JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the second movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© J.A. Bayona/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

I launched this present blog of mine, Shuker In MovieLand, on 27 July 2020, but for quite some time prior to then I'd been posting on my Facebook home page various accounts that I'd written about movies watched by me lately. Some of these accounts were only very short, little more than micro-reviews, but certain others were longer and more detailed. I was reading through all of these recently, and it occurred to me that although I'd written them some years ago, before my blog existed, there was no reason why I couldn't, or shouldn't, post them here now, with the longer accounts reworked into full reviews, and selections of the shorter ones presented together as single multi-movie posts. So here is one of the longer ones, presenting in expanded form my original take on what subsequently proved to be the second installment from the second film trilogy within the blockbuster Jurassic Park/World movie franchise.

On 7 June 2018, I went to what was then my local cinema (now closed) and watched Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the second movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy – the latter cinematic trio serving as a sequel to the original Jurassic Park film trilogy inspired by American sci fi author Michael Crichton's eponymous 1990 novel. I'd been waiting with great anticipation for ages for this movie to be released, so that I coul finally watch it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.

Directed by J.A. Bayona, with Steven Spielberg as its executive producer, co-written by Colin Trevorrow (who directed the other two movies in the Jurassic World trilogy), and released in 2018 by Universal Pictures, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom sees the return of Chris Pratt as velociraptor handler/whisperer Owen Grady, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, formerly the operations manager of the dinosaur theme park Jurassic World before the mayhem of its genetically-engineered living dinosaurs and pterosaurs loose and on the rampage, as dramatically portrayed in the previous movie, Jurassic World (2015), had forced its permanent closure. The abandoned theme park, or what is now left of it, is situated on the isolated Central American island of Isla Nublar, uninhabited by humans since the park's closure, and where the escapee dinosaurs and other resurrected Mesozoic monsters are able to roam free, undisturbed, unthreatened – but not for much longer.

The island's volcano is threatening to erupt, and with devastating force, enough to make the Krakatoa eruption look like a hiccup, and which will definitely destroy all life on the island (and quite probably the island itself), including, therefore, the dinosaurs. Moreover, as they exist nowhere else on Earth (yes. I'm excluding birds from all such considerations!), this will result in a second dinosaur mass extinction, on a far smaller scale but just as comprehensive as the one that wiped them out the first time, at the end of the Cretaceous Period, roughly 65 million years ago.

 

Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, Blue the velociraptor, and my official Jurassic World franchise 2017 Mattel 12-inch-tall Owen Grady action figure (© J.A. Bayona/ Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Universal Pictures / © Mattel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

To make matters even worse for the imperilled dinos, a United States Senate committee votes against US Government involvement in any plan to rescue them from their doomed island homeland before the volcano erupts. However, a ray of hope appears upon the horizon when Jurassic Park founder Dr John Hammond's now immensely rich former partner Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) invites Claire to his vast mansion where he and his assistant Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) discuss with her their bold plan to rescue a representative selection of the dinosaurs and relocate them to a new island sanctuary.

Inspired by this exciting news, Claire agrees to help them, by making available her knowledge of the park's systems as well as of the dinosaurs themselves. She also recruits Owen to come on board, particularly with regard to capturing Blue, the last surviving velociraptor, whom he had reared and trained, and who therefore trusts him.

However, there is treachery afoot, as they subsequently realise when they reach Isla Nublar and discover that the dinosaurs being trapped there are destined to be transported not to any island sanctuary but instead to the Lockwood mansion, where Lockwood's young orphaned granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) overhears a mysterious auctioneer named Eversoll (Toby Jones) secretly discussing plans to sell the dinosaurs to the highest bidders in a private auction to be held there. But what if any of the winning bidders choose to use their purchased dinosaurs as bio-weapons – and who at the Lockwood mansion is behind all of this skullduggery anyway? Furthermore, it turns out that the dinosaurs are not the only genetically-engineered entities in the mansion – isn't that right, Maisie?? Deep waters indeed!

