'Jurassic World: Chaos Theory' Review: When Dinosaurs Ruled Netflix

The animated action-adventure series finds the 'Camp Cretaceous' team of youthful explorers grown up and chased by predators more deadly than dinosaurs.

Now Streaming: Did you know that Netflix had an animated show set in the Jurassic World universe that ran for five seasons? 

Uh, yeah, neither did I. 

Truth be told, I remember checking out the first episode of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous when it premiered in September 2020, during the initial phase of the COVID Pandemic. Two months later, I had a stroke, which was not directly related to watching the first episode of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, but perhaps explains why it got pushed back to the far reaches of my (temporarily) disabled brain. 

My brain has recovered -- 90%, the doctors say -- but I never caught up with Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, which followed the exploits of five young campers who got left behind on Isla Nublar after the dinosaurs broke out (see Jurassic World, 2015). Frankly, that first episode felt like it was made-for-kids, purely to expand the burgeoning Jurassic World franchise, which was all inspired by Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. In other words, it was not for me at the time. 

Since then, I began this here Everything But Horror newsletter and made it my mission to watch movies and TV shows that were made-for-kids but could be enjoyed by adults, including those of us without children. With all that in mind, I finally watched the first episode of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory and was pleasantly surprised to 'discover' a show that was evidently made-for-me, a single adult without children.  

The show begins after the events in Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and makes continuous  references to events, characters, and tragic character events in the show-- especially a sobering death of one of the main characters, so SPOILER --  which initially made it difficult for me to follow, since I never watched the show. Yet the action is quickly-paced and exciting, so even without that foreknowledge, I found the new show to be compelling to watch. 

Details about the characters are filled in 'on the fly,' as the lead characters, who are scattered throughout the U.S. mainland, must reunite in order to fight and/or flee a deadly mysterious force that is stalking them all, for reasons that are not made clear until quite late in the 10-episode first season. Are dinosaurs gathering together on their own accord and plotting against humans? Is that even possible? Or have human(s) decided to search for the Isla Nubar camp kids for unknown nefarious reasons?

What makes the show fun is that it lives up to its title, which was referenced directly in Michael Crichton's very good original novel, first published in 1990. Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, developed by Scott Kreamer and Zack Stentz, picks up six years after the events in Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, so the young kid heroes are now young adult heroes. The voice acting is all very good, featuring returning actors Paul-Mikél Williams, Sean Giambrone, Raini Rodriguez and Kausar Mohammed, from Camp Cretaceous, as well as Darren Barnet as the heroes. 

The dinosaur action gets started right away, and in many ways, the first ten episodes are one continuous chase scene, where the heroes are always running for their lives, while occasionally stopping to eat and/or be terrorized by new dinosaurs that are chasing and/or wanting to eat them, including the pesky ol' velociraptors. As mentioned, this is a direct sequel to Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and is set in the time period between the live-action Jurassic World: Fallen World (2018) and Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), which means that dinosaurs are reclaiming the entire world and can pop up at any moment. 

That can be fun and certainly gives the show much energy, while avoiding the trap of Jurassic World: Dominion, which went with the idea of packing in more dinosaurs than were strictly needed for plot purposes, simply because every scene felt naked without some dinosaurs. 

Here, there are plenty of dinosaurs, with a good variety of different types, along with many references to, yes, Camp Cretaecous but also other Jurassic World films. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, it never becomes too much; dinosaurs come and dinosaurs go, but they all feel essential to the narrative and are serving specific purposes, which makes the whole show more satisfying to watch and more emotionally involving. 

It flows well and as the character interplay becomes clearer, it's impossible not to root for these characters, especially since they are dinosaur defenders. The villains? That's another story. [Netflix]