigorating, this film is simply infuriating.

It's three years after the disaster at Jurassic World and the dinos are roaming free on Isla Nublar, but a volcano threatens to eliminate them and Owen Grady and Claire Dearling (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard) are tasked with saving them before the eruption. However, sinister corporate-types are also after the dinosaurs for their own nefarious purposes that mainly involve genetically modifying them into the perfect biological weapons (why do evil corporations always insist on turning uncontrollable wild animals into weapons?).

There are some great dinosaur sequences, including a thrilling scene of a stampede at the base of an erupting volcano, as well as appearances by some cool new dinos (Carnotaurus? Yay!). Unfortunately, the film then spends all its time in a mansion/facility, making the whole experience feel cold and claustrophobic. The human characters are so bland they might as well be made of cardboard and near the end, some of them make the absolute dumbest decisions I've ever seen. I can't describe them without spoiling the movie but these decisions are so stupid I had to stop myself from shouting out in the theater. In the end, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is so hollow and joyless that it feels less like Spielberg's ingenious original and more like a big-budget sequel to the Carnosaur films. — Forest Taylor

Directed by: Juan Antonio Bayona // Written by: Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow // Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, B.D. Wong, Isabella Sermon, Geraldine Chaplin and Jeff Goldblum // 128 minutes