The CGI dinosaurs are even more spectacular than in previous movies within this franchise, and I certainly will not be losing any sleep over their absence of feathers or any other palaeontological inconsistencies. If I can suspend disbelief to watch middle-aged men performing incredible stunts that defy physical reality and gravity in equal measure (yes, Tom Cruise, I'm thinking of the Mission: Impossible films as I write this), I can certainly do the same regarding any dinosaurian discrepancies and deviations from current mainstream opinion within the palaeo-community.

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World, the first movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

My Jurassic Park trilogy and Jurassic World  trilogy  complete DVD collection plus my Jurassic Park trilogy steelbook edition (© Steven Spielberg/Joe Johnston/Colin Trevorrow/J.A. Bayone/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

And speaking of the dinosaurs in this movie: whereas in previous Jurassic Park/World films the dinosaurs were breathtaking and dramatic, in this much darker, horror-driven entry, however, the carnivorous dinos in particular are little short of demonic at times, fully justifying this film's 12A certificate in the UK. Small children may indeed have nightmares from watching it, especially in relation to one particular scene, featuring Maisie cowering in her locked bedroom as a genetically-engineered wholly novel dino-horror called the Indoraptor that is positively fiendish in both form and behaviour seeks – and ultimately achieves – entry into her room. I'll say no more, but it's decidedly creepy, even Gothic in places.

In summary: the plot of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is nothing if not eventful, providing a toxic combination of megalomania and financial greed, plus a natural catastrophe thrown in for good measure, yielding a deadly game in which the dinos are unwitting pawns.

As for its ending: back when I first watched this movie in 2018, it seemed not so much an ending as a launch-pad for what could well be an unlimited number of sequels. Indeed, there is a brief but memorable post-credits scene that provides a very clear indication of the directions that such sequels might pursue.

With the subsequent completion of this trilogy by the release in 2022 of a third, concluding movie, Jurassic World Dominion, however, this might no longer be the case. Having said that, film franchises that have been as financially successful as this one (its six movies have collectively grossed approximately 6 billion US dollars at the box office alone!) have a tendency not to lay down and die all that easily, so who knows? It may yet be that the dinosaurs are not the only ones to be resurrected!

 

My three official Jurassic World franchise Mattel pehistoric animal action figures: my 42-inch-long Blue the velociraptor, my 30-inch-long giant mosasaur sea-lizard (the mosasaur escapes from its pool into the ocean at the beginning of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), and my 32-inch-long Brachiosaurus (the Brachiosaurus meets a tragic end in this movie) (© J.A. Bayona/ Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures / © Mattel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

 

 

My Uni-Amblin official  Jurassic World and The Lost World: Jurassic Park metal pencil cases (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/Legendary Pictures/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures / © Uni & Amblin – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

Incidentally, I should warn you that certain trailers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that have been highly visible online ever since its release actually offer a very slanted (even imho a quite deceptive) idea of what happens in the main part of the film. So if you still haven’t watched this movie yet but plan to do so, don't be misled by any such trailers into thinking that you already know what will be happening.

What does happen is a dynamic tour de force of escapist action, adventure, and suspense, supplemented by the stirring music of John Williams, and populated by a host of awesome CGI dinos (and also some animatronic model ones for certain close-up scenes), all of which I enjoyed immensely, juat like I did when last year I watched the above-mentioned third movie in this trilogy, Jurassic World Dominion (2022). And yes indeed, courtesy of this latter film a feathered non-avian dinosaur finally appears in the Jurassic Park/World franchise! Was it worth the wait? Be sure to watch Jurassic World Dominion and judge for yourselves!

Meanwhile, please click here to watch on YouTube an official Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom trailer (one, moreover, that is suitably dramatic but thankfully does not contain any of the ambiguous excerpts alluded to by me earlier here).

Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Publicity poster for Jurassic World Dominion, the third movie in the Jurassic World film trilogy (© Colin Trevorrow/Steven Spielberg/Amblin  Entertainment/The Kennedy-Marshall Company/Perfect World Pictures/Universal Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis  for educational/review purposes only)

 

ANONYMOUS REX

 

Official USA DVD of Anonymous Rex (© Julian Jarrold/Sci Fi Channel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On several previous occasions here at Shuker In MovieLand, I've recalled how, while seeking one particular movie either online or in physical DVD/video format, I've inadvertently stumbled upon a completely different one, and which has turned out to be far more interesting than the one I'd originally been looking for. And so it proved with the movie under review here now – an engrossing, highly original sci fi twist upon the unsuspected survival into modern-times of dinosaurs (other than birds!). Its title? Anonymous Rex.

Directed by Julian Jarrold, Anonymous Rex is a TV movie produced by the Sci Fi Channel (now renamed Syfy) and first screened in 2004. It is based upon the second in a trilogy of satirical dinosaur-themed sci fi novels authored by Eric Garcia (who also served as one of this movie's co-producers). These were: Anonymous Rex (published in 1999), Casual Rex (2001, a prequel to Anonymous Rex), and Hot and Sweaty Rex (2004, a sequel to Anonymous Rex). Before going any further, however, I need to resolve what may otherwise be a source of confusion. Despite being entitled Anonymous Rex, this movie is not based upon the 1999 Garcia novel of that selfsame title; instead it is based upon his 2001 novel, Casual Rex. Why this confusing nomenclatural situation should be, I have no idea, but there it is. So if you plan on reading the novel upon which this movie is based, make sure that you buy Casual Rex, not Anonymous Rex.

Anyway, back to the movie. It was while searching recently through the IMDb website for details concerning some film that I can't even recall now that I happened to find myself on its page entry for Anonymous Rex, a movie I'd never previously heard of. After reading its plot synopsis, however, I was so captivated by it that I lost no time in seeking out the movie, watching it, and totally loving it throughout!

Normally at this point in one of my film reviews, I present my own summary of the film in question, but seeing that it was specifically the IMDb synopsis for it that directly inspired me to track down and watch Anonymous Rex, it seemed appropriate that I should incorporate this here for you to read as well, so here it is:

The dinosaurs didn't go completely extinct when the asteroids hit 65 million years ago. Today, every ten thousandth person in the country is a dinosaur, evolved to be human-sized, wearing sophisticated solid-light holographic disguises to maintain the façade [of looking exactly like humans], getting stoned off regular cooking herbs like basil, rosemary and tarragon, and living by their own shadow government's laws; any human who stumbles upon them is to be immediately executed. Two dino private investigators, velociraptor Vincent Rubio and triceratops Ernie Watson, are hired by one of Ernie's old girlfriends to find out why her younger brother committed suicide, and discover a dino cult called [The] Voice Of Progress that wants dinokind to come out of the closet and reclaim the planet. —Jeff Cross <blackjac_1998@yahoo.com>

So there you have it. The modern-day world is home to a concealed sub-culture of dinosaurs (belonging to a wide variety of different species), all flawlessly disguised as humans, infiltrating every vocation and walk of life, working and living alongside humans, but with our species none the wiser…usually. For although the dinosaurs do not pose a threat to us as long we do not discover their true, reptilian identity, they will not hesitate to eliminate any of us who do (one remorseless example of this policy is shown at the very beginning of the film). But to be fair, they did learn the hard way about remaining hidden, as I'll now explain.

