“Jurassic World: Dominion” Review (2022)
Written by Victor DeBonis
It is never easy to determine what the best course forward for a franchise is. Way back in 1993, when “Jurassic Park” premiered, everyone was blown away by the awe of seeing these computer-generated dinosaurs on the big screen for the first time. Going beyond that, though, there was much to admire about its characters and the near-perfect level of thrills and adventure that accompanied the movie and, yes, the outstanding CGI effects that mostly still hold up today. If you ask anyone to mention what one of the biggest movies to come out from the 90’s is, “Jurassic Park” will most likely be one of the titles that is mentioned.
So, I suppose that an ongoing franchise following one of the most groundbreaking blockbusters of all time was inevitable. Yet, as I’ve said countless times before and probably will continue to in the future ahead, nostalgia alone can’t automatically guarantee great stories or innovation, no matter how much one loves a beloved classic from back then. It’s been almost 20 years since the original “Jurassic Park” first made its way to screens, and, perhaps, the closest thing to a somewhat decent sequel to this movie was maybe “The Lost World” and even that came across as a mixed bag that got slightly fun towards the end.
“Jurassic World” was just okay, even if much of it came across as trying too hard to please fans. “Fallen Kingdom” was flat-out awful. The characters were either frustrating or making horrible decisions, and, despite some neat shots and a couple of neat action scenes, the overall script was one of those that seriously needed an additional rewrite. Colin Trevorrow, who directed the original “Jurassic World” from this trilogy, returns to direct what has been repeatedly advertised as the “final conclusion” to the Jurassic franchise, in general. I call immediate bluffs to how many franchises are truly doing their last entries when countless sequels and reboots are happening nowadays, but that’s beside the point.
And, people, I wish more than anything that I could tell you that, after so many sequels over the years, “Jurassic World: Dominion” is, at long last, the one film in the trilogy that took more time and care with its characters and story and finally gave us a sequel that was solid and asking bigger questions over pretty good ideas and didn’t come across as something just trying to ride the nostalgia money-making train.
Yet, I have to truthfully state that “Dominion” is about as underwhelming and unsatisfactory of an experience for a trilogy as one can fathom. Almost everything from the previous sequels that didn’t work arrives in this chapter of the franchise, and some issues only escalate through a narrative that is overloaded and never truly finds its way to something meaningful or even entertaining most of the time.
For something that is heavily banking on the fond memories of a classic film from some time ago, it doesn’t do it that well from the get-go. The original main actors, specifically Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum, return, and, while it is a welcome sight to see them amidst each other’s company again, they mostly don’t appear that excited to see each other again after years and years of doing different things. They might mention one or two things about what they’re doing now, but we don’t get any insight into who they are as characters. When they meet one another for the first time in decades, they have the most ho-hum energy of work employees who meet up once or twice a week for business meetings.
A few instances occur when Dern and Neill have awkward, romantic moments together that are supposed to be odd yet charming and remind the audience of the strong connection that they had together from the 1993 movie. Yet, while the chemistry in that film was genuine from head to toe, these scenes with them together in “Dominion” feel forced. Here, the original actors lack a ton of energy and sometimes come across as confused that they’re in this movie with one another. It’s the equivalent of seeing this amazing rock band from decades earlier with members who split up and did their own deal but were then asked to do a reunion tour together, and they merely say a couple of things and simply try to do a few of their “greatest hits” but don’t apply most of the passion.
I want to take a moment and make it clear that I don’t necessarily put the blame on the actors themselves. It is apparent that they’re trying to make the best of a poorly written script that doesn’t give them much personality or insight to them, and I’ve seen all of these actors demonstrate stronger work in recent movies.
The only original actor who is legitimately entertaining and succeeds the most from the material given to him is Jeff Goldblum. Similar to Christopher Walken, Goldblum has become one of the most fun actors to watch on screen in both good and bad projects because, over time, he’s become “in on the joke” of how odd he can sometimes sound and act in his performances and has embraced it. And, in “Dominion” the actor has plenty of moments in which he unexpectedly pauses and delivers his “Uh’s” and speaks in sentences that sound more like questions that spontaneously popped up in his train of thought. He is unquestionably one of the few entertaining parts of this movie and gave it a hint of life.
As far as the newer actors to the franchise are concerned, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard once again convey likability and decent emotional chops to their scenes, but they unfortunately don’t get a chance to show more of what separates them from others as characters. The script doesn’t allow any real moments for them or the other main heroes to breathe and have a meaningful conversation about what their concerns are for the new dinosaur-filled world or what their biggest hopes are or even insight about who they are outside of that. We notice a few times that Pratt and Howard now are a couple and are trying to look after Maisie (played again by Isabella Sermon), but we don’t notice any real conversations between the two of them. As a result, we’re told multiple times that they’re a new family, but the bond never feels believable.
