Ugh, I thought it was awful. Every single plot point in the film relies on the characters making bad decisions or deus ex machina. Warning, my entire post is spoilers.
Thar be spoilers (and a bit of a rant):
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The characters didn't feel like real people, they felt like exaggerated caricatures following stereotypes. The romance subplot was unnecessary and forced, not to mention the unabashed rhetoric; "When you have kids," "If," "When." As if not wanting kids is ridiculous.
But it's fine, shes stereotypical serious if airheaded businesswoman and shes practically got to be trembling at the knees the moment she's near stereotypical cock-of-the-walk ex-military man. And let's not forget the kids, the generic needy 10-year old and his angsty and hormonal teenage brother who can't help himself from awkwardly staring at every woman in sight. Let's not forget the villain of the piece, who somehow thinks that breeding/training velociraptors is militarily viable, when things like drones are actual things that exist, and robotics are improving constantly as well as being far less labor-intensive to train, and are far less likely to turn around and eat the handler.
And then we get to the actual story, and wow, where do I even begin? I mean, I guess the two biggest offenders are the scene at the old park, and the dino fight at the end; my issues are thus:
The Old Park:
Alright, so the kids get to the old park, sans way to get back to the main facility. They've been dogged by a super intelligent genetically modified supersaur, but gave it the slip by diving down a waterfall. The dinosaur has shown intelligence enough that it wouldn't be fooled this easily, and a perseverance that it wouldn't give up after only a few seconds, but it's a movie so whatever, suspension of disbelief, I'll let that slide. They get out, walk past the wreckage of a Jeep, just outside a mysterious door. They walk into here and surprise! Your nostalgia is being milked at the old park! They show the old goggles from the first movies which A) still somehow work (batteries?) and B) are totally irrelevant.
Anyway, they find a 20+ year old Jeep that's overgrown in some kind of kudzu or whatnot, and well I'll be damned if these two kids aren't immediately able to tell the the only issue with it is a dead battery, even though I mean it's 20+ years old and has plants growing in it, and if it runs on gasoline, well that would have gone bad by now, but I think I recall them being electric, but that really doesn't help them, because an electric vehicle has a big battery that you can't just toss in a replacement, not to mention the typical mice in various air filters and gnawed through hoses and whatnot you'd realistically get here, but no, just a dead battery, and a regular car battery sized battery too, so it must be gasoline, and while they don't have any spare parts or batteries in the garage, it's a good thing the crashed jeep still has a battery which miraculously fits despite being a 20+ year newer model, and it's a good thing none of the dinosaurs have caught on to them being there.
But anyway these kids fix this Jeep and happen to know the way back to the main facility and leave not one minute before airhead business lady and cocky ex-military man show up, genetic supersaur in tow. That's my problem with that scene, and where I really started to think that it wasn't just poorly written characters, but a poorly written film in general.
The Dinosaur Fight:
So a bunch of convoluted dumb stuff occurs where we find out the supersaur is part raptor and able to talk to the trained raptors and get them to betray cocky ex-military man, who has been up until now the de facto leader of the pack of velociraptors but is suddenly outclassed. Dinos vs. humans ensues, humans are losing, then the raptors (only three out of four though. This is important.) encounter cocky ex-military man and he's desperate and the decide to fight for him again, but the supersaur is ultimately too much for them, and it kills all but one of them, who seems to be about to become a delightful snack when a T-Rex that the raptor has no reason to view as anything other a predator which has been freed shows up on the scene, having been freed to fight the supersaur.
It seems even for a while, until the supersaur manages to kill the seemingly final raptor so it can turn full attention to the T.Rex which the film has spent so much time establishing the the supersaur is so much more badass than the T.Rex so you can imagine well about how that fight is going to go. Just as the T.Rex is about to die, the fourth raptor leaps in from the shadows, teaming up with the T.Rex. (It at one point is actually riding the T.Rex's shoulders), they manage to drive the supersaur back toward a pool where the giant dino-whale (mosasaurus?) suddenly leaps out of the water to eat the supersaur and then recede. Mind you, the entire duration of the fight, the humans(ex-mil, srsbiz lady, and ages 10&16 here) stood eyes agog rather than taking advantage of it to high-tail it the fuck out of there. But that's fine, because after giving each other bro nods, the raptor and T.Rex decide to go gentle into that good night and leave them to their peace.
I mean, these just strike me as the worst offending moments. I could talk about how it makes no sense to call for a thermal scan when you have a tracking device in the dinosaur (This is how it gets out)? Why do they not use these implants like wireless electric fences to deliver a shock whenever they leave captivity range? Why do they add in a divorce subplot for the children? (Answer; so some good can come of the trip. They seem to rescind any standing divorce plans upon being reunited with the kids.)
The movie was written like bad Jurassic Park fanfaction; rather than making me care about the characters, it immediately assumed I did. The human villain was poorly thought out, and like I said; EVERY. SINGLE. PLOT. DEVELOPMENT. relied on either bad decision making or deus ex machina. It was so busy assuming that it was good that it forgot to actually do anything to make the film good.
I mean, I understand that it's about an amusement park with genetically bred dinosaurs; some suspension of disbelief is required. I have no problem with that, though. The first Jurassic Park film was quite successful of turning this concept into a good movie. Sure, it's unfair to hold it to that standard, but surely I should hold it to
some standard. Just my rant, though.
EDIT: And don't even get me started on the cheeky one-liners and horrid attempts at humor.