Every Jurassic World Movie, Ranked

Jurassic Park may be one of the most beloved and inspirational blockbusters of all-time, but the larger franchise that it has inspired has consistently been a major disappointment. The success of Jurassic Park may have been a once-in-a-generation magic trick that only Steven Spielberg was capable of, as the franchise has consistently eroded in quality as it goes along. While the original Jurassic Park is by far the only truly “great” film in the series, The Lost World: Jurassic Park does contain some charms, as it could never be said that a film directed by Spielberg was poorly directed. Jurassic Park III may only ever be remembered as a silly, guilty pleasure, but Joe Johnston was able to make a relatively entertaining B-movie that didn’t assume any lofty ambitions. Unfortunately, a new rebooted series aimed to take the legacy of the Jurassic Park franchise and pass it on to a new generation of storytellers that seemingly had no comprehension why the series had been successful in the first place.

The Jurassic World trilogy is one of many attempts by Hollywood to make a “legacy sequel,” which essentially restarts the franchise from scratch by introducing a new generation of heroes that can serve as the proteges for the iconic heroes. This is an approach that proved to be successful for films like Creed and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as they succeeded in launching new actors who had charisma, poise, and complexity; the Jurassic World trilogy has simply recycled outdated character archetypes and removed any of the actual appreciation for science that was evident in Spielberg’s 1993 classic. While there is some hope that the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth might be a legitimately entertaining film, as it is written by the original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, fans of the series have learned their lesson when it comes to getting their hopes up. Here is every Jurassic World film, ranked.

3

‘Jurassic World Dominion’ (2022)

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Jurassic World Dominion is one of the most incompetent studio films of the past decade, as at times it barely even feels like a Jurassic Park film at all; while there is some dinosaur action that becomes prominent within the third act, the majority of the film revolves around an international conspiracy involving locusts that does not make any logical sense. While the end of the previous film hinted at a post-apocalyptic world in which dinosaurs would finally roam the Earth, Jurassic World Dominion fails to do anything interesting with the concept. Any compelling ethical debates that could emerge regarding the resurgence of a dominant predator are set aside in favor of generic action scenes that feel like cheap imitations of everything from Alien to Mission: Impossible. Given the series of creative failures that have dominated his career, it is surprising that Universal Pictures would once again entrust the future of one of their biggest franchises ever to Colin Trevorrow.

Jurassic World Dominion is particularly egregious in its use of nostalgia because it became the first installment in the franchise since the original to reunite the “big three” of Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Satler (Laura Dern), and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Fans expecting the three beloved heroes to once again play into their old dynamic were bound to be disappointed, as they are quickly separated and forced to go on side missions that ultimately have no significance within the main plot. Although both The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III certainly had their flaws, they at least showed respect to the original characters, which cannot be said about Jurassic World Dominion. While the film still managed to crack over $1 billion at the global box office, it did seem like a low point for a series that has been coasting on nostalgia for over three decades.

2

‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (2018)

Directed by J.A. Bayona

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a very strange sequel that feels stuck between its two creative forces. J.A. Bayona is clearly a talented filmmaker, as films like The Impossible and Society of the Snow proved he can create emotional disaster epics that delve into the complexities of human tragedy. There are certainly moments in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom that flirt with a more complex and far darker interpretation of the original source material, but unlike Bayona’s other films, the sequel did not include him as a writer. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was still written by Trevorrow and his longtime collaborator Derek Connolly, who populated the film with the same obnoxious humor, sexist romantic subplots, logical fallacies, and cheap emotional ploys as the other two installments in the series. The result is a film that is at odds with itself, and ends up becoming entirely incoherent based on the drastic tonal shift that takes place towards the middle of the story. While it’s admirable how bold of a swing Jurassic World: Dominion takes when it essentially decides to be a haunted house adventure, the end result is far less entertaining than it may have seemed on paper. Given that Bayona’s previous films have mostly been Rated-R, it feels as if he was boxed in by the parameters of a PG-13 rating.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is quite lazy when it comes to its characters, as the romantic relationship between Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) resets to the same exact place it was at the end of the first film, with no note of any development; while talented cast members like Justice Smith and Toby Jones were added to the ensemble, their parts were so underwritten that it’s unclear why the film needed more characters. Perhaps there was a darker version of the film in mind that was more clearly intended to be a work of horror, but any of these instincts from Bayona are forced to appease a ridiculous subplot involving the international trading of dinosaurs that feels plucked out of a cartoon series. Bayona deserves another shot at the Jurassic Park franchise in which he is given free reign to tell a story on his own terms, and frankly, it’s hard to even place the blame on him when it is so obviously the poor writing that caused Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom to be a major disappointment.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Studio

Universal

Run Time

128 mins

Director

J.A. Bayona

Release Date

June 22, 2018

1

‘Jurassic World’ (2015)

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Jurassic World is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s the strongest of the trilogy because it is the most functional as a Jurassic Park film. Ironically, the film itself seems to be aware of its hook to audiences, as much of the story revolves around the park having to create bigger, more advanced dinosaurs in order to convince their attendees that they are watching something new. While it certainly had the potential to be a highly meta, self-aware sequel in the vein of Gremlins 2: The New Batch or Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Trevorrow’s weakness as a storyteller becomes apparent when even the basic level of logic is applied. Even though Jurassic Park is obviously a science fiction franchise that requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, having characters make illogical decisions purely for the sake of the plot is simply insulting to audiences, and disrespectful to the tenets of good storytelling that made Michael Crichton’s original novels such successes. Although the characters in the original Jurassic Park film were legitimately compelling, the heroes of Jurassic World simply serve as fodder for the dinosaurs to terrorize. Jurassic World is unfortunately not scary enough to be a horror film, but it also lacks the propulsive momentum that have allowed other franchise blockbusters to succeed; it’s strange to see a film with so much thought and resources fueled into it that feels this completely forgettable.

Jurassic World wastes an ensemble of talented actors; while compelling in different films, Pratt and Howard have such a significant lack of chemistry that any of their interactions are legitimately painful to watch. Vincent D’Onofrio is saddled with playing a ridiculous villain whose motivations are completely illogical, and the great Irrfan Khan is stuck playing a stereotypical billionaire that is borderline offensive. While the younger brothers played by Ty Simkins and Nick Robinson do give viewers some reason to care about them, their characterizations are so broad that it’s hard to ever legitimately invest in where they end up. Some of the action is fun, but there are no moments in Jurassic World that contain any of the suspense that made Spielberg’s film so terrific; any ethical or philosophical debates are replaced by generic dialogue that serves no purpose but to move characters in between set pieces. Jurassic World may not be a complete disaster in the vein of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice or the Transformers sequels, but it certainly ranks among the most cynical franchise reboots in recent memory. If nothing else, the collective failure of the Jurassic World series just goes to show what a miracle it was what Spielberg managed to pull off back in 1993.

Jurassic World

Release Date

June 12, 2015

Runtime

124minutes

Director

Colin Trevorrow

Writers

Colin Trevorrow, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Michael Crichton, David Koepp, Derek Connolly

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