“Dominion” makes an inaccurate assumption that every person who has come to see the movie has seen all of the previous ones and already knows what these characters are like beforehand and thinks that they can do the math on their own. That does a disservice to the audience who are meant to feel something stronger for what is happening throughout this film, and the events feel more tedious as a result. Even the collision of newer and more seasoned heroes and heroines from the franchise doesn’t have the excitement or emotional impact that it should.
I feel bad for the actress playing Maisie because I recognize that she is a great talent who just so happens to have an unintentionally unlikable role to step into. Admittedly, I already didn’t have the best thoughts about her character from the previous film because the reason that she directly released all of the dinosaurs out into the world was a rather lame and selfish one. Yet, for all of my qualms with that and the horrible ending of the preceding chapter, I was welcoming the possibility of her actually seeing how much harm her decision made to others and how her presence might open up a greater examination of what the dangers of creating new DNA that is not 100 percent valid or from flesh might be. The audience and “Dominion” itself could’ve benefitted from her being a little smarter and having greater connections with other humans beyond Pratt and Howard.
Instead of all these themes being explored with Maisie, they’re barely tapped into. For someone who unleashed all of these massive animals upon the Earth (and probably played a role in causing some of these humans to die in this universe if you really think about it), this character behaves rather selfishly and acts unkindly when she’s told to lay low and keep away from the destruction that she released upon others. She’s just every child character that we’ve seen before who just needs rescuing or is attempting to escape, and, while I’ve seen other movies and shows that do this trope well enough by adding amazing moments and strong qualities to the characters in them, there’s nothing very heroic or likable about this underwritten character because, much like the others in this movie, she’s not developed after going through more than one film.
Even the newer side characters that are introduced are acted well enough, but there is nothing interesting about their personalities because they’re rarely allowed any time to shine. These characters feel less like relatable people and more like devices meant to try to bring what is trying to be a plot from one point to the next to the next until the giant climax where everybody collides near the end. It also doesn’t help that “Dominion” is overstuffed with Dern and Neill trying to find Maisie in a lab, and, then, there’s Howard and Pratt going on a international expedition to find her, and, then, there’s the human villain’s main plot to gain billions of dollars through an underwhelming premise (which we will dive into in a minute), and, then, Goldblum is trying to find his way out of this corporate lab that, for some reason, he works for in spite of the fact that he’s too smart of a person to work for this place.
It’s just a big mess, plot-wise. Little goes on in it that heightens my investment to make everything worthwhile. I don’t need every movie that I see to have a straightforward plot. An immense number of movies that I like and love don’t have the typical point A to point B structure, but those worked because they had characters that I was sincerely invested in and dealt with themes or an interesting world that helped me overlook that.
The action itself is underwhelming. In some action sequences, the editing is poor and hastily skips from one cut that takes place near the ground then another to the side then from above to create messes from chases that should be fun. Other action scenes, as strange as it may sound, lack real suspense or danger to them. The main issue with these latter scenes is that the dinosaurs take far too long when they’re looking for the humans, and, despite their fearful presence and their abilities to eradicate their prey in an aggressive manner, they completely fumble as natural assassins of sorts and leave too much room for their potential targets to escape. To the film’s credit, the dinosaurs have different designs with some of them looking furrier than others and some of them appearing more unique from others. The problem is that they’re not allowed to do much more than roam around and, maybe, fight a few times in scenes that are not shot very well.
The only decent action scene in “Dominion” is the bike chase scene that is widely seen from the trailers. In spite of the choppy editing that lessens the enjoyment from the experience and how unbelievable it was that a human on a bike could outrun raptors that are galloping nearby, I did enjoy seeing Pratt speed through the narrow paths of the area. It reminded me a bit of the Bourne trilogy, and it felt the closest to giving me genuine thrills out of all the action in the story. Aside from that, I never felt any suspense or slight sense that danger was approaching these people. It’s especially dissatisfying when a movie about carnivorous dinosaurs walking all over the Earth with regular human beings doesn’t feel intense.
At this point, the reader might be asking about how the main human villain is in this. I don’t have much to say about him because, while he has a legitimately destructive plan for the world as any “supervillain” should have, he is not a menacing or memorable presence. He acts somewhat detached from others, but the story barely focuses on him. On top of that, his plan itself is not that investing. It focuses on mainly using bugs (specifically, locusts) instead of terrifying dinosaurs to create a worldwide famine. Insects can be fascinating, but what is a subplot that involves locusts taking away crops doing in this movie that is supposed to focus more on the gigantic, carnivorous creatures dominating the globe?
