Jurassic World: Dominion

This movie was so utterly predictable it was a little painful. Luckily the nostalgia nods were sprinkled throughout and mostly not forced. You can tell they tried to have some funny one-liners which fell flat a lot of the time. They need to take some notes from Marvel on those. The CGI and action was as good as you'd expect and offered favorable intensity. The story itself was somewhat lazy IMO. Did I mention it was totally predictable? I left the theater going...meh.

6th film in the Jurassic series that brings back the main 3 actors of the original Jurassic Park movies to share the screen with the main actors of the Jurassic World Movies to give a grand sent off to the entire series. Unfortunately, both sets of actors are split up in two completely different stories that combine towards the climax and one of the stories ( The one with Neil, Dern and Goldblum) is ten times more interesting than the other one ( The one with Pratt and Howard). In fact, with a heavy rewrite and a better director at the helm, the story involving the original Jurassic Park characters would have a been a very good Jurassic Sequel on its own right. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so we are stuck with a another bad Jurassic World sequel that does not know on what it wants to be .

The story involving the original Jurassic Park cast is actual a very interesting one that involves corporate espionage and genetic engineering. A story on which if it had a stronger screenplay, a better director and a direct focus on what this series is really about , it would have been a great continuation of Michael Crichton's work and a great bookend to Steven Spielberg's first two Jurassic Park films (The original and it's only true and worthy sequel "The Lost World"). Unfortunately under Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly dimwitted screenplay, the story only scratches the surface of the subject matter and is shoehorned to run parallel with the other story in this movie, which is not very thought out and is really pretty bad . Fortunately for the audience, the characters of Alan Grant , Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm are as endearing as ever and the actors are having a fun. Jeff Goldblum can read a phone book and make it interesting, intelligent, funny and entertaining. His character's sarcastic wit is so on point in certain scenes that you end up thinking that Jeff is trying to break the 4th wall to let the audience know on how he really feels about this movie. Sam Neill is great as well, making a welcome return to his character and he actually looks happy to be in this film ( A far cry from the tired performance he gave in the horrible "Jurassic Park 3" but who can blame him) and Lara Dern is as intelligent, spunky and sassy as ever. The charisma and chemistry of all three of the returning Jurassic Park actors more than make up for the half baked plot line they are working with.

The same can't be said for the returning Jurassic World actors, whose plot line is a direct sequel to the events of the horrible "Fallen Kingdom" and it does not help that both Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard look disinterested in their roles. Pratt, who was a welcome addition in "Jurassic World" just looks tired and bored here and Howard, (who in my opinion had a harder character to play and that reason being is the fact that her character changes personalities from one film to the next ) looks ready to move on from this franchise. Their story involving the kidnapping of the clone child of "Fallen Kingdom" and Blue's own baby raptor is so bad that it's an anchor over the neck of this movie. Their story ends up as a bad rip off of the Jason Bourne series. You have shady bad guys, bad stereotypes, a unbelievable plane crash and a fight with dinosaurs in a city (Anybody who still crying over the T-Rex in San Diego in "The Lost World" should keep their mouths shut after they see this terrible sequence in this film). Not to mention the characters striking super hero poses in certain scenes, which makes this story impossible to take seriously. Fortunately or unfortunately if you think about it, the two parallel stories connect towards the climax and our heroes meet for the first time. Which is also eye opening because you can see how shallow the characters from "Jurassic World" are compared to the characters of "Jurassic Park". Not to mention the fact that the "Park" actors are making an effort to bring something to this mess while the "World" actors are just going through the motions.

Which is a shame because Neil, Dern and Goldblum remind the audience on why the original Jurassic Park is such a class act and that was because it had great characters and great actors behind them. Unfortunately, not even their Herculean efforts can stop this film for being crushed by the weight of its own stupidity.

Before I went to this film (because my Grandson is nuts about this series of films) I read one newspaper review. It wasn't glowing, but it was positive. Unfortunately, this is a mess. Others have already talked about the issues I have. Granted, this is an empty headed summer movie, it could still have been done with some serious thought. I was hanging in there throughout with a new dinosaur attack every three minutes, and velociraptors going at fifty miles per hour and not getting tired. Humans being assaulted time after time and yet showing no fatigue. I also didn't see a scratch on any of them. But the best of all was the promise made to a baby dinosaur and his mother that precluded saving the world from famine. Not to mentioned the coincidences of everyone showing up in just the right places. I still don't understand how they got into that facility so easily. The return of the original cast was not helpful other than Jeff Goldblum's sarcasm. Anyway, it's all been said. This is a poor movie.

I don't know whether this is a fabled memory, but a few years ago I think I read an interview where director Colin Trevorrow said that the story of Dominion was always his ultimate go-to, that Jurassic World and Fallen Kingdom were the stepping stones to there (almost as if it was gathering the right build-up with characters, fan anticipation, budget, and technological advances). For every reason imaginable, I believed him. Where Fallen Kingdom ended, you had endless opportunity to explore the world with dinosaurs running amok and causing mayhem. Final shots of Fallen Kingdom included the T-Rex at a zoo, the Mosasaurus attacking surfers, a velociraptor overlooking a suburban California, and pterodactyls towering above a tourist-populated Las Vegas. It was all there; think The Lost World's San Diego epilogue but on a grander scale with more dinosaurs. Throw in the military, philosophical conversations regarding their eradication versus their survival, advance some more characters, and you have a bona fide fun summer blockbuster.

This didn't happen.

