Colossal misfire

In Sunset Boulevard, Norah Desmond famously quipped, “I’m big, it’s the pictures that got small.” These days, you’d have to argue the opposite. As movies have grown into mammoth, multifaceted universes of blockbusters, actors have seemed to dwindle in importance. We have more celebrities than ever, but not many with the bankability to draw crowds when they aren’t wearing a superhero (or a wizard or a Star Wars) costume.

One exception is Chris Pratt. Like Tom Cruise and Clark Gable before him, Pratt is one of those rare performers who possess a charismatic appeal that’s only partly related to good looks. He is one of the very few actors under 40 today who could credibly claim the title “movie star.”

Since his breakthrough in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, not one of Pratt’s films has failed to earn big bucks. Even the critically maligned (but Basham-approved) Passengers earned a healthy profit. And I’d argue that it was Pratt’s name above the title as much as Denzel Washington’s that made 2016’s Magnificent Seven remake a success. So given all this, the big question about Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is why director J.A. Bayona apparently forgot what an asset he had in Pratt.

Jurassic World, the 2015 reboot of the 1990s franchise, blew audiences out of the water not just with the natural popcorn-munching lure of man-eating dinosaurs, but also with a classic movie storyline. This included the old-school chemistry between Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. There was a feeling of “they don’t make 'em like that anymore.” Except in that case, they had, complete with a Golden Age Hollywood-style hero.

Here, though, almost all the fun that isn’t dependent on CGI technology is brushed aside to make room for toothy displays from creatures more like horror movie monsters than wild animals.

The story starts out well enough, with Jeff Goldblum’s beloved professor Ian Malcolm catching Congress up on the state of things. It seems God has offered humanity a solution to the Jurassic problem scientists cooked up in a DNA lab. An active volcano is about to erupt on the Isle Nublar that will put an end to all the prehistoric organisms. These scenes are effectively tragic, and we shed some tears for the herbivores at least, but the politicians, for once, respond sensibly and decide to let nature take its course. Until a team led by Howard's character, Clare, undertakes a black ops mission to rescue some of the creatures and move them to a specialized sanctuary.

From there, the movie hits beats far too similar to its predecessor. There are double crosses and realizations that someone is trying to weaponize the dinos. Why this should come as a surprise to characters that just went through this a few years ago is anyone’s guess. Even more confusing is why someone decided it was a good idea to cram the dinosaurs into what essentially amounts to a haunted house and thus rob them of their grand, earth-shaking charisma.

But the plot repetition wouldn’t be the worst crime if it were executed well. Sadly, it isn’t. Elements that should provide interesting thematic weight, like the ethics of bioengineering life, rush by too quickly to have any impact. The pacing is dismal, squashing all interest in the human storylines and robbing Pratt of the witty one-liners that made the last film such good summer fun.

It’s a shame because Pratt, who also happens to be a professing Christian, is so charming you may have heard he even managed to give a speech at the MTV movie awards that contained the crux of the gospel. Granted, it was sandwiched in between a couple of juvenile potty jokes, but when on Mars Hill …

Pratt told audience members not only the standard “God loves you” but also that nobody is perfect and grace covers our imperfections. "And like the freedom that we enjoy in this country, that grace was paid for with somebody else's blood,” he said. “Do not forget it. Don't take it for granted.”

It left not only a mostly teenage audience cheering, but most major media outlets as well. That, my friends, is star power.