Jurassic World Dominion Review

Jurassic Park is one of the biggest film franchises around. The original is a classic and the most recent films broke the billion-dollar barrier. The Jurassic World trilogy is concluding with Jurassic World Dominion by bringing together the original and current cast of characters.

Four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom dinosaurs have been roaming the globe. Humans have managed to cohabit with the creatures. Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) have gone into hiding because of their adoption of Maisie (Isabella Sermon). Maisie is a person of interest for the biotech company BioSyn.

Crops across America are being devastated by swarms of genetically altered locusts. Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) speculates that BioSyn is responsible but needs to find evidence. She goes to her old friends, Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to help her infiltrate BioSyn’s headquarters in the Italian Alps.

The Jurassic Park franchise has been a strange beast. The original film was a special effects revolution and delighted generations of film fans. The series has been one of Universal’s most lucrative but critically has been suffering from diminishing returns. Fallen Kingdom made over a billion dollars but was critically the worst received at that point. Dominion has been eviscerated by critics.

However, Jurassic World Dominion’s critical reception was harsh compared to Fallen Kingdom. In my review of Fallen Kingdom I described it as the cinematic equivalent of treading water. It was made just to set up the next film in the franchise and not tell a standalone story. Dominion felt more complete, and the scope was much grander. Fallen Kingdom was more like a small-scale haunted house story that happened to feature dinosaurs. Dominion wasn’t blighted by forced comedy like Fallen Kingdom did.

Dominion was not without problems. It had an over-complicated plot that struggled to fit in all its characters. The plot takes place all over the world: characters go from the mountains in California, the farmlands of Texas, Langley, Malta, and Italy. It was a film that was fitting in plotlines involving corporate greed and sabotage, dangerous genetic research, the underground trading of dinosaurs, and an impending food crisis. The characters were separated and had different agendas. Owen and Claire needed to explore the underworld to find Maisie and Blue’s baby, Ellie and Grant were searching to find BioSyn’s secret labs, and Maisie was trying to escape from BioSyn.

The director Colin Trevorrow was trying to juggle a lot of ideas and he struggled with the task. It was easy to forget certain storylines were happening. There was a long section of the film that took place in Malta where Owen and Claire needed to infiltrate an underground dinosaur and it ended up involving Owen’s old colleague from the first Jurassic World film, a black market trader, and a massive chase in the Maltese capital. Ellie and Grant were pushed to the side.

Jurassic World Dominion’s convoluted method of storytelling made it similar to some of its franchise rivals. The Michael Bay Transformers, MonsterVerse movies like Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, and Fast and Furious 6 all had overly complicated plots and had characters placed all over the world with their own agendas and so did Dominion. All these films were trying to make a simple premise more complex. In Jurassic World Dominion’s case audiences just want to see dinosaurs run amok.

Jurassic World Dominion did feel like a genre mashup. Despite the sci-fi premise and monster action it also came around as a corporate and spy thriller. Owen and Claire had to go into the underworld and meet shady people and the chase in Malta looked like someone added dinosaurs to a Bond or Mission Impossible action sequence. BioSyn’s mountain headquarters was more like a Bond villain lair and the villain’s plan was something out of a spy or comic book movie because they were releasing the ancient locust so BioSyn can dominate the food supply. This genre splicing made Jurassic World Dominion come across more like a video game instead of a film.

Man’s hubris has always been a long-running theme of the Jurassic Park franchise. Dominion continued this. It involved a mad tech billionaire in the vein of Elon Musk unleashing genetically engineered locusts to cause an environmental disaster. Considering the number of deaths that pre-historic and genetically altered creatures have caused, humanity should have learned its lesson.

It was trying to be both a continuation of the Jurassic World films and be a legacy sequel to the original. 2015’s Jurassic World was already chasing the nostalgic tread and Dominion doubles down on this by bringing back the original cast. Dominion ended up feeling like the Disney Star Wars movies that tried to mix the original cast and a new set of characters and tingle our nostalgia nerves. The final act of Dominion was referential to the original film.

It was fun to see the old characters back whilst the new characters did more of the action-heavy lifting. Grant, Ellie, and Dr. Malcom are great characters and even after all these years they had a fun dynamic. However, Maisie has had a personality change from the last film. She was a sweet girl in Fallen Kingdom, whilst in Dominion she has turned into a sulky teenager. She was unbearable at times.

Most audiences would be going to see Jurassic World Dominion for the dino action and the film supplies plenty of that. As stated, there was a big action sequence which was in Valletta where velociraptors were chasing Owen and Claire. I had a sadistic smile when the dinosaurs were in St. George’s Square and one poor bloke gets eaten. In Italy is plenty of dino v. dino action as well as humans being avoided attacked and killed.

The Jurassic Park films have always had excellent special effects and Dominion wasn’t an exception. There was terrific CGI throughout the film that brought the dinosaurs to life. The franchise also makes awesome inspiring moments and in Dominion these came early by showing dinosaurs roaming the snowy landscapes of North-East California. It was amazing to see these prehistoric beasts in modern America.

Jurassic World Dominion has been declared the conclusion of the Jurassic World trilogy. However, considering how profitable the property has been there’s no way it’s the end of the franchise.

Jurassic World Dominion was an incredibly messy film with a plot that was all over the place. At times it was silly, even for a film about dinosaurs roaming the Earth. Fans will still be entertained by this franchise outing because it had all the dino set-pieces and provides plenty of popcorn fun.