When it comes to the Jurassic films, I'm on the more positive end of the spectrum compared to a lot of people. Like many, I love the original film and it was a big part of my childhood, and while none of the follow-ups have ever recaptured its brilliance, they all mostly offer plenty of fun and exciting set pieces with amazing effects used to create the dinosaurs. So, I was of course looking forward to the supposedly final installment in the series, with its very interesting set-up and the return of the original cast members.
In the film, after dinosaurs have been set loose on the mainland, a power struggle now exists between them and humans. Navigating this in various ways are Owen and Claire with their adopted daughter Maisie, as well as Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm.
I was excited to see where this film would take the series for a few reasons. Firstly, even though I do enjoy the Jurassic World films, I am conscious that their narratives have been very derivative and inelegant a lot of the time. Fallen Kingdom in particular is a very messy and padded film that felt like it took a series of very forced and contrived means to get the dinosaurs from living on Isla Nublar to roaming around the mainland. Because of this, I assumed that the filmmakers were simply desperate to get the series to this point because they had an interesting story they wanted to tell with it, which I can imagine being true as the prospect of dinosaurs and humans having to co-exist in a modern setting is very interesting. It's also a set-up that doesn't largely borrow from one of the original trilogy films, unlike its two predecessors. This was enough to get me excited.
It's very disappointing therefore to see that almost all this potential went to waste. Dominion does hardly anything interesting with its set-up, it just feels like the writers are doing the bare minimum. The battle for dominance between humans and dinosaurs is hardly given any exploration; it isn't even the main source of conflict in the film, as we instead have another boring corporate villain character exploiting the scientific research for their own gain, this time with biologically manufactured locusts of all things. Additionally, there's more ridiculous nonsense about dinosaurs being weaponised and sold on the black market thrown in too. In other words, it's all more of the same stuff that the previous films offered. Why was this? Why didn't the film take advantage of the endless enticing possibilities of having a power struggle between humans and dinosaurs? Why not make it a pseudo-dystopian / survival film or just something else that's completely different? Additionally, the narrative is split into two main plotlines, and the way they intertwine is so disjointed most of the time. I could potentially look past a dull narrative if it was at least streamlined, but this just makes it worse. I guess we now know why the previous Jurassic World films were borderline remakes of narratives from the original trilogy, because when this creative team is forced to make up something of their own, it's an absolute mess.
One of the notable selling points of this film is the return of the original Jurassic Park cast, namely Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. It's nice to have them back in these roles for sure, but the film unfortunately does absolutely nothing interesting with them. If all you wanted was to just see these characters again, I suppose you'll be satisfied, because that's about all there is to them. This is yet another instance of nostalgia being capitalised on, but even as a fan of the Jurassic films who was ready to be completely pandered to and wanted to have the biggest grin on my face throughout, I felt very little from their presence. I didn't even smile when they first walked on screen, which is usually a given for me when it comes to stuff like this. There's obviously some innate charm to them, especially Jeff Goldblum, who never fails to make me laugh, but very little work done by the film around them. Most unfortunately, the film isolates them from the newer cast members. As I mentioned with the narrative being split into two main seperate plotlines, one involves the present characters and the other involves these ones, and they only come together towards the end.
This is sad because when all the characters do eventually collide, there are some really charming and funny exchanges between them. It was nice to see Owen interacting with Alan and Ian, in some ways that were really charming. I wish we got to see more of that as that's a big part of what makes legacy sequels like this good. For example, in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it's not just fun to see Han Solo and Chewbacca back on screen, it's fun to see how they interact with the new characters, showing the generations both old and new colliding in endearing ways. The same can be said for how Spider-Man: No Way Home handled bringing the older Spider-Man actors back; it didn't just have them show up, it derived some really entertaining interactions and compelling drama from their presences in relation to the main characters. Here, very little of that is apparent, which is a massive shame.
Of course, the main attraction with any of these films has stayed consistent from the very beginning, that being the dinosaurs. Jurassic Park's groundbreaking visual effects used to create these creatures still hold up to this day, and I can't see them becoming dated any time soon. The Jurassic World films obviously have more advanced effects behind them in terms of their CGI, while also maintaining the usage of animatronics in places. Here, obviously they're all still amazing. The details on all these creatures, whether they be a digital or tangible effect, are all exceptional, truly the best they have ever been.
That being said, the dinosaur set pieces in this film are a mixed bag overall. There are individual sequences of exciting antics throughout, such as a giant flying dinosaur attacking a plane, a feathered one with long claws prowling through a forest as one of the characters crawls into water, and a chase with a smaller feathered one that occurs on a slowly cracking frozen lake. These were all well executed, but often ruined by being a little too brief and thus not leaving as much of an impact as they could have, almost as if they only existed so the film had a variety of things to cut between in the trailer. There are also some that are quite badly executed; most notably a chase through the narrow streets of a city, which was so choppily edited and poorly captured. But, the climax gives the action all the breathing room it needs to be truly awesome, and it was. In typical Jurassic fashion, the final obstacle is a great big carnivore, and while this film didn't dedicate much time to building up to this creature's appearance in the same way the last two films did for theirs, it was still really cool, and having it fight against other enormous dinosaurs was terrific. It also probably helped that this was the only point where I cared about the characters, as I started engaging with them more once the two seperate sets got united.
In addition to some cool moments, there are a handful of beautiful moments too. The one that stuck out to me the most was a very simple scene where two long-necked dinosaurs (forgive my usage of 'Land Before Time' terminology, I'm not so good with dinosaur names now compared to when I was younger) slowly walk through falling snow as a small crowd watches, and while nothing special is happening, I found it so enchanting nonetheless. The third act takes place in a forest consumed by fire, and there are more beautiful shots of silhouetted dinosaurs against the large flames. A lot of these are enhanced in their greatness by the score, which has been consistently great across not just all the Jurassic World films, but almost every film in this franchise. The Jurassic World theme in particular is terrific because it's effective when it's soft and slow, as it is in many of these moments, or when it's loud and boisterous, and even though it isn't as iconic as John Williams' original theme, I think it's almost as powerful. Jurassic Park has many moments of awe and wonder, and even though nothing here is able to match those, I'm glad to see they're still somewhat apparent.
Overall, it saddens me to say that Jurassic World Dominion was very disappointing. Individual moments and set pieces as well as occasional instances of charming character interaction make it a fairly enjoyable and passable watch overall, but the messy narrative that barely takes advantage of such an intriguing set-up and does so little to service bringing back veterans of this franchise beyond them just appearing for nostalgic novelty really weighs it down. It all just screams missed opportunity; it could've been a distinct and satisfying way to wrap a franchise that otherwise hasn't been consistently great overall, but it feels like they didn't even try. Perhaps my hopefulness was misguided based on the reputation of this series, but considering where it began and the possibilities of where it could've ended, I can't help but feel like this should have been much better than it was.
I'm going to give Jurassic World Dominion a 6.0/10
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