I’m sure he’ll be fine. Image : Universal

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom won’t be in theaters for another two months, but we saw the first few minutes at CinemaCon this week. And right off the bat, director J.A. Bayona shows a penchant for suspense and tension we haven’t seen since the original film.




The footage begins underwater. We see a few lights and realize it’s a small submarine. The sub is moving when two huge doors open in front of it and the sub goes inside. Text tells us we’re back at Isla Nublar, four years after the events of Jurassic World. One of the guys in the sub is tense, but his friend says to relax. “Anything that was in here would be dead by now,” he says. The light seem to confirm that as we see bones on the ground. Then, the sub finds what it wants: the bones of the Indominus rex, dragged to its death by the Mosasaurus at the end of the first film.

A claw extends from the sub and cuts a piece of a tooth from the Indominus and sends it up to the surface with a balloon. As the camera follows the balloon, a crash of lightning reveals a huge shadow floating above. We find out that the sub was able to open the gate to the Mosasaurus paddock because they have a man on the surface, hacking the system. He tells the sub to get out of there because he wants to close the gate. As they turn around, a giant eye opens right next to their sub. The film then cuts to the surface where we see the light of the sub underwater and then, suddenly, it goes out.


A helicopter lands to extract everyone but the hacker is still trying to hail the sub. He doesn’t want to leave his friends. But, as he’s working, the men in the helicopter see something moving in the tree line. They begin screaming to get the hacker’s attention but he can’t hear him. Lightning crashes and among the trees is, who else? The T-rex. Finally, the hacker turns around, sees the T-rex and screams. He starts running but the helicopter is already taking off. The T-rex smashes the device to close the gate as she’s running after the hacker, and then the helicopter drops a ladder for him to climb up. The hacker jumps on the ladder and begins climbing. Winds and rain are blowing, making the T-rex keep missing the ladder. She bites the ladder and the guys in the helicopter are not having it. They scream and yell to cut the ladder off, sacrificing the hacker until, finally, the T-rex bites off the bottom part of the ladder and the hacker is safe to climb up.



Which is, of course, exactly when the now free Mosasaurus jumps out of the water and eats him before he gets in the helicopter.

So, yeah, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom stars off with quite the bang. We’ll see the rest on June 22. Are you excited?