Maybe, the hardest part about all of this is that I truthfully feel that there was a great set-up to create a good movie here. I may not care for the way that the previous installment ended and set up how this Earth is now overrun by potentially dangerous beasts, thanks to one clone’s bad actions. Here’s the deal, though: What if there was a greater examination about the conflict of what humans are having to experience as they live with dinosaurs? There was an awesome prologue short, earlier, that showed humans being frightened as a T-Rex was literally crashing through a drive-in theater. Wouldn’t it be awesome to see some specific steps from the process in which both humans and dinosaurs are trying to adapt to each other and more of the conflict that comes from that?
Think about it. Entire cities are consumed by these giant carnivores, now. Rather than setting the climax in yet another remote island cut off from the rest of human civilization, it would’ve been amazing to see the ideas about living with one another and adapting beyond just 5 or 10 minutes and showing everyone go through the conflict of now living in this hardened reality that is unavoidable. Come to think of it, this would be a great type of story that would fit perfectly with the Post 2020/start of the COVID pandemic environment that we’re currently in.
Something that people tend to forget about the 1993 movie is that it wasn’t just the state-of-the-art effects from the time that blew them away. There were also insightful debates amidst these ambitious characters in that flick about what hazards can come from humanity messing with science and nature to an obsessive degree and how there are certain limits to what people can and should do when messing with nature as well as real consequences if they go too far. As grand of a spectacle as that story was, there were real issues and some surprising intelligence that came with it, too.
Great issues could’ve been explored with this story, too, in the form of how humanity and nature of a wilder type tries to adapt to each other and what dangers come from messing with science or creation too much. If there was any chance to do that, this “final chapter” in the franchise would’ve been the best place to explore all of that. As it is, such ideas are briefly tapped upon at the beginning and very end, and the focus is, yet again, another series of action bits that lead to a climax on a giant island instead of looking more at the bigger picture elsewhere. The scene with the black market of selling dinosaurs and pitting them against each other for money in an underground place, for instance, is a decent one, but the movie focuses more on trying to find someone rather than exploring this concept. Any opportunities at giving more creativity and something different to try to turn the franchise in a new direction are not explored here, and it made the experience of this film as a whole all the more disappointing.
So, unfortunately, “Jurassic World: Dominion” is not a good movie at all. It doesn’t learn from its problems from the preceding installments, it refuses to do anything differently for the better, and it leaves a thoroughly disappointing conclusion. Some ideas are interesting when they’re initially tapped into for the first 10 to 15 minutes at the start, but they never receive the proper treatment that they deserve. In addition to that, there is little sense of character, and, when there is, it’s not very likable or investing. Nobody feels like a person or that they’ve grown and learned anything insightful since the beginning. The action, save for parts of the bike chase scene, is so-so at best. While there is plenty of acting talent on-screen, the nostalgic reunion and collaboration of the old and new heroes feels forced and lacking in any wonder.
This is probably one of the most disappointing recent blockbuster experiences I’ve had since I saw “The Rise of Skywalker.” Both are ill-fitting conclusions to franchises that deserve so much better than this. And, while “Dominion” thankfully doesn’t try to cater to every single complaint that bad fans had for a preceding installment as “Skywalker” tried to do when people were complaining too much about “The Last Jedi” it still doesn’t show any real progress since the first movies for story or the arcs of the heroic protagonists that we’re supposed to care more about.
As a writer and artist, I always do my best to give a franchise the benefit of the doubt. Yet, when certain elements are repeated that don’t add to the experience, it just leaves a tiredness that is hard to forget. I hate to be the one to say this, but, at this point in the franchise, it should either have storytellers willing to take it in a fresh, new direction or take a solid break for a longer time.
The 1993 movie will always be a classic, and wonder and awe can come from nostalgia, but it does nobody any good to rely upon that for bringing happiness or satisfaction. The past can have parts of greatness to it, and it can be fun to look back upon but, if nothing is done to show why the present matters in connection to what came from before, it is just that: a nice memory and nothing beyond that. The “Jurassic World” trilogy ultimately doesn’t work because, while there are some good elements and ideas about it, it’s overwhelmed by those who think that doing the same formula without adding anything great to them and just cashing in on something amazing from the past will make for a good story.
I’m not going to say that the franchise should go into total extinction, but I think that I’m just going on my own path and leave this one where it is by itself because I’m just tired from these movies. And, as awesome as a few parts from the past can be, such as the 1993 movie, I also believe in seeing what great things (and films from franchises) come from the present day that go forward in terms of their storytelling.
Grade: D+