With their numbers greatly depleted following the asteroid collision at the end of the Cretaceous, the dinosaurs lived very much in the shadow of the now-dominant mammals from then on, but that was not a major problem – until humans evolved, that is. By the Middle Ages, the dinosaurs were facing the biggest threat to their survival since the asteroid. They had evolved into the dragons of myths and legends (except of course these stories were actually true!), but humans sent forth numerous errant knights and other heroes to slay them and rescue any distressed damsels that may have strayed their way. Consequently, in order to avoid extinction at the hands, and weapons, of their human aggressors, the dinosaurs decided that they had no option but to disguise themselves as humans. Initially, these disguises took the form of unconvincing rubber suits and suchlike, but dinosaur scientists working covertly in their own laboratories hidden far away from human detection proved far smarter than their mammalian counterparts, and by the late 20^th Century they had invented the extraordinarily advanced holographic human disguises that rendered dinosaurs outwardly indistinguishable from the real thing – but not from each other... More about this shortly.

As noted in the IMDb review, Anonymous Rex focuses upon a pair of dinosaur gumshoe PIs – taciturn velociraptor Vincent Rubio (played by Sam Trammell, and also acting as the movie's narrator) and his more amiable triceratopsian partner Ernie Watson (Daniel Baldwin), tasked with discovering the truth behind the supposed suicide of the young brother of one of Ernie's former girlfriends, Louise (Lori Alter). Their investigations lead them to The Voice of Progress, a sinister activist dinosaur cult of which Louise's late brother had been a member, and which is fronted by an enigmatic woman named Circe (Tamara Gorski). She is also the cult's literal voice, espousing at a meeting of the cult attended by Vincent and Ernie how dinosaurs have spent long enough suppressing their true form and nature, forced to live a false existence throughout their life, as something that they are not – humans. Why should this be allowed to continue? It was high time, she exclaims, that dinosaurs not only make their presence publicly known but also reclaim what had it not been for the asteroid would still be theirs – the world!

Ernie is unaffected by Circe's exhortations, but to his surprise and discomfort Vincent finds himself somewhat sympathetic to the cult's cause (and is further conflicted by finding himself romantically attracted to Circe…) – until, that is, he discovers how it intends to achieve this reptilian uprising. In a secluded area of the cult's headquarters, Vincent sees a living cow being led into a chamber, followed by hideous screams from the cow mixed with the sounds of flesh-tearing and bone-crunching. Peering inside, he is aghast to see a feral undisguised carnivorous dinosaur, drugged to the hilt on cooking herbs, ripping the cow apart and devouring its carcase in a bloodthirsty frenzy – mostly occurring off-screen, thankfully! (In contrast, civilised dinosaurs gave up eating raw flesh 10 million years ago, after they discovered fire.) This, Vincent realizes to his horror, is the fate that the cult plans for humans! Somehow he has to stop what will be a bloodbath and social devastation, unquestionably inciting a full-scale world war between two lineages that at least in modern times has succeeded in living side by side in relative harmony (albeit with humans being blissfully unaware of any of this!).

To make matters even worse, the cult's villainous sponsor and kingpin, Raal (Alan van Sprang), becomes aware of Vincent's interest in it and in his belief that it is directly implicated in the killing – not suicide at all – of Louise's brother. So Raal decides to do something about this, part of which involves abducting Ernie's 23-year-old daughter Gabrielle (Stephanie Lemelin). When Ernie discovers what has happened, he frantically calls Vincent to meet him, as he has a major confession to make before they can go out looking for her.

But what Ernie informs him undermines and shocks Vincent even more than the cult's frightening plans uncovered by him earlier. Vincent knows that Ernie shares his home with Gabrielle, but what he hadn't known until now is that she is not his daughter – and that she is not even a dinosaur!