No matter what my actual opinion is of the film hereon out, I can't help but be letdown with disappointment that Trevorrow either deluded himself into believing this was the kind of conclusion that fans yearned for ala War for the Planet of the Apes (which has a much more compelling protagonist that makes it work despite its story misdirection) or J. A. Bayona pulled a Rian Johnson and put him in a corner with the concluding chapter that he had to rectify and had no actual written plan of his own. And it's not that there isn't a medium where this story doesn't work just fine. I can imagine the main plot elements being adapted from, say, a novelization or a comic series. Hell, there was even that Battle at Big Rock short that was done which could have told these elements on their own, or at the very least introduced them. Instead, they threw in extremely disjointed story bits for this final chapter that seemed to have no source of origin. They felt like they were the contrivance meant to unite our two character groups, and nothing more.

Dominion starts off very okay. It shows that it can slow down, have a genuine heartbeat, provide pathos for the existence of our reptilian brethren, trot the globe to see how they have integrated (or not) with our species, and reintroduce characters new and old (with possible internal conflicts) to show how they would pave their globetrotting paths. They even fix some of the poorly written aspects of Fallen Kingdom such as maturing Franklin's character, giving better use to the laser-targeting attack system, and giving Maisie a more believable backstory. All of this is supported with fantastic animatronic work and much improved CGI blending with it. I thought the visuals were mostly a knockout and supported the onscreen setups.

Not only that, but Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum kindled a similar flame to their interactions in JP1 and you sat forward to watch those moments. I caught myself smiling quite a few times during those exchanges. Jeff Goldblum was especially used well as he was able to inject entertainment and comedy through his dialogue where the film otherwise was flat with on its attempts. They were not small cameo appearances and served crucial roles to the film. You buy where they are in their lives, and even though TLW and JP3 are retconned the actors clearly tapped into those experiences for their performances to accentuate their statuses.

Speaking of buy-in, I would have given this film a long leash on a lot of things they could have done or did with this movie. We hit the point where we can embrace the ridiculous in several places. Want to make Blue become Owen's pet and attack guard? Go right on ahead. Want to modernize the action and give our protagonists more ability and skill that you might see in the Fast & Furious franchise or with our human Marvel heroes? If the dinosaurs get their large share of the action as well, I'm on board (the Malta scene is a perfect example of this). Want to pay homage to the previous films as you conclude your franchise? That is what I expect. I also expect them to diversify this on a tonal level where need be as to not become too stale, and I think I was feeling that here. Hell, there is nearly a half-hour duration where not a single dinosaur is shown or brought up, and if it's in anticipation for what is to come while building character or story then I will let it play out.

The problem really arose both when the movie decided to abandon the broad, peregrinating experience and confine its setting. Dominion is the saga's epic conclusion and did not need to put on this hat. This was a major rug pull from what was anticipated, and soured itself spending an excruciatingly long time on something that left little entertainment, tension, or dinosaurs. When they do show up, the moments become a little one-note. Our good guys have plot armor such as raptors that can run at vehicle speeds but can't catch up to running characters, or when they are cornered they just get roared at or ran/flown/swam past until they find their way out of the situation, or when they know they can stand around and trust that a carnivore won't eat them because reasons. Bryce Dallas Howard got the best/most suspenseful dino encounters at this stage of the film and they actually work extremely well, but for a near 150-minute movie these are few and far between, and for this franchise you really have to sit and ask yourself if there is a chance that she won't survive any of these instances.

A lot of this could have been made better if our Rexy got some great moments, but even she was backdropped and upstaged too often to matter, or when she does come on screen it seems to be a rehashed occurrence from something of old. She looked and sounded good, though. I want to restate how good the dinosaurs actually looked here, and I want to commend the visual effects departments for what they were able to do in that department. If there was a niggle I'd have here, it would probably be in the weight of the raptor movement which felt too light and jittery. That probably only makes sense in my head, but the rest looked really good. If knowing that I would have to wait 21 years after 2001's Jurassic Park III to finally get the sequel with visuals that really soar, I would gladly take it. I just wish it was with a better film, or at least with a film that I would want to rewatch over and again. Instead, this left an aftertaste that makes me want to instead go and watch Top Gun: Maverick for a fourth time. Outside of demo material, I don't even know if I will be a completionist and get this on UHD a few months down the line. Normally one shouldn't fault a film for letting their own speculation become expectation, but in this particular instance I very much believe that you can. All signs and promotions hinted toward a different kind of movie and story, but despite the good parts it did have, this was too much of a misguided, ineffectual whimper.

I will say this for Colin Trevorrow: unlike other Hollywood writers/directors, who seem to be actively spiteful towards the classic sagas they are writing sequels to, when Trevorrow says he is a fan of Jurassic Park, I believe him.

That's why Jurassic World Dominion feels, for good and for ill, like the world's most expensive fan film, cramming in nearly every dinosaur known to man and every character, meme and in-joke from the previous five movies (button up your shirt, Malcom! Get your hat, Grant! Oh look, Nedry's old Barbasol can!).

I'm betting that if the great Pete Postlethwaite had not passed away we would have gotten Roland Tembo rappelling from a helicopter to shoot an Oviraptor in the face.

The movie is at least twenty minutes too long - Hollywood seems incapable to make a non-bloated blockbuster today, even Bond movies have the running time of The Thin Red Line - and it doesn't have a shred of the wit and intelligence of my beloved first Jurassic Park, but I did like a few set-pieces (the Therizinosaurus, the frozen lake...) and it's always nice to see the awesome Sam Neill back, so I guess the fan bait worked to an extent.

6/10.