Courtney Howard // Film Critic
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION
Rated PG-13, 2 hours and 36 minutes
Directed by: Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, Scott Haze
Maybe we’re doomed to repeat history, but the 3rd film in both the JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC WORLD series mark all-time lows. And while it’s certainly not the first time a Steven Spielberg mega-hit adaptation hasn’t birthed shrewd sequels (ahem, the JAWS series), it’s remarkable that new minds didn’t build off the well-designed blueprint laid out in front of them. Akin to a creatively bankrupt shrug, both JURASSIC PARK III and now director-co-writer Colin Trevorrow’s DOMINION have cemented themselves in cinema history as dueling messy, contrived behemoths.
However, the latter series’ soulless, wildly disappointing final chapter – which began amassing overarching narrative momentum back in 2015 with focused, clever intentions – earns the extra badge of dishonor as the worst in the entire franchise. It sidelines its gigantic star attractions of not only bigger, badder dinosaurs, but also the reunion of beloved legacy characters. Instead, it gives more weight to two ill-conceived, ham-handled stories centered on a swarm of genetically-engineered locusts and a cloned teen girl caught in the throes of a PINOCCHIO-like identity crisis. Undercooked, convoluted and redundant, this franchise’s failure to properly evolve makes us yearn for its extinction.
A few years after young Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), a clone of the daughter of Jurassic Park’s owner, willingly chose to let loose a bunch of dangerous dinosaurs on the unsuspecting citizens of the world, humans are still experiencing the growing pains of co-existing with these prehistoric beasts. It’s also driven Miss Maisie into hiding, protected by her surrogate father and mother, Owen Grady and Claire Dearing (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, whose on-screen chemistry lessens with each installment). Yet their peaceful exile comes to an end once the 14-year-old and raptor Blue’s baby Beta are captured by a nefarious local poacher (Scott Haze), whose mysterious financier is on the hunt for both.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) catches wind of a crisis plaguing independent farmers in the mid-west: a giant swarm of locusts suspiciously destroying their crops, but not those of neighboring farmers who’ve planted seeds from the Monsanto-like corporation BioSyn. This bio-tech firm run by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, playing a IYKYK returning character) is dedicated to preserving dinosaurs’ habitats while also preparing new minds to go into scientific, archeological and anthropological fields. As she solidifies her corporate conspiracy theory, she enlists Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to help investigate. Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who is conveniently teaching at the dino sanctuary/ BioSyn lab, has extended her an invitation – one she and Alan take him up on. The film then struggles to blend together the established series stalwarts’ stories, while adding two severely under-written characters into the fray: Han Solo-ish pilot Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) and Dodgson’s helpful assistant Ramsay Cole (Mamoudou Athie).
Trevorrow and co-screenwriter Emily Carmichael (working from a story by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly) have rather bafflingly ignored the entertaining premise cued up for them in 2018’s FALLEN KINGDOM, which centers on humans and dinos co-existing and any further evolution that would threaten both species. Instead, they appear to combine a lackluster B-movie about mutant locusts with an underdeveloped, rote idea deploying the familiar franchise theme where Frankenstein’s monster causes irreparable chaos. Making things worse, the end note is frustratingly similar to the previous film. It’s like they worked overtime to mess this up.
Pacing is constantly an issue as the audience can feel the act breaks – and every plodding minute it takes to get to them. The first act, which is about an hour long, is sprawling and clunky. Claire’s Jason Bourne-inspired raptor chase on the rooftops, apartments and streets of Malta is moderately interesting, but doesn’t add up to much impact. Later, the oppressive, claustrophobic tension that ensues from her being stalked by a carnivorous dino inside the remote sanctuary is rushed through rather than finessed and mined for gripping intensity. With exception of the Giganotosaurus, the surprise of new dinosaurs is muted as they’re not properly set up. They’re just there and attack characters at screenwriter convenience. Plus it repeats story beats frequently, which leads to a draggy feeling.
The filmmakers also experience plenty of hiccups with the picture’s sentiments. Any subtext dealing with man playing god purely for corporate gain feels like it’s there purely by accident, not placed on purpose. It scrambles to justify its existence through Maisie’s parallel journey, discovering whether she’s an autonomous being created out of parental love or corporate manipulation. While every other character is dealt short shrift, her story powers the heart of the picture, but it’s still synthetic in design and texture, on top of not being particularly compelling.
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION plays like the antithesis to fellow Summer legasequel TOP GUN: MAVERICK. While it attempts to utilize many of the same techniques, employing nostalgic callbacks (from the wardrobe to the character-building to the action’s construction), it does so with aimlessness and a surprising lack of momentum, stakes and basic logic. For every beautifully realized visual effects sequence that’s almost painterly (like Owen’s cowboy moment roping a wild Parasaurolophus), there’s poorly executed green screen (like Claire’s parachute attack). Coupled with flimsily fabricated character motivations and a generous handful of recycled elements from JURASSIC films’ past, this feature is a less-than-outstanding spectacle to bookend its spectacular beginning.
Grade: D-
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION opens in theaters on June 10.
