Six months after the events of Jurassic World in 2015, a team of mercenaries arrives on the abandoned Isla Nublar to obtain the DNA of the Indominus Rex, whose remains lie at the bottom of the lagoon. The Mosasaurus destroys their submersible and the T-Rex attacks their helicopter, but they get away with the sample they need.
Three years after that, the U.S. Senate debates whether the dinosaurs on Isla Nublar should be saved from a threatening volcanic eruption. Doctor Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) thinks they should be left alone to go extinct, but Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has founded the Dinosaur Protection Group. The Senate rules against the dinosaurs, and Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) has a plan to relocate them to a new island sanctuary and seeks Claire’s help. Needing to locate Blue, the Velociraptor pack-leader, she recruits Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) who trained the pack.
On Isla Nublar, Claire and park technicians reactivate the tracking system, while Owen tracks Blue with veterinarian Zia Rodriguez (Daniela Pineda) and a team of mercenaries led by Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine), but Wheatley abandons the others and takes Zia hostage. A ship full of dinosaurs leaves and the rest are left to die. Claire, Franklin, and Owen board the ship in secret and use T-Rex blood to transfuse Blue.
The dinosaurs are not headed for an island sanctuary, but taken to the Lockwood Estate, where his orphaned granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) discovers that Lockwood’s team plans to sell the dinosaurs on the Black Market, including perhaps the new transgenic weaponized Indoraptor. They wish to use Blue’s blood to make it obedient, not knowing that it is now part T-Rex. Maisie, we learn, is also a clone and begins to identify with the dinos. When Maisie tells her grandfather what is happening, Mills kills the old man.
The dinosaurs are sold and about to be shipped out. Franklin and Zia are free, but Owen and Claire are captured, but escape. They find Maisie and learn that the Indoraptor is being sold. Owen disrupts the auction by loosing a dinosaur into the room. It is thought that the Indoraptor is tranquilized, but it is faking. It kills several people, including Wheately and Eversoll (Toby Jones). Blue attacks the Indoraptor on the roof. Maisie frees all the dinosaurs to save them from a cyanide leak. Mills (Rafe Spall) is eaten by the T-Rex. The dinosaurs end up living free in the wild.
The film was directed by J.A. Bayona, written by Colin Treverrow and Derek Connolly, and produced by Trevorrow and Steven Spielberg. The visuals and dark tone of the film were praised, but many critics pointed out serious lapses in logic. The Ken Wheately character was purposely made as hateable as possible and there are not-too-subtle digs at Donald Trump. The dinosaurs were a combination of both CGI and animatronics, largely by a company called Important Looking Pirates. They were more colorful than those of earlier films, but not covered in feathers. The Brachiosaurus shown dying in the volcano eruption is supposed to be the one first seen in Jurassic Park, and the audience was brought to tears.
The raptor Blue has built a nest under the giant tree where Doctor Grant and the children dodged a falling Ford Explorer. Everyone on the set fell in love with the animatronic raptor Blue, with its soulful eyes and doglike manner. The Indoraptor was meant to remind us of Frankenstein’s Monster. Rexy, the T-Rex from Jurassic Park is now kind of a hero. Transfusing blood between Raptors and T-Rexes is possible, if the creatures existed, but dangerous. In emergencies, blood has been transfused between dogs and cats. There were five animatronic creatures in the movie, not just one as in the earlier movies. The Indoraptor’s haunted eyes came from a photo of a shell-shocked soldier in World War One and its body resembles the Zenomorph from Alien and the Redosaurus from Beast from 20,000 fathoms.
The image of the creepy Indoraptor lurking over Maisie’s bed came from Nosferatu. All this was to create a gothic horror vibe in the second half of the film. The beach where Owen, Claire, and Franklin wash up is the one on which Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissed in From Here to Eternity. A great deal of attention was paid to Claire’s footwear. Pratt and Howard are now Barbie Dolls. Some bioengineers think it would be possible to change chickens into dinosaurs. I wonder what Ian Malcolm would say about that. In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, it was stated that the park used geothermal energy to power everything, and there was a volcano on the island. Bryce Dallas Howard spent the entire movie thinking her character was going to die. There were 1200 visual effects shots, and 31 minutes of dinosaurs on screen. This movie had the most trivia items listed of any movie on IMDB—more than 500. Jeff Goldblum said those responsible should be drowned.
Trailer
Battle at big rock