Jurassic World: Dominion | Director: Colin Trevorrow | Rating: 7/11 |
The end of the Jurassic Era is upon us with a lot of big shoes to fill. Can this trilogy conclude in a satisfactory way? Will the original Jurassic Park cast work with the newer Jurassic World cast? Can it live up to the expectations of those of us who were actually in the theaters opening weekend in 1993 for Jurassic Park? The simply answer to all of these questions is no. Does that make this a bad movie? Also, no. However, this reviewer is getting tired of all the reboots and remakes of every iconic film. Here’s where Jurassic World: Dominion dropped the ball.
When we left Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom we saw a pair of Pteranodons flying over the Las Vegas strip. Humans must now coexist with dinosaurs. Leaving the theater in 2018 we immediately began the countdown to Dominion. We had to see how dinosaurs would destroy/change our present day world, and that’s where everything went wrong.
Jurassic World: Dominion had every chance to be an original film with new iconic dialogue and scenes. Dinosaurs forming habitats in major cities, other dinosaurs completely demolishing historical ruins. Do we eradicate them, or save them? New locations, new playgrounds, the ideas there are endless. Instead this film, essentially, creates a third dino theme park where everything goes wrong and we have to escape/abandon this new dino park yet again. When will they learn?! When it comes to coexisting with dinosaurs we only see short news clips and montage sequences that bring no true insight to what’s happening in the world. Put it this way, to me the Jurassic World: Dominion 5-min prologue was more exciting than the film itself.
Sure, it was wonderful to see Dr. Alan Grant, Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Ellie Satler together again. Seriously! However, did they need to have these beloved characters mainly recreate fan favorite dialogue and scenes from Jurassic Park? No. It’s a fun throwback, but it’s getting overdone by every franchise film. That energy could’ve been spent on building better connective tissue between the Park cast and World cast, eventually leading to new fan favorite moments.
With that said, the range of dinosaurs depicted in any Jurassic movie is never a disappointment and Dominion cannot be faulted there either. In fact the best moment in the entire film might be what I’m referring to as the ‘Mortal Kombat! Fight!’ scene between to our apex predators. When it comes to the emotional tone scale, the most felt on-screen connection goes to Blue and her daughter. Yes, that’s right, the CGI raptors had more chemistry than Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.
All expectation hangovers aside, Jurassic World: Dominion is a solid film that leaves one big question unanswered. With many dinosaurs still roaming the earth, what happens next?