Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

I felt embarrassed to be watching this. It's an embarrassing fever dream. I abandoned it halfway through its runtime.

More dinosaurs, Opie’s hot daughter, Dracula’s castle and Indiana Jones “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (2018) revolves around Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) leading a team back to Isla Nublar to save several species of dinosaurs after an active volcano threatens all life there. The plan is to relocate the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary, but that’s not the way it works out. My title blurb pretty much says it all for this fifth film in the franchise. I mention Indiana Jones because the movie has a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) vibe more so than the other movies. The reference to Dracula’s castle is due to the fact that the entire second half takes place at a cool, gothic chateau in Northern California and there’s a scene with a genetically-enhanced raptor acting like Dracula. Curvy Bryce is just stunning throughout and easily blows away any other woman in the series. Meanwhile Pratt seriously upped his game as leading action hero (I wasn’t overly impressed with him in the previous film, although I didn’t dislike him either). At the end of the day I’d have to rank this installment as my favorite, followed by the original 1993 movie and 2015’s “Jurassic World.” The film runs 2 hours, 8 minutes and was shot in Hawaii and England/Scotland. GRADE: A-/B+