Three years ago, director Colin Trevorrow brought Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park franchise back to life. ‘Jurassic World’ was a huge success, the dinosaur action was as jaw-dropping as it was exciting. The film grossed over a billion dollars worldwide and brought dinosaurs back to the big screen with one almighty bang.

The follow-up to that film begins with a volcano erupting on Isla Nublar, the island with all the dinosaurs on that we first saw way back in the 1993 blockbuster ‘Jurassic Park’. Three years have passed since the dinosaur theme park that featured in the previous film was destroyed and now the idea is to round up all the dinosaurs and move them onto a new island, away from the liquid magma that is being propelled across the landscape of their current home. Rather predictably, the rehousing of the dinosaurs goes horribly wrong, that’s where the film takes a dark twist.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are both assured in their roles, Pratt’s performance as the wise-cracking dinosaur therapist is particularly impressive. The pair soon realise there’s a plan afoot to steal dinosaurs and sell them as sophisticated weaponry, that’s when the film really races into life.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a lot of fun. The best parts are, without a shadow of a doubt, the scenes with the dinosaurs in. There’s no point during the film where you think you’re watching a computer-generated image of a dinosaur, they look as real as the humans.

A major problem, however, is the film’s endless rush to get to the next plot point. The end result is that none of the main characters ever really feel like they’re in any significant danger. One moment in the first half of the film, where a dinosaur is facing certain doom, is more emotionally affecting than anything that happens to the human characters.

The original Jurassic Park film has stood the test of time and is still held in such high regard, 25 years after its release. Unfortunately, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom isn’t in the same league. It’s an enjoyable film with some stunning action scenes that must be seen on the big screen to be fully appreciated but it lacks the depth and sophistication of the original blockbuster.