'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom' review roundup: What the critics thought

The latest installment of the Jurassic Park series sounds like a palatable film for fans of the series but doesn't offer up a completely enrapturing experience the whole way through.

Reviewers have weighed in on the upcoming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the sequel to Jurassic World, and it isn't getting the most thrilling praise so far. In this movie, a volcano at the Jurassic World theme park has erupted, sending the human protagonists and a handful of dinosaurs away from the island and into normal society which is fine for the humans but not so great for the dinosaurs.

Read on to see what the critics thought of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

The visual don't disappoint

Matt Chapman, DigitalSpy:

Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) guilts Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) into returning to the island to rescue his beloved raptor Blue, before an out of control volcano kills every living thing. What follows is some of the most beautiful destruction you'll ever see onscreen, with a few heart-in-mouth moments for our intrepid dino wranglers and their support staff, Daniella Pineda's spunky scientist Zia and Justice Smith's jumpy tech guru Franklin.

Gav Murphy, IGN:

If you thought there was going to be too much CGI in Fallen Kingdom, you're wrong. There's a surprising amount of practical effects on display – in fact, it's the first time I've felt genuinely disgusted by these creatures. From the flies buzzing around Rexy’s stinking sleeping body to the mucus and phlegm we see, there’s an impressive blend of both CGI and practical effects in use that helps bring us closer to the dinosaurs. This closeness helps us either feel more afraid or in the case of Blue, a dramatic medical treatment scene really highlights the bond that Owen has with her. Practical effects and CGI are merged seamlessly here and we end up with a touching sequence that also draws in video flashbacks of Owen raising Blue which are obscenely cute.

Dinosaurs aren't the main event

Owen Gleiberman, Variety:

The film provides plenty of encounters with our stomping, gnashing primeval beastly friends — yet for much of Fallen Kingdom, they are caged, shackled, sedated, wounded, and otherwise subdued. They’re right up there on screen, but too often they don’t feel like the main event.

Too much happens at once

Bilge Ebiri, Village Voice:

Plenty, of course, and quickly. The calamities come with accelerating speed, and everything happens so quickly that you don’t even have time to wonder if you’re having fun or not. The result feels more like a collection of ideas for scenes than actual scenes. There’s promising bit where Owen, sedated and half-paralyzed, has to awkwardly crawl away from a steadily approaching river of lava, but it’s over in about 30 seconds. There are people trapped in a steel bunker with a fearsome Baryonyx while hot fire down around them, but that sequence, too, wraps up just when it seems to be starting.

It goes in on horror

Richard Trenholm, CNet:

This mid-point key change in Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly's script plays to Spanish director J.A. Bayona's horror background with moments that verge on operatic Grand Guignol. Some elements feel pretty cartoonish -- look out for the cardboard cut-out multinational thugs -- which sit at odds with the creepy, suspenseful thrills. But it's hard to resist the gothic dark-and-stormy histrionics, all secret labs and rolling thunder and a mysterious girl in the shadows.

Matt Chapman, DigitalSpy:

The second half of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom goes for a haunted house/slasher feel. Unfortunately, that's not as groundbreaking as it sounds.

Not only does this tonal shift slow things down, it also feels like a repetition. Director JA Bayona (The Orphanage) was the perfect choice to try to engineer this horror feel but it's not as if the dinos have only ever hunted in the forests and plains before now. Some of the tensest moments of Spielberg's Jurassic Park come from the velociraptors stalking through the kitchens and corridors of John Hammond's structures.

Fallen Kingdom doesn't add enough to the series

Kristy Puchko, Pajiba:

Where Jurassic Park luxuriated in building its world and developing its characters with mundane moments of flirtations then grander discoveries of awe and eventual terror, the Jurassic Worldmovies leap mercilessly to climactic action, sacrificing storytelling, character development, and thereby emotional impact. Instead, there are scads of superficial allusions. Truly iconic shots from the first film are re-enacted with diminishing returns: The insert shot of the rearview mirror that warned objects are closer than they appear. The moment Lex tries desperately to pull down the kitchen cabinet door to shield her from a rampaging raptor. The shot where the T-Rex roars in the shattered museum, its fallen dino-foe at its feet. Pale limitations of each of these scenes are here, each one more infuriating than last. But if I wanted to be reminded of Jurassic Park I’d watch Jurassic Park. Jurassic World 2 gives us nothing nearly as satisfying or thrilling and repeatedly, and on top of all that it insults our intelligence.

Eric Kohn, IndieWire:

It’ll keep you watching, but to what end? Fallen Kingdom is at its worst when attempting topicality (the testosterone-fueled Wheatley refers to one of our heroes as a “nasty woman”) or when beefing up its crass plot. The invention of souped-up dinosaurs feels like half an idea, much like it did the last time around. The Indoraptor, a laboratory-designed monstrosity designed to attack anything with a laser pointed at it, seems like a pretty costly hassle when computerized machinery can do much worse. Then there’s poor BD Wong, the only other actor who appeared in the first “Jurassic Park” reprising his role here as a bland mad scientist role that degrades the more sophisticated sci-fi themes at play in the original.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom arrives in theaters June 22.