Setting The Scene
For most of my life, I have been a huge Jurassic Park fan. The original three films were often on repeat for weeks at a time in my home when I was growing up. As an adult, I’ve watched those three films at least annually. So let me tell you, when the tickets went on sale for Jurassic World, I was one of the first in line (on the Fandango app, that is).
And while it has its many flaws, the first Jurassic World film was pretty great! I really enjoyed the evolution of the world of the original trilogy. The park finally opening and the over-commercialization of dinosaurs were things that made perfect sense to me. Some of the dialog in the movie was subpar, but I still enjoy every second of Chris Pratt’s and Bryce Dallas Howard’s adventures with dinosaurs.
Fast forward a few years to the sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Now, a lot of people didn’t like this film. Understandably so, as it took the franchise in some seemingly strange directions that were clearly not all what audiences wanted (cough cough human clone girl). But I actually really enjoyed this film as well. The first half of the movie with the volcano on the island is exactly the kind of film I was hoping for. I didn’t especially love all of the Lockwood Manor sequences, but I was very excited to finally have dinosaurs loose on the mainland. The hype I felt walking out of that theater was incredible.
Needless to say, the long wait for the release of Jurassic World Dominion was excruciating to me. I scoured the internet for any and all news of the film that I could find. I watched the short film, Battle at Big Rock, at least 15 times. I bought tickets to see the ninth Fast and Furious movie (despite only previously seeing a couple of the entries in that series) in IMAX just so I could see the special preview of the opening sequence of Dominion. I binge-watched each new season of Camp Cretaceous the day it dropped on Netflix. I was PUMPED for more Jurassic World content.
The week leading up to the release of the film I hosted a three-day movie marathon of all of the films. It was very exciting to have friends and family come and watch the films with me. Some were already big fans, some had never seen any of them. Good times were had by all, including my infant daughter, Zoë! I purchased multiple Jurassic Park/World shirts for my wife and me, as well as several onesies for Zoë. And on that Thursday, we drove down to Branson, MO to watch the film on the giant IMAX screen in costume!
My Review
Few times in my life have I been so disappointed.
I am a pretty easy-to-please person when it comes to movie plots. Nine times out of ten, if a film delivers on the promise of the premise, I’m happy with the results. Not that I can’t acknowledge issues within a film (believe me, my personal experience in filmmaking makes it nearly impossible to not notice poor editing, cheesy or confusing dialog, or other technical mistakes). But I can generally look past those issues and see a film for what the story and the premise are.
Jurassic World Dominion stands out as one of the biggest failures to deliver on the promise of the premise I have ever seen. Sure, there are technically dinosaurs all over the world in this film, but apart from a few interesting sequences at the beginning and a somewhat convoluted chase scene in the middle, we barely get to see that! Most of the film is concerning the rescue of the human clone from the previous film and a strange plot about giant locusts causing worldwide famines. And to make it worse, they set the entire second half inside a dinosaur preserve, which may as well have been another dinosaur island.
I literally leaned over to my wife at one point and said, “Where are all the dinosaurs?!”
The Characters
While it was very exciting getting the legacy characters back, I was very disappointed in them as well. Lauren Dern as Ellie Satler was easily the best of the bunch, unfortunately, her storyline was heavily wrapped up in the weird locusts plot, so I had a hard time caring about anything she was doing. Sam Neil as Alan Grant was relegated to a sad sidekick to Ellie with almost nothing interesting to do the entire time.
Finally, Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm was one of my biggest disappointments. Ian Malcolm is a very unique and interesting character in the first two films and I thought the setup of his character in this film was good. Basically, Ian Malcolm is working for the bad guys in order to infiltrate them and figure out what nefarious things they are up to. That is a solid setup and is in line with his original character. But for some reason, whether it be the script, the directing, or Goldblum’s own decisions, we don’t get to see Ian Malcolm fulfill this role, instead, we get Jeff Goldblum playing essentially himself.
I love Jeff Goldblum and I think he is a very funny person, but I wanted to see Ian Malcolm. Ian Malcolm had a few quirks that made him stand out in the original movies, but he always felt like an actual person with fears and concerns. In Dominion, he was all quirk and no substance. Every line out of his mouth was a joke.
