“Jurassic World: Dominon” Review
In “Jurassic World: Dominion,” the original cast of 1993’s “Jurassic Park” meet the protagonists of this current trilogy to fight off dinosaurs.
Some franchises can last a long time and relatively maintain quality. “Star Wars” is one of them, as is the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the “Mission Impossible” films. However, the “Jurassic Park” series isn’t one of them. With the exceptions of “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and “Jurassic World,” this series has been disappointing when compared to the original film that started it all. “Jurassic World: Dominion,” the last film in the “Jurassic World” trilogy, is a hollow clone of a marvelous film that should have stayed buried.
Set four years after “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” the dinosaurs have now been let loose on the world and humanity now has to coexist with these creatures including dinosaur trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and former manager of Jurassic World Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). When a corporation is using the science behind creating dinosaurs to cause an ecological disaster, Owen and Clarie must outrun murderous dinosaurs and work with “Jurassic Park” protagonists Allen Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm (Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum) to expose this company.
What makes this film terrible is just how soulless it feels. Occasionally there are exciting moments, but there’s none of the suspense that made the original so beloved. Granted, the main characters are a lot of fun and I can’t say enough positive things about Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Their characters were a lot of fun in “Jurassic World” and made watching “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” more tolerable. It’s also amazing to see Neil, Dern and Goldblum back as the main characters of the original “Jurassic Park” trilogy. They really do bring a lot of life to their scenes and it’s great to see them unite with the protagonists of this new trilogy. In the last 45 minutes.
This is a two-and-a-half hour film and you can feel that length. The film takes forever to get going and could have been cut down by at least 30 minutes. Half of the plot is not only ridiculously dull but has little to do with dinosaurs. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, there are going to be dinosaurs in this dinosaur film, right? Hello? Hello? Yes?
The ecological disaster I mentioned earlier isn’t even the dinosaurs being unleashed on the world, it’s genetically engineered locusts that are the size of small dogs. They don’t even hurt people except for the occasional scratch. Yes, crop devastation is scary but what’s scarier are giant bugs that also can kill people. Unless you have a serious fear of bugs, this isn’t going to frighten you.
Scenes where dinosaurs interact with the everyday world are incredibly few, further disappointing viewers of “Jurassic World: Dominion.”
What made the original “Jurassic Park” so engaging was this feeling of both wonder and suspense. Yes these dinosaurs were beautiful but there was also the possibility that some of them could kill you. That suspense is completely gone and there’s never this feeling that the main characters could die. Not only did the original film kill off some of its main characters but it also hurt them. One of the kids almost died by electrocution, Ian Malcolm was nearly killed by a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Ellie Sattler injured her leg. The main characters in this film don’t get a scratch on them.
As for the film’s villain, it's a complete slap in the face because of how boring he is. The main antagonist is Dodgson (Campbell Scott), the CEO of an evil corporation.. That’s right, the guy who handed the can of shaving cream to Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) in the first film is the villain now. Not only is he relentlessly dull, not only does every scene with him halt the film, but it appears that he’s trying to do a Jeff Goldblum impression. There’s only one Goldblum and trying to replicate that is pointless.
Why do these “Jurassic Park” films need human villains? Aren’t the dinosaurs enough? Even the first film knew that Dennis Nedry only needed to be around to cause the power to go out, then he could be killed. Plus, Dennis was a likably despicable man. Dodgson couldn’t hack it as a bad guy in a cheesy PSA, much less a “Jurassic Park” film.
When the dinosaurs do show up, they’re a lot of fun and the filmmakers actually use both CGI and practical puppets. Humanity having to coexist with these creatures is fascinating but all the footage you see in the trailers of dinosaurs with normal people barely makes it into the final film. The action centered on these animals is fairly entertaining, especially a chase scene through the streets of Malta, but I was disappointed in how few people died. When you think of dinosaurs living with humans, you’d like to see a Karen getting mauled by a velociraptor or a guy with truck nuts on his vehicle being totaled by a triceratops.
More dinosaur interaction was sorely needed. Without it, this film completely lost touch with the original's roots in enchantment, adventure, survival and horror. The finale of the film is fairly exciting when it decided to be a survival film with dinosaurs killing each other while hunting down the heroes.
While not without merit, this film sincerely disappointed me. While I can’t say that it’s worse than “Jurassic Park III” or “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” I think it’s best if this franchise went extinct until better people can make films without the relentless, lifeless grip of the soul-sucking studio system. This film doesn’t feel like any passion was put into it. Instead, it’s a way for Universal to make money off of an existing property they own.
To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum again, your studio heads were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses (Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, David Koepp, Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen) to accomplish something as fast as you can, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it and slapped it on a car commercial and now you’re selling it.
