"Jurassic World: Dominion" - Film Review
It’s stunning how quickly Jurassic World: Dominion vacates the mind after the credits have rolled. One hundred forty-six grueling minutes pass by and this chapter of the once-venerable Jurassic Park franchise has finally been closed. The original movie premiered nearly thirty years ago, and this sequel brought back beloved characters from the early days of the franchise. It should have been a victory lap for Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill). It should have been a worthwhile end to the journey they began in 1993. Then why doesn’t it feel triumphant?
Jurassic World: Dominion is a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with the blockbuster movie industry today, but it would be reductive and pretentious to say there’s no place for reboots, revivals, and continuations of beloved films. When done well, like Top Gun: Maverick, it’s thrilling to see new life breathed into old characters and watch them reckon with growing older and navigating through a changed world.
There was never any hope for Jurassic World: Dominion. Its lead, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), lacks even one iota of charm, and there’s no chemistry between him and his girlfriend, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). Even veterans of the original film, Ellie and Alan, have lost the spark that made Jurassic Park shine. The only characters who make the film remotely watchable are Ian and Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise).
universal pictures
The film’s plot is the same as those of its predecessors. A scientist, Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) in this case, decides to play God with dinosaur DNA and is shocked at the consequences of his actions. Jurassic World: Dominion has the added wrinkle of a fictitious research company, Biosyn Genetics, that’s behind these experiments. The CEO, Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), is obsessed with capturing Maisie (Isabella Sermon) so her DNA can be studied. Maisie is a clone whose whereabouts are being kept secret by Owen and Clare. Dr. Wu believes that Maisie’s DNA is the answer to the problem he created: swarms of locusts decimating crops all across the country.
Jurassic World: Dominion is impressive in its ability to flush away all the good will of the films that came before it. By the 90-minute mark, the audience is almost rooting for the locusts to win. It was Dr. Ian Malcom who said it best in the first film, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The same goes for these filmmakers.
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