As promised, here we are talking about the Jurassic Games sequel, as in the actual one.
I still can’t quite believe the Dinosaur World situation, despite reviewing it and explaing it’s linkage to The Jurassic Games series, i still kinda struggle to accept this absurd situation.
But this time Ryan Bellgardt is back with a proper follow up to his mash up of dinosaur film with sci-fi virtual battle royale shenanigans, more in the vein of the Running Man than anything else, now that i think about it.
Like in the first film, we are in a dystopian future where authorities force selected deathrow prisoners into a seasonal death show, The Jurassic Games, where they compete in a VR simulation against deadly traps and expecially dinosaurs, this time with the only one left standing being able to avoid death by lethal injection.
…. or is it? There is a bit more to this edition of the death game show, which i won’t spoil, but roughy it is more of the same, with new contestants, new rules, new games/challenges, some new and returning villains, but as most good sequels do, Extinction ups the ante by also having the show being run by a strangely acting IA program, and a survivor from a previous Jurassic Game coming back to help people kill the entire simulation dead and hopefully ending the death game forever.
There’s also more variety in the challenges themselves, as we get Animorphs style transformations as new kind of power ups, Star Wars-style speed chaser sequences, roman arena battles, we even have a fuckin uber mecha assault robosuit!
And i love the committment to the sillyness, like when one player gets-uses the “dinosaur Animorph” transformation item, they also growl and move about in the few shots were we see their face against holographic displays, like we’re seeing the inside of the “mecha pilot cabin”.
Acting is decent, by both the returning and new actors… mostly, like nothing Oscar worthy, but it’s clear they are putting effort, plus the script has some nice twists that were pulled off nicely, and some clever writing in terms of playing to the “dystopian death game” angle and its priorities.
And i understand why it took 7 years after the first one (hence Dinosaur World existing as a quickie to raise money for this one, i would assume), since, while still on the low budget end of things, they clearly had a lot more moolah for this one and it shows, with all the caveats and convenient-smart choices of it being a virtual world that help in this regard (and some bad effects, like the boulder one i’m not sure if it was intentionally meant to be funny or not), but honestly, it’s impressive, and making labels such as “B-movies” feel more outdated, honestly.
Even so, The Jurassic Games: Extinction is still a lot of fun, arguably even more fun than the first film, but even with a lot more going on in terms of characters and subplots, the worldbuilding is limited, with all the events feeling a bit too self-contained, maybe also because of budgetary constraints, and we don’t get much of the world outside besides angry spectators watching the bloodsport at the pub and so on.
On the upside it’s also not overly long, fairly short, barely 100 minutes, and i feel is about as long as it needs to, which draws less attention the worlbuilding being so n so, and why not, i’m hopeful this can be fixed in the next installment, teased at the end, and you know what?
Yes, in this case i DO wanna see more, and it’s telling this is something else when i do care about worldbuilding in the first place in a dinosaur battle royale film, so yeah, please, Ryan Bellgardt, keep making these, i genuinely do wanna see where Jurassic Games 3 will bring us!
Recommended.
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