Greetings and salutations, my friends.

This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, I'm gonna give you guys my take of "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom".

Here's the rundown of this sequel:

Three years after the closure of Jurassic World following the Indominus Rex rampage, Isla Nublar's volcano has grown incredibly active and threatens to kill off the island's remaining dinosaurs. Despite the advocacies made to save the animals, the U.S. Senate ultimately decrees that no efforts will be made to rescue them. This is much to the shame and sadness of Claire Dearing, who is the leader of the Dinosaur Protection Group.

However, Claire is later summoned to the North California estate of Sir Benjamin Lockwood, who is the former partner of the late John Hammond. There, Lockwood proposes a plan to relocate the dinosaurs to a new island sanctuary. Immediately accepting the offer, Claire is accompanied by DPA co-workers Franklin Webb and Zia Rodriguez, and former Jurassic World co-worker Owen Grady.

Unknown to everyone, Lockwood's assistant, Eli Mills, has his own plans for the dinosaurs. Especially Blue, who is Isla Nublar's last Velociraptor.

Before I reveal my thoughts on this movie, I'd like to tell you guys that I'm really sorry for the delay. I hoped to get this review done before 2022 ended, but writing it down turned out to be an incredibly big challenge for me.

In preparation for reviewing Fallen Kingdom, I watched the film twice last year just so that I could get my brain going. Just like when I was making my review of its predecessor, if I may add. As I was creating the review, I had to do a lot of hard thinking on what to write, as well as some quick edits to ensure everything was just perfect, which made creating the review take longer than expected. But, I'm happy to finally complete it regardless, and I think everything came out quite well.

As for whether I've had much of a relationship with this movie, that'd be a yes. I watched Fallen Kingdom for the first time in theaters, and later got a DVD and Blu-ray copy of this sequel to have in my home video collection.

Retrospectively, even after seeing the film twice last year...

I still found "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" to be one of the most awesome sequels I ever saw! And one of the most underrated, considering it apparently has an infamous reputation.

For instance, the direction by J.A Bayona, and the story by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, were fantastic!

When it came to expanding off the first movie's aftermaths, creating a narrative that was inspired and consistent, and providing some world building in the process, Trevorrow and Connolly excellently did all of the above. But, it's hard to deny that this was Bayona's every step of the way.

Based on how often I've read about Bayona's involvement, and as I look back on the times I watched this movie, I noted that he positively influenced the film into something better than likely intended. He turned Fallen Kingdom into perhaps the most emotionally-invested member of the Jurassic franchise, because there were more dramatic, saddening, and heartfelt scenes in this sequel than I can remember. The humorous and witty bits were fun to watch too, and they successfully lightened the mood enough to help viewers relax from the intense parts.

Plus, the thrilling and suspenseful moments were amazing. Everything about those parts carried an unpredictability that put me on the edge of my seat, and Bayona's frequent use of lights and shadows added a sense of spookiness that intensified the effect. Especially for the scenes taking place either at night or in dark rooms. The style, execution, and tone of all the thrilling and suspenseful scenes was also strongly reminiscent of the ones directed by Steven Spielberg in the first Jurassic Park movie, only scarier and more intense.

And just like in the first "Jurassic World" film, the themes and morals this sequel had about greed and ambition were marvelously well-done. If the mission was to portray these aspects from individual people, I think Bayona and the writers successfully accomplished that goal. The scenes depicting the dinosaur auction provided terrific testification of how powerful individual greed can be, because each auction attendant and supervisor showed clear determination to gain more power or money for themselves.

The special effects were as spectacular as ever, if I may add.

I don't know about you guys, but when it came to ensuring that the mixed use of CGI and animatronics didn't carry a single bit of uncanny valley effect, the SE team didn't messed around! They made the skin of the dinosaurs literally look like that of actual reptiles, particularly lizards; even the new dinosaurs were excellently created, my favorite being the Baryonx. In addition, the SE team not only made the Indoraptor intimidating through its appearance alone, they made the new hybrid a spine-chilling creature by capturing its unpredictable and unstable nature.

Along with this, the music by Michael Giacchino was as magnificent as ever.

As with the first film, Giacchino created melodies that were very nostalgic yet carried something completely his own. But, the original melodies he made specifically for this sequel were deeply mystifying, and they showcased his abilities to make something new and fresh no matter what project he worked on. I particularly enjoyed the melodies he made for the scenes of danger and suspense, because they gave off a horror-vibe that was deeply mystifying. On top of this, his use of chorus-vocals was enchanting.

Finally, the acting, characters, and character development were splendid.

Returning from the first "Jurassic World" film, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were awesome in their reprisals of Owen Grady and Claire Dearing. The two of them wonderfully translated the personal impacts the first movie's events had on their characters, and the way they retained the spirits of their roles while bringing a sense of something new showcased talent at its finest. Heck, most critics apparently say that Pratt's talents seemed unusually restrained compared to his appearance in the first movie, but in my opinion...he did a brilliant job maintaining Owen's humor and charm while incorporating a newfound maturity. To top it all off, both Owen and Claire had phenomenal development throughout the movie, and the chemistry and romance between them was as spritely as ever.

In regards to Jeff Goldblum's return as Ian Malcolm, there's one thing I agree with many others on involving it. Despite how prominently featured Goldblum was in trailers and commercials, Malcom only had two scenes in the entire film, which felt incredibly strange. I didn't think that was necessarily a setback, though. In all two scenes, Goldblum showed that he didn't lose his touch reprising the character, and he gave Malcolm tremendous presence regardless. Plus, BD Wong was as spot-on as ever in the role of Dr. Henry Wu.

Likewise, the film's new characters were delightful additions to the franchise, and the cast members portraying them gave superb performances.

When it comes to the Jurassic franchise as a whole, one thing I'd like to admit is that the villains weren't particularly big standouts to me. The majority of them always seem to be greedy business people who want to use dinosaurs and genetic power for themselves, something that Eli Mills is no exception to. However, I loved that the filmmakers apparently didn't make Mills to be merely that either. As I looked back on the character more, I realized that Eli Mills was an alternate reflection to Claire, as well as a representation of what kind of person she was before realizing dinosaurs and genetic power weren't something to control. Rafe Spall did a remarkable job portraying the character, and the way he translated Mills as someone more three-dimensional and personal compared to other antagonists of the franchise was admirable.

Similarly, Ken Wheatley may not have been a character I particularly liked, but I can see that was basically the idea behind him too. Ted Levine was splendid in the role, and it was interesting to see how he translated Wheatley as a cold and heartless version of Owen. Plus, Toby Jones nailed it with playing Mr. Eversoll. Eversoll himself was not only a great representation of the corrupt business moguls in our world today, his character practically infused the themes of individual greed and ambition.

Outside of this, James Cromwell was tremendous in the role of Sir Benjamin Lockwood, and the part his character played in the world building aspects was deeply intriguing. Daniella Pineda was also fabulous in the role of Zia Rodriguez, and so was Justice Smith in his portrayal of Franklin Webb. All three aforementioned characters had a great amount of development and personality, that's for sure.

If I were to pick what newcomer gave the best performance, though, it'd definitely be Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood. She performed her character with perhaps the greatest amount of depth and emotion, and the personality and innocence she incorporated made Maisie instantly lovable. Out of all the new characters, Maisie was the one who grew the most throughout this motion picture, especially when her origins were coming into play.

In conclusion, "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" may not be perfect, but it's still one of the Jurassic franchise's best installments, as well as a worthy successor to the original. It showcases thoughtful and creative filmmaking at its finest, the acting and characters were phenomenal, everything!

So, I rate "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" a solid five out of five stars.