It turns out that 23 years ago, a dinosaur squad had been sent to liquidate a family of human hippies who had uncovered the dinosaurs' big secret and had amassed incriminating documents and photos that they'd planned to use for blackmail purposes. After the adults had been killed, Ernie had been sent in to remove all this evidence, but was shocked to discover the hippies' baby daughter, who had been hidden away and thus overlooked by the squad, but was now an orphan. Unable to bring himself to abandon her to a foster home (the usual fate of babies orphaned in this manner but who are too young to realize about the dinosaurs and thereby pose any threat to them), Ernie took her back home with him instead and raised her as his own daughter, Gabrielle. Of course, this meant that he had to reveal the dinosaurs' secret existence to her, for her own safety as a human living incognito within dinosaur society, but he also offered her the choice of living her life either as the human she is or as a human pretending to be a dinosaur pretending to be a human, She chose the latter option without a moment's hesitation, due in no small way to the fact that Gabrielle loves Ernie very much, as he is the only parental figure she can ever remember having in her life. However, maintaining the subterfuge is proving more difficult now that she is an attractive young woman.

Indeed, Gabrielle currently has a dinosaur boyfriend, who is anxious to get to know her more intimately, but to do so means switching off their holographic suits first, which in turn means revealing to each other their true, dinosaur forms – except, of course, Gabrielle can't do this, because she isn't a dinosaur, she's a human! Consequently, she is forced to sidestep her boyfriend's increasingly-emphatic requests, leaving both of them frustrated, but for more reasons on Gabrielle's part than her boyfriend suspects! In addition, even though they look exactly like humans when cloaked by their head-to-toe holographic suits, dinosaurs can still instantly recognize other dinosaurs, by virtue of the reptilian pheromones that they exude, and which are undetectable by humans. So to ensure that Gabrielle's human identity is not betrayed by her inability to exude such pheromones, Ernie has always obtained supplies of an artificially-created version, a supply of which she keeps with her at all times in a tiny aerosol vial, and always sprays on her neck before leaving their house – but this aspect of her life may now prove her undoing, which is why Ernie had no choice but to make Vincent fully aware about who, and what, Gabrielle actually is.

And sure enough, it all begins to unravel in a key scene that takes place in the kidnap car (Raal's limousine) speeding away with her inside it, sandwiched between Raal and one of his cult henchmen, both of whom are of course dinosaurs. The problem is, whereas dinosaurs exude their reptilian pheromone in a natural, ongoing manner as it is created internally and continuously, the artificial version that Gabrielle has to apply to herself externally (on her neck) begins to fade if not reapplied regularly – and this is exactly what is happening right now. By being trapped between the two dinosaurs in the car, however, she cannot take out her vial to reapply the pheromone, even though Raal's acute sense of smell is starting to detect that her scent is fading, and he duly comments about this to her – uh-oh! I don't smell her pheromone either, but I do smell trouble for her – big trouble!

I won't give away the remainder of this absorbing film's swift-moving plot, which is well planned and well executed. Special effects are decent if not dazzling, with dinosaur-into-human transformations not over-employed, wisely utilising a less is more approach instead. Faye Dunaway and Isaac Hayes have cameo appearances as members of an elite dinosaur council, and the movie itself is played very much as at least a tongue-in-cheek film noir pastiche, even if not an outright spoof (and with some not entirely subtle pleas for toleration between different factions worked in for good measure). I enjoyed it very much – one of my favourite and most distinctive, memorable movies viewed for quite some time, in fact. Indeed, I may well purchase and read the Garcia novel on which it is based (i.e. Casual Rex, not Anonymous Rex, remember!).

By its very nature, Anonymous Rex calls to mind the famous TV series V: The Visitors, as well as Alien Nation, and even the vampire series Moonlight and Forever Knight. Moreover, this movie was actually created and pitched as a feature-length pilot for a planned TV series, but sadly the series never materialized. In my opinion, this is a real shame, as it held great promise – offering a compelling mix of sci fi, film noir, comedy, and a hefty dose of off-the-wall, offbeat eccentricity. Who knows, with the plethora of sci fi/fantasy TV shows filling the schedules nowadays, perhaps Anonymous Rex as a TV show was simply too far ahead of its time – today it would have fitted in just fine, I'm sure, rather like the dinosaurs do amongst the humans in this movie, in fact!

