Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Director: J. A. Bayona
Year Released: 2018
Rating: 1.5

Dinosaur-rights-activist Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) summons expert trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) to help her locate a special little fellow named Blue that he worked with in the past (and is very smart), effectively dragging him into a mess of things: there's a volcano about to erupt on the island the dinosaurs are living on so the creatures need to be evacuated ... oh, and there's also apparently a large black market active for rich Russians to buy the carnivore-types (why not?). It recycles all (and I mean all) of the old 'concepts' from its predecessors into a not-exactly-original new product, and while some of the action scenes have some zip to them (and Buffalo Bill gets his arm chewed off and Rafe Spall gets ripped into two - I guess that's what the PG-13 is there for) the basic message of "hey, you know what, maybe we shouldn't toy around with nature" has been around since Crichton's first novel (or Mary Shelley, if you want to go back even further). The ending teases that there will be yet another one of these forthcoming, which is unfortunate, but money talks.