Jurassic World Dominion Review

1993’s Jurassic Park remains one of the most revolutionary and innovative films ever made. Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel pioneered visual effects in a way that continues to influence movies today, and it remains a captivating combination of adventure and horror to this day. It’s no surprise that it spawned an entire franchise.

A second Crichton novel was adapted into The Lost World: Jurassic Park, before the series ventured off on its own starting with Jurassic Park 3 and, after lying dormant for fourteen years, was revived with Jurassic World. Though Jurassic World couldn’t match the impact of the original, it did bring out the best entertainment in the series since the 1993 classic, and kickstarted a trilogy of its own.

Jurassic World Dominion is the final film in the Jurassic World trilogy, and seems to be aiming to wrap up the franchise as a whole (though much like the dinosaurs in the films, don’t be surprised if it’s eventually dug back up later). On the plus side, Dominion is a fun ride, and a marked improvement over its immediate predecessor, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. On the downside, Dominion doesn’t really seem to have any new tricks to help reinvigorate the series, and it even squanders some of the set-up of the previous Jurassic World films.

Dominion is set four years after Fallen Kingdom, whose ending saw a number of dinosaurs released into the wild. In those four years, the dinosaurs have repopulated the Earth (I don’t know how exactly, there were only so many that were released at the end of Fallen Kingdom, and even if I can suspend my disbelief that the flying pterosaurs bothered to fly across the world, it wouldn’t explain how the land dinosaurs have spread so far. Whatever). Humans now coexist with dinosaurs all across the globe, which I admit is a fun direction to take this series. Director Colin Trevorrow said he wanted to depict a world where seeing a dinosaur would be akin to a bear encounter. You probably won’t experience it, but it’s a possibility. Again, it’s a fun idea. Which makes it a shame that Jurassic World Dominion doesn’t fully commit to it.

Instead, the film quickly reveals that an extinct form of locust has also appeared, and are devouring crops at an unparalleled rate, threatening the food chain and life on Earth. These locusts eat all crops except those produced by the Biosyn corporation. Paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) suspect Biosyn has bioengineered the locusts to control the world’s food supply. So she recruits her former colleague and love interest, paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), to help her uncover the conspiracy. Their friend and fellow Jurassic Park survivor Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) is working for Biosyn, and can help get his friends into Biosyn’s headquarters.

Meanwhile, the Jurassic World mainstays, Owen Grady (Super Mario himself, Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are once again a couple, and are the adoptive parents of Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), who is a cloned human wanted by Biosyn for research. Maisie – along with a baby raptor – is eventually kidnapped by goons hired by Biosyn (for an evil corporation, they really don’t do a good job at hiding their shady dealings). Owen and Claire then set out to rescue Maisie, with the help of a pilot named Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise). Naturally, this means that the Jurassic World and Jurassic Park characters inevitably cross paths in order to bring down Biosyn and it’s corrupt CEO, Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott). Yes, Dodgson. As in “Dodgson! Dodgson! We’ve got Dodgson here!” Man, I wish Wayne Knight could still be in these movies.

The film’s strengths lie in two areas: the first and most obvious being the dinosaurs themselves, which are once again brought to life with both CG and practical effects (reportedly, Dominion features more animatronic dinosaurs than ever before). The film’s second strength is the interactions between the characters of the Jurassic World trilogy and the stalwarts from the original Jurassic Park. This makes it unfortunate that the film really takes its sweet time for the new and classic casts to get together. But once they do, there’s fun to be had between the different generations of Jurassic Park casts. And even before they all meet up, there is a nostalgic glee in seeing the original Jurassic Park trio together for the first time since the original movie (many Star Wars fans critique the sequel trilogy for never having a reunion with Han, Luke and Leia, so thankfully Jurassic Park has avoided that pitfall).

Going back to the dinosaurs, Dominion has a lot of fun showing us dinosaurs that have thus far gone unrepresented in the series, most notably the giganotosaurus (which the film repeatedly reminds us is the “biggest land carnivore that ever lived”). Of course, series favorites like the tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptors also show up. Although no Jurassic sequel could hope to capture the same degree of majesty, thrills and horror with its creatures as the 1993 film, Dominion does a pretty good job at it and still brings its dinosaurs to captivating life with state-of-the-art visuals.

Had the film stuck with the idea of dinosaur encounters being an everyday possibility, and brought the characters together through means other than the locust conspiracy, Dominion would probably have been a much stronger, more imaginative movie. I can’t deny that I had a lot of fun while watching Jurassic World Dominion, but the addition of the locust plot feels forced onto the proceedings, and Maisie’s role in how it can be resolved feels contrived, like a means to justify why the character needed to be a clone. With that plot tacked on, the movie feels like it’s going through the motions for the series.

Not only does that plot detract from the dinosaurs (!?) and the set-up from the end of Fallen Kingdom, but it also seems to undo what the first Jurassic World set in motion. To clarify, Jurassic World brought back the character of Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong), Jurassic Park’s primary geneticist. Interestingly, despite only appearing in a single scene in Jurassic Park, Jurassic World reintroduced Wu as the new trilogy’s overarching antagonist, as he was secretly working to weaponize the dinosaurs he created. It was a nice twist that plucked a character from obscurity and made him the villain. But fast-forward to Dominion, and Dr. Wu is now an apathetic sad sack who helped Dodgson create the locusts, and is now remorseful for his actions. It’s a redemption arc that has seemingly come out of nowhere. So did he just give up on the idea of weaponized dinosaurs? Or did the filmmakers forget about that storyline? Retconning Wu to be the ultimate villain of the series was one of my favorite aspects of Jurassic World, so it’s a shame to see that element basically be dropped unceremoniously. And it makes for a less cohesive trilogy to just change course with something like that.

While no follow-up was ever going to top the impact of the 1993 original Jurassic Park, it is unfortunate that the first Jurassic World was the only sequel that felt like a worthy successor. And it seems the Jurassic World trilogy has followed the same pattern as the original Jurassic Park trilogy of starting with a good movie, followed up by a bad movie, and ending with a so-so movie.

I have to reiterate that I did have a lot of fun while watching Jurassic Park Dominion. Having the original cast back and seeing them team up with the newer characters is the good kind of nostalgic fanservice, and the dinosaurs still bring the suspense and scares. But whereas Jurassic World was fun just thinking about it after the credits rolled, I feel like whatever fun Dominion has ends as soon as the credits begin (to say nothing of whenever the locust plot takes center stage). It’s a more fleeting fun, but fun nonetheless.

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