As I discovered, Anonymous Rex is not the easiest film to track down in physical form, though I finally traced it in Region 1 (USA/Canada-compatible) DVD format; I don’t think that it's ever been released in Region 2 (UK/Europe-compatible) DVD format. But if you simply want to watch it, and I heartily recommend that you do, you currently can by clicking here to view this movie for free in its entirety on YouTube.

To view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.

 

Sam Trammell as Vincent Rubio, a hard-bitten (and hard-biting?) velociraptor-in-disguise PI, from Anonymous Rex (© Julian Jarrold/Sci Fi Channel – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

JURASSIC ISLAND (2020 movie)

 

The official UK DVD for Jurassic Island (© Canyon Prince/High Fliers Films/The Asylum – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

On 13 July 2020, I watched another of my Jurassic-entitled monster movie DVDs. This one was Jurassic Island, directed by Canyon Prince, and released earlier in 2020.

The premise of Jurassic Island is that a teenage arcade video-game player named Jake is sucked into a strange new game named Rancala that seems to have a life of its own, and when the very same Rancala game mysteriously reappears 10 years later in a soon-to-be-opened major new arcade run by his sister Sarah who has blamed herself constantly for his mysterious disappearance a decade earlier, she and two friends find themselves sucked inside the game too, whereupon they are transported to Rancala itself.

As they soon find out, Rancala turns out to be an island fraught with danger, including live sharks hurled at them from a sea-tornado – and that's just Level 1 of said game. So the intrepid trio boldly set out to rescue Jake and return with him to their real world, but to do so they must successfully battle all of the monsters and warriors confronting them on each level of the Rancala video game.

As I have never been remotely interested in video games and have no knowledge of the jargon and only the most fragmentary knowledge of how such games play out, it will come as no surprise to learn that I found this movie very heavy going, with much of its gaming detail going completely over my head.

Moreover, apart from one very brief conflict with a single theropod dinosaur, the Jurassic aspect of this movie's title was a complete misnomer, notwithstanding the very prominent presence of a tyrannosaur and a trio of pterosaurs on the front cover of its official DVD. Nor did it feature any notable human stars, or at least none that I recognized.

Released directly to DVD earlier this year, Jurassic Island was a movie apparently conceived much more for game fans than for monster fans, but seemingly hoping to trade off the Jurassic monicker to attract a wider audience than may otherwise have been drawn to it.

(Incidentally, this present film should not be confused with a same-titled but imho far superior movie released in 2014 by Arclight Films, featuring two children who are sucked into a kind of temporal black hole inside which is a lush tropical land containing all manner of objects that have been drawn into it from many different time periods. These include a diverse range of prehistoric animals, whose CGI creation is spectacularly executed.)

To get a taste of what to expect from Jurassic Island, click here to watch its official trailer on YouTube.

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

 

JURASSIC CITY, JURASSIC GALAXY, THE JURASSIC GAMES, and JURASSIC HUNTERS - A QUARTET OF MESOZOIC MONSTER MOVIES!

My official DVDs for Jurassic City, Jurassic Galaxy, and The Jurassic Games, plus a publicity poster for Jurassic Hunters - click picture strip above to enlarge for viewing purposes (© Sean Cain/Vertical Entertainment / © James & Jon Kondelik/Dual Visions / © Ryan Bellgardt/High Octane Pictures / (© Ari Novak/Oracle Film Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Browsing through my collection of monster movies on DVD during the evening of 27 June 2020, I was surprised to notice just how many of them had titles whose first major word was 'Jurassic' - and not just the famous five constituting the ongoing Jurassic Park/World blockbuster franchise either. Yet despite owning these lesser-known Jurassic wannabes for quite some time, I'd never actually watched any of them.

