Review of Jurassic World Dominion (2022) by The_General — 13 Jun 2022

The nostalgia of seeing the original cast, and a few cool scenes with some never-before-seen dinosaurs are about the only redeeming moments of what is otherwise a badly written, disjointed story and overall disappointing experience for fans of Jurassic Park. This is the first movie of the entire series that really makes dinosaurs the least threatening element of the film, which is probably relevant given the circumstances of the world right now. The beginning jumps right in where the previous movie left off, with dinosaurs roaming freely across the world in every major country, state and city. In short: dinosaurs are not nearly as dangerous and terrifying if they are left alone and have a whole world to roam in. This is a major departure from the source material, Michael Crichton’s brilliant novels of the same name, where dinosaurs being unnaturally resurrected from the ancient past displaces man as the dominant species of the earth. The dinosaurs are not at risk by man, but the other way around. The new Jurassic World trilogy flips this paradigm to make an obvious nod to modern animal rights and preservation movements. The change in philosophy does not serve the point of the movies as being suspenseful monster films. They probably don’t even realize it, but it actually patronizes nature itself when it portrays the largest and most dangerous creatures to ever live on earth, still at man’s mercy to be saved.

Each sequel has an evil or irresponsible corporation at the center, messing with nature for it’s own gain. In this one, it’s a new corporation called Biosyn (read: Bio Sin) that has created a prehistoric locust that was secretly released into the world (which they are covering up) and is threatening to destroy the food supply. Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) one of the original cast members from the first movie wants to investigate the corporate headquarters to prove this was a lab-leak (sounds familiar). The scenes with the original cast bring back warm memories of the first film and trilogy, and they seemed pleased to be back. They brought charisma to the story and their scenes were more enjoyable than their counterparts. If they had focused the story on fewer characters, I think they would have more time to develop a plot.

The final failure of the movie was not telling a good story. The locust theme ends up being paper thin and under-developed, along with the “villains” of Biosyn or what it is was they were actually trying to do. It would have been cool to see more of the “evil corporation” theme developed and perhaps show a lesson on real corporate greed, since that’s obviously what they wanted to do. On a positive note, there are some very interesting new species of dinosaurs showcased. At least two scenes provide a genuine jump scare, and there are some excellent visuals. The dinosaurs were there for thrills and danger, but the movie was about taking down a corporation and stopping a global plague. And once all the usual chase scenes and explosions we’ve seen a million times were through, and all pointless characters had their backstories filled in, even at 2.5 hours there was too little time to develop a compelling, central story.

I would probably advise that even fans of the series save themselves a pricey movie ticket and stream this when it’s available. For those looking for a suspenseful monster flick, go ahead and skip.