Juan Antonio Bayona would not have been the first name on my list to direct a Jurassic Park movie, and yet we have in theaters this summer Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom (2018), a film that is surprisingly close to Bayona's established cinematic personality. Indeed, you could view it as a melding of three of Bayona's other films. The first part of the film, in which a volcanic eruption destroys Isla Nubar and the remains of the Jurassic World theme park (already a wreck after the events of the previous film) recalls The Impossible and its terrifying depiction of the Christmas Tsunami. The second part of the film, set in the gloomy gothic mansion of Benjamin Lockwood, who has financed a "rescue mission" for the dinosaurs to prevent their extinction, is a classic "old dark house" scenario, territory that Bayona covered in his breakout film, The Orphanage. And, of course, you have monsters, which was the subject of Bayona's last film, A Monster Calls. This could almost be called an auteur's film, were it not a cog in a multi-billion dollar franchise. It certainly has a different personality than its predecessors. It even manages a note of tragedy once or twice. I like it better than its immediate predecessor, which is faint praise after what I said about that film.
Note: this contains spoilers galore.
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