So in an attempt to at least part-remedy that sad situation, on 28 June 2020 I watched no fewer than four of them (with another five still to go, plus, just for the sake of variety, one that begins with the word 'Triassic', and one that does include 'Jurassic' in its title but not as its first major word). As for which order in which to view them: as they are all entirely separate, stand-alone movies, it seemed simplest to watch them alphabetically. So this first viewed quartet consisted of Jurassic City (2015), Jurassic Galaxy aka Jurassic Planet (2018), The Jurassic Games (2018), and Jurassic Hunters aka Cowboys Vs. Dinosaurs (2015).

My official DVD for Jurassic City (© Sean Cain/Vertical Entertainment – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

None of these monster movies feature any A-listers (although two of them, Jurassic City and Jurassic Hunters, do star Australian actor Vernon Wells, from Mad Max 2), but I strongly suspect that all four of them used the same or associated SFX companies, because their CGI dinosaurs and pterosaurs are virtually identical. Having said that, The Jurassic Games also includes a sabre-tooth, giant spider, and man-eating plant, thereby adding some variety to the usual dinofest. The four storylines, conversely, are very different.

Directed by Sean Cain, Jurassic City is all about some escapee (and, later, deliberately released) genetically-engineered theropods causing murderous mayhem in a Los Angeles detention centre, before venturing forth into the centre of LA itself to wreak further devastation and death. In contrast, Jurassic Galaxy, directed by James and Jon Kondelik, follows the attempts at reaching a space shuttle by the few survivors from a spaceship that has crash-landed upon a planet inhabited by ferocious Terran-type T. rex and raptor dinosaurs (convergent evolution is one thing, but this is taking parallel dinosaurian development to highly implausible levels, to say the least!) as well as huge sky medusae (although they only feature minimally, sadly).

My official DVD for Jurassic Galaxy (© James & Jon Kondelik/Dual Visions – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Directed and also co-produced by Ryan Bellgardt, The Jurassic Games is rather like I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here hyped to the ultimate level, in which 10 convicted Death Row (mostly serial) killers (but including one who just may be innocent) volunteer to take part in a top-rated TV virtual reality game show fighting off dinosaurs and each other until only one is left alive, winning the prize of freedom and absolution of all crimes committed, with all those who die in the game also dying (via lethal injection) in real life too. As for Jurassic Hunters, directed and co-produced by Ari Novak, this features a mining town in the modern-day Wild West that is overrun by ravenous raptors, T rex, and even a belligerent Triceratops that have been released from a deep subterranean cavern-world (where prehistory presumably still reigns supreme) during a mining explosion.

Of these four films, Jurassic Planet is to me the least effective, its plot disjointed and featuring characters suddenly behaving in some unexpected manner for no apparent reason. Jurassic City and Jurassic Hunters are standard monster movie fare, the humans battling the invasive dinos with all that they can muster, although Jurassic Hunters also incorporates a slyly seditious, deftly tongue-in-cheek approach to much of the proceedings, and is all the more entertaining for doing so.

My official DVD for The Jurassic Games (© Ryan Bellgardt/High Octane Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

To my mind, however, The Jurassic Games is by far the most engrossing, with the lethal TV game show's slick host and ratings-obsessed producers so skin-crawlingly insincere, coldly uncaring, and entirely conscience-lacking that you actually begin to root for the contestants, momentarily forgetting that they are psychotic, murderous SOBs who fully deserve the grisly fates that await all but the one who wins the game.

So, yes, it was an interesting, diverse day of CGI dino viewing, with more Jurassic-entitled entries still to watch, and soon – so don't go away!

Publicity poster for Jurassic Hunters (© Ari Novak/Oracle Film Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

To pay a thrilling visit to this quartet of Jurassic-themed movies, click here to watch a trailer for Jurassic City, here to watch one for Jurassic Galaxy, here for one for The Jurassic Games, and here for a Jurassic Hunters trailer – they're all monstrously good fun!

And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

Publicity poster for the Cowboys Vs. Dinosaurs retitled version of Monster Hunters, depicting Rib Hills as cowboy rodeo star turned dinosaur decimator Val Walker (© Ari Novak/Oracle Film Group – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)