The same character who gave us great lines such as “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” or “This isn’t some species that was obliterated by deforestation or the building of a dam. Dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction!” or “Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.” is now the funny washed-up uncle of the franchise literally making “69” jokes.
I don’t have much to say about Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, or Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood. They all did a fine job reprising their characters from the previous films and they did a pretty good job with the material that was given to them. Likewise, DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts and Mamoudou Athie as Ramsay Cole were perfectly fine additions to the cast. I have no complaints about their performances or their characters (considering the story we were given).
Possibly the most peculiar characters for me were Campbell Scott as Lewis Dodgson and BD Wong as Dr. Henry Wu. It makes a decent amount of sense for these two characters to return and feature as the antagonists of the film, but turning Lewis Dodgson into a creepy parody of Tim Cook with illogical motivations and having BD Wong’s big change of heart happen off-screen were both incredibly odd decisions, in my opinion.
Where Are All The Dinosaurs?
When we did get to see dinosaurs in this film, they were very well done. The combo of CGI and animatronics, a more scientifically accurate spin on certain animals, and a couple of really exciting additions to the repertoire were excellent.
The scene featuring the blind Therizinosaurus hunting Claire Dearing was one of the most adrenaline-fueled scenes in the entire franchise. More of this sort of thing would have been great. The Giganotosaurus was hyped up as the biggest badest dinosaur to ever walk the Earth, and yet I almost forgot to mention it in this review for how forgettable its contribution to the film was. And yes, I’m including the not-so-epic dino fight at the climax that was so hamfisted into the film that I wondered if the writer also forgot about the Giganotosaurus. This fight could have been somewhat more meaningful had that prologue scene from the Fast and Furious movie, which featured a prehistoric Giganotosaurus besting a prehistoric T-Rex in a fight, not been cut from the film.
The raptor, Blue, who was practically a lead character in the previous films, is completely sidelined the entire movie. And everyone’s favorite T-Rex is basically just there so they can have something to fight the Giganotosaurus at the end for some reason. Again, it was as if the filmmakers forgot that these dinosaurs had been set up as significant.
There were certainly a lot of other dinosaurs in the film. But their roles were so unimportant that I find myself without much to say about them. I guess kudos to the filmmakers for technically having more dinosaurs in this movie than any other in the franchise, but I can’t help but feel like this is an instance of more is not always better.
My Pitch
The idea of the dinosaur preserve isn’t all that bad (in fact, in concept, even the human clone and locust could have been cool). In my opinion, the film should have been about the humans working to round the dinosaurs up and bring them to the preserve. It would have been easy to see our main cast of characters working together to fight dinosaur poachers and breaking out captive dinosaurs. In the end, it could have been revealed that the corporation in charge of the dinosaur preserve had nefarious ulterior motives, but a loose pack of raptors or a T-Rex could have put an end to that. We could have driven home one of the lessons of the original films one last time. Humans and dinosaurs DO NOT belong together.
Obviously, I’m just spitballing here. If I ever get around to it, I’d like to one day create a more elaborate breakdown of how I would have made this film. Stayed tuned for that (WARNING: you might be waiting a long time…).
My Rating
If the average price of a movie ticket is $10, I would say a ticket to see Jurassic World Dominion is worth $3.50.
Conclusion
I don’t know who to blame for a film failing as badly as this one. I don’t think anyone involved had malintent and I’m sure they are all very competent and creative people. Whatever it was that led to the final product that we got, Jurassic World Dominion failed for me in so many ways.
I am not the kind of fan who claims that a bad sequel has “ruined my childhood” or anything like that. I will still enjoy 5 out of 6 Jurassic movies every bit as much as I always have. If I’m honest, I’ll still probably rewatch Jurassic World Dominion occasionally, and of course, I’ll have to purchase it just to round out my collection. I’m actually still very excited for the next season of Camp Cretaceous and I look forward to more Jurassic content in the future, be it more films, a live-action TV series, or even just more short films.
What can I say? I love me some dinosaurs!
