Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (SPOILERS)

Welcome to Jurassic World...

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies of all time. As time went on, it spawned several sequels, several of them which...weren't very good. After two disappointing outings (one which I dislike and the other I find to be a guilty pleasure,) the closest the sequels ever came to capturing the spirit of the original was Jurassic World, but nostalgia doesn't necessarily equal quality or anything despite the movie having some incredibly awesome moments and Chris Pratt being the leading man, so where does Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom fall in this regard? At first, I thought this movie was gonna be quite easily the worst of the lot, considering that the trailers did it no favors and it looked to be borrowing heavily from the one I dislike the most, The Lost World. Let me be the first to say that the marketing for this movie did not do it justice, at all. This movie is better than it seems, and overall it had the potential to be the best one since the first. I'm not kidding! Ultimately, I'm incredibly torn with this one, and here's why:

UPS

1. The cast is great. Again, Chris Pratt is always dependable when it comes to being the leading man, and he shares great chemistry with Bryce Dallas Howard, who is given a far better role here (no high heels this time 'round.) Rafe Spall, Toby Jones, and Ted Levine do fine as the villains of this piece, James Cromwell has a brief but overall decent role, and Jeff Goldblum and B.D. Wong make the most of the spare screentime they're given, but the real standout is Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood, who is easily the best child to come out of the franchise, which is saying a lot. Overall, these actors make the most of a film that could've made better use of them all. 
2. J. A. Bayona's direction. When I said that this movie had the potential to be just as good as the first, well that maybe in part to its director. Bayona shows that he is a capable director who can show off his skills in the midst of everything else, and it's his competent direction that manages to carry this movie the whole way through...well, until...

DOWNS

1. The ending. Dear God, this has to be one of the most clunky, haphazard, and downright aggravating conclusions to a film ever! Not only does it exaggerate the plot to ridiculous levels, but it also has the Indoraptor (who was actually kinda cool; again, the trailers didn't do this movie justice) die an extremely lame and anticlimactic death, introduces a truly awful plot twist (you'll know it when you see it,) and starts to get incredibly preachy with its messages before turning them over on their heads and closing out with a sequel hook. Again, if it weren't for this whole end sequence, this movie would be so much better. 

OVERALL

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was easily the most frustrating movie of this year. It could have been a fantastic surprise...but that ending...UGH! Definitely not as bad as it seemed to be, but could have been so much more. 

And that's it for this post, guys. Tune in for more on the way :)