Jurassic World Dominion – Film Review

Four years after the destruction of Isla Nublar, dinosaurs now live and hunt alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.

Steven Spielberg‘s iconic, beloved masterpiece Jurassic Park was released in 1993 and was an instant hit. There was just something so intriguing about the story of one man’s crazy idea for a theme park gone terribly wrong that resonated with millions of audiences from all around the world. Even still, to this day, that original film is being talked about and is still highly regarded as one of the greatest films of all time.

It managed to spawn several sequels, and even a sequel trilogy of its own beginning with 2015’s Jurassic World, directed by Colin Trevorrow. But despite the original being so flawless, somehow, Hollywood finds a way to make each new Jurassic film worse than the last. Jurassic World Dominion – the supposed final installment of the “Jurassic era” – had an absolutely incredible premise that was legitimately appetizing.

At the end of 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, the dinosaurs are let free to roam around the world however they wish. The film’s final few shots show the dinosaurs running around, with an eerie final line coming from Jeff Goldblum‘s Dr. Ian Malcolm, stating “Welcome to Jurassic World.” Naturally, we all thought Dominion was going to be all about how human beings must now have to learn to adapt to life living with dinosaurs. What will these repercussions be? Just how deadly is this going to be? Is it even possible?

Unfortunately, quite literally zero of these questions are answered in this brand new film. Instead, Dominion is all about a deadly locust infestation, and along the way, we learn more details about Maisie Lockwood, the unbearably annoying kid from the last movie. Who seriously thought that this was the best possible plot for a Jurassic movie in which dinosaurs are quite literally roaming the Earth?

It could have been the most exciting, creepy, and unsettling movie in the franchise yet, as we would have seen how we human beings are having to learn to adapt to these animals living among us. Sadly, we are shown a film that barely has any focus on the dinosaurs at all which is strange because, after all, this is a Jurassic movie. It’s not as if the locust plot is interesting either. It’s way too convoluted, and it takes until the third act for things to get even remotely interesting.

A lot of children love to watch the first Jurassic Park and it’s not hard to see why. Not only are there amazing dinosaur sequences, but there’s also a great story to get wrapped up in, as well as some truly memorable characters along the way. Dominion has none of these things. The dinosaur sequences are bland and boring, the story is terrible, and the characters are all the same people that they were in the previous two.

The character work in this new World trilogy is some of the worst I’ve seen in a mainstream, blockbuster franchise. Owen Grady barely even feels like a character in this film. He doesn’t change whatsoever. It’s nearly impossible to watch his performance in this film and not see simply Chris Pratt. Of course, we know it is Chris Pratt, but he never once disappears into the role, which is such a shame.

Easily the best performance from the new cast of characters this time around has to be from Bryce Dallas Howard, who once again is terrific as Claire Dearing. She’s always been my favorite new addition to the franchise, and here, it’s no different. She actually has some genuine development in this film, and she is not the same person she is at the beginning of the movie as she is at the end. This should have happened to every single character but, for whatever reason, it didn’t.

My favorite performance overall in the film, though, has to be from Jeff Goldblum, who reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm. It was such an amazing delight to see one of my all-time favorite actors stepping back into one of his most iconic roles. He usually has the best lines in the film as well, including an incredible moment where a character brings up the theme park Jurassic World. Malcolm’s response? “Jurassic World? Not a fan.”

Unfortunately, we don’t get as much of the original trio as you probably would like. The trailers and posters market them as if they’re in the movie for almost the entire thing, but that’s simply not the case. Yes, they are in it for a decent amount, but it still would have been nice if they actually had bigger things to do, because a lot of Sam Neill and Laura Dern‘s scenes just kind of had them moseying around for half of the film.

The final act is where things finally start to pick up more and the film is instantly more of a Jurassic movie. This is where we get the best action scenes in the movie, and it’s also where every character has to put their head together in order to solve things and actually survive the terrors of the outside world. Is it overloaded with tons of CGI and green screen effects? Absolutely. But, hey, at least we actually get to see some dinosaurs trying to eat humans and wreak havoc on the world.

Even still, I can’t help but feel as if all of us Jurassic fans got tricked. Fallen Kingdom blatantly set up Dominion as being a film that would focus on the world being overrun by dinosaurs. The only time that’s ever really shown is in the very first scene, while the rest of the film that follows is all about a terribly boring locust infestation plot that not a single soul is going to care about. Nope, not even youngsters.

One last thing that truly bothered me about Dominion is the fact that the opening prologue that showed a dinosaur causing chaos at a drive-in movie is not even in the film. It’s legitimately sad when the prologue that was released and isn’t in the film, is better than the entirety of the film.

Jurassic World Dominion serves as a genuinely awful conclusion to a franchise that started off masterful. Not even Jeff Goldblum and some occasionally fun action can save this film from being a colossal failure.