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Streaming users play god as the mediocre middle chapter in an all-round tedious trilogy jumps 65 places

Difficult second movie syndrome is a very real thing.

jurassic world 2 fallen kingdom
via Universal

We’re not here to claim that the Jurassic World trilogy wasn’t incredibly popular all over the world, because the fact all three installments earned at least a billion dollars will tell you that anyone who states otherwise doesn’t have a leg to stand on, but it’s not out of the question to say the drop-off in quality between each film was noticeable and fast.

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The opener was a solidly entertaining legacy sequel that laid the groundwork for what was to come, but sequel Fallen Kingdom took a huge downturn in quality, something that was hammered home by a precipitous drop on Rotten Tomatoes from Jurassic World‘s 71 percent score to its successor’s 47 percent. On the plus side, though, it was still better than Dominion.

jeff goldblum jurassic world fallen kingdom

Literally blowing up Isla Nublar to give the mythology a fresh coat of paint, the interminably uninteresting human cloning subplot is perhaps the least interesting story thread across the entire six-film saga, while setting the back half at a country mansion was an admirable attempt to flip blockbuster convention on its head by narrowing the scope, albeit one that backfired.

Either way, the movies remain huge draws on-demand long after they’d hoovered up 10 figures at the box office, with Fallen Kingdom currently on a streaming tear. As per FlixPatrol,director J.A. Bayona’s contribution to Jurassic Park has leaped a whopping 65 places on the Rakuten charts overnight, so there’s clearly still a whole lot of people willing to subject themselves to the dinosaur fantasy that resolutely struggles with “difficult second chapter syndrome”.