THREE years ago, Colin Trevorrow broke the mold. He produced a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park that was worthy of its predecessor. Two follow-ups to the nineties classic had come and gone without much of the original sparkle but Jurassic World brought back the franchise magic.
Starring Chris Pratt – and still based loosely on the original novel by Michael Crichton – World was set on the island of Isla Nublar, two decades after the events of Park. For ten years, cloned dinosaurs had brought in eager crowds but when a new, genetically enhanced, exhibit broke free, chaos reigned.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom finds the theme park abandoned and the island inhabited by dinosaurs that survived the wrath of Indominus rex. Humanity is, however, not prepared to let them be – particularly when an impending volcanic eruption threatens to wipe the creatures out.
The story this time around sees Jurassic World’s former operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) attempt to relocate the dinosaurs to a US sanctuary, with the help of Pratt’s Owen Grady and Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell). Surely, nothing can go wrong with the transportation of deadly giant reptiles to mainland America.
Fallen Kingdom comes from JA Bayona, director of A Monster Calls, with a script by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly. Watch out for a cameo by Jeff Goldblum, reprising his Jurassic Park role.
Also out this week is Ben Pickering’s Welcome to Curiosity, a British crime thriller notable for being the world’s first film to be entirely financed through equity crowdfunding. The film stars Game of Thrones’ Amrita Acharia and Call the Midwife’s Jack Ashton and tells four interconnected stories surrounding the escape from prison of a notorious serial killer.
For those unfamiliar, crowdfunding is the practice of raising money from a large number of people, generally via the internet. Individuals who donate to such film projects are generally rewarded with a small prize – a signed poster, for example – for minor sums and production credits for larger donation.
Pickering and fellow producer Darren Ripley raised £200,000 for the film. No mean feat. Given the success story driving it, Welcome to Curiosity isn’t itself quite the triumph its makers will have hoped for but is produced with admirable visual flair.
-Toby Symonds
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