This morning, as I’m preparing to buy tickets:

Me: “Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom?”
15yo: “Ugh”
Me: “Ugh?”
15yo: “Why does that movie even exist?”
Me: “People running from dinosaurs!”
15yo: “We’ve seen that.”
Me: “In a glass ball!”
15yo: “That too.”
Me: “And they get saved by a dino that eats another dino.”
15yo: “That too.”
Me: “People in a ball running from dinos eating dinos being devoured by a volcano OVER A CLIFF INTO THE OCEAN.”
15yo: “…”
Me: “eh?”
15yo: “Okay, that’s new, but it doesn’t FEEL new.”

True story, and it’s why I went by myself.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the cliff-diving hamsterball amid a volcano-powered dinosaur stampede marked the end of Act I. As were pretty much all the scenes from the trailers¹. Nice!

In that spirit, I won’t spoil the film for you. I will, however, state that it doesn’t really feel new. I did enjoy it more than Jurassic World, however. Much more competence on display, for starters. Plenty of stupid mistakes, too, but the people who are supposed to be good at their jobs are quite good at them.

Aaand some of them get eaten by dinos.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom clears my Threshold of Awesome because I was having fun pretty much the whole way through.

¹ Updated to add: I guess I didn’t see ALL the trailers. The movie didn’t get spoiled by trailers for ME, but it definitely got spoiled for other folks. 

Before I begin my review, a public service announcement: Incredibles 2 may trigger seizures in sufferers of photosensitive epilepsy¹, and may in other ways afflict anyone who is sensitive to flashing lights. Seriously. There’s a fight scene in a room full of patterned strobes, and in the darkened theater there will be no steady-state light source to provide refuge for your eyes. The scene is only a small slice of the movie but it’s enough to absolutely ruin your day if flashing lights can hurt you.

And now, the review: I really enjoyed Incredibles 2, but it petered out for me toward the end. My very favorite super-powered engagement took place mid-movie, and while there were plenty of cool heroic bits later, none of them lived up to that level of awesome.

Still, it’s a fun film. It suffers mostly in comparison to Incredibles, which is to my mind the best Fantastic Four film we’ve ever had (in the same way that Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek film we’ve ever had².) Incredibles 2 doesn’t clear my Threshold of Awesome, but I definitely want to see it again. In my own home, where I can fast-foward through the flashing lights, because they triggered a brief migraine, and I already get enough of those.

¹ I’m not a medical professional, nor an expert in epilepsy, but that scene hurt *me* and I’m just a guy who sometimes gets migraines. The picture on the Epilepsy Foundation’s page? Imagine that, strobing, only without the helpful yellow bits.
² “How can it be, if it’s not ACTUALLY a Star Trek film?” Hence the comparison. It’s kind of nuanced.