Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

[mr_rating_result]

Science fiction is close to becoming reality: Paleontologists have extracted DNA from dinosaur bones and now have the ability to clone a giant prehistoric lizard. What kid – or kid in a grownup’s body – wouldn’t buy a ticket to go see a velociraptor in a large outdoor zoo on some faraway island?

That’s the theme of all those “Jurassic Park” movies based on the book by the late Michael Crichton.

Heck, you’ve already done it (kinda) by buying tickets to the see the Steven Spielberg-produced movie blockbusters. There have been four – “Jurassic Park” (1993), “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” (1997), “Jurassic Park III” (2001), and “Jurassic World” (2015).

Now a fifth – “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” – is tromping across the screens at Tropic Cinema.

This film is intended to be the second in a Jurassic World Trilogy. It picks up where the last one left off, three years after the demise of the Jurassic World theme park on Islas Nublar. After that disaster, the fierce monsters were left to roam free on the remote island off Central America.

Now, in “Fallen Kingdom,” we learn that a volcano threatens the island (hello, Hawaii) and Claire Dearing, the former high-heel-wearing operations manager of the old theme park creates a dinosaur rescue project. She enlists her boyfriend Owen Grady, a former dino trainer at the park, and Benjamin Lockwood, the man who helped develop the technology that cloned the dinosaur in the first place, to help her relocate these big creatures to a sanctuary on the American mainland.

Bad idea, you say? Well, that’s because you’ve seen the first four movies.

Everybody knows that man gets punished when he tries to play God and tinker with nature, right?

So it’s no spoiler to tell you things go awry.

Bad guys are auctioning off the dinosaurs and – yes! – one escapes and goes on a rampage.

Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard’s actress daughter) returns as the frustrated dinosaur-rights activist. And Chris Pratt (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” guy) is back to search for Blue, the last of the velociraptors he trained at the park. James Cromwell signs on as Lockwood, the bigwig who’s funding the Dinosaur Protection Group. And B.D. Wong reprises his role as the former head geneticist.

Also in the cast you’ll encounter Toby Jones as the auctioneer, along with Ted Levine, Geraldine Chaplin, and Justice Smith. This being a summer blockbuster, Jeff Goldblum has a cameo.

Sure, we go to see the CGI-created dinosaurs rather than the predictable story. But truth be told, most of Tyrannosaurs and ‘raptors did not exist during the Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era, but were denizens of the Cretaceous Period.

But I suppose Cretaceous Park doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com