As the fifth installment in a series, 2018’s Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom had to find new ways to break the beaten path. These were fiery on the one hand and creepy on the other. Because the dinosaur blockbuster tells a disaster drama in the first half and mutates into a slasher film in the second half. Despite the huge budget, unusual means were used for the effects. You can now find out what the result looks like on Netflix (if you have a subscription).
Over 500 million dollars and a pile of cat litter flowed into the dinosaur spectacle
Fallen Kingdom continues the story of Jurassic World (2015), which in turn reinvigorated the Jurassic Park series starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Three years after the events of the last film the dinosaurs on the Islar Nublar are threatened by a volcanic eruption. Claire (Howard) and Owen (Pratt) embark on a dangerous rescue operation.
The volcano established in Michael Crichton’s first novel actually erupts. In order to depict the fiery danger, the film team did not only use computer effects.
In a scene in the first half of the film, Claire is threatened by a dinosaur and the approaching lava masses. CGI was used for the final version of the lava. In order to create the most realistic light effects possible, cat litter was also set on fire. In an interview with The Thrillist, visual effects supervisor David Vickery explained the mission like this:
We had a crack in the ceiling that was filled with kitty litter soaked in some kind of flammable liquid. There were 12 different nozzles that could drop this kitty litter in different spots and that gave us those vast, beautiful streams of liquid firefalling from the ceiling. It also gave us this wonderful interactive lighting and a really interesting smoky atmosphere.
You can catch a glimpse of the cat litter scene in Jurassic World 2 in this official still:
Universal
Jurassic World 2: Fallen Kingdom
A total of $516 million was invested in the sequel, according to Universal Studios tax data (via Forbes). Unfortunately, we don’t know how much of it ended up in cat litter.
More about the film:
Is the sci-fi adventure worth it on Netflix?
Become in The Fallen Kingdom some problematic story decisions met that lead the series even closer to science fiction or make little sense in the context of character development. Apart from that, director JA Bayona (Das Waisenhaus) proves to be the right man to stage both elaborate moments of spectacle and to portray the dinosaurs as a danger again.
The highlight of Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom is not the volcanic eruption, but the nasty little horror movie, who hides in the second half. Here the so-called Indoraptor walks in the footsteps of big slasher villains and terrorizes the residents of a villa.
Even the sleek dinosaur killer cannot hide a major weakness of the sequel films: The human staff surrounding Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard remains as uninteresting as ever. Jurassic World 2 is therefore more of a recommendation for dinosaur fans and anyone who wants to end the evening with a bit of blockbuster action.