Imagine you had a great first date? And not just great but a memorable fist date – one of the best dates you’ve ever been on. Now imagine the 7th date is god awful. It’s so bad you wonder where things went wrong between the 1st and 7th date. It’s so bad that you wish you only had that one magical date that you could talk about for a lifetime. 93’s Jurassic Park is the first date…Jurassic World Dominion is the unlucky 7th date that makes you want to change your number and block them on all socials.
Dominion picks up years after the events in laughably bad Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. In this new world, dinosaurs live side-by-side with humans. Humans, who once sat atop the food chain, have to live with the most fierce creatures to ever walk (or fly) the earth.
To be fair, a plot about humans and dinosaurs living together sounds interesting – I imagined a deadlier version of the Flintstones. Sadly, the plot doesn’t focus on much of that. The film is about MUTATED LOCUST EATING CROPS. That’s correct. A franchise that asked the question “What if humans had to survive dinosaurs attacking them on an island” finally gets dinosaurs in the real world and the plot focuses on mutated locust and farmland. It felt like finally getting to play basketball with Lebron James and all he wants do is tie his shoes for 2 hours.
Chris Pratt is back as Owen alongside Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) as his love interest/ride or die partner. Their living in a cabin with Maisie aka Clone Baby (Isabella Sermon). This unconventional family lives in secrecy because people want clone baby. There are dinosaurs in the streets; I’d think people would have bigger issues to worry about. Also, Blue (the raptor) had a baby and that baby is being hunted. Both children get captured by dinosaur pirates leading to Owen and the gang going on a trip to rescue them.
Meanwhile the OG group with Dr. Sattler (Laura Dern), Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) are on a mission to retrieve a sample of a super locust to expose Biosyn’s ( get it Bio…sin) nefarious plans. Biosyn is run by Lewis Dogson aka Evil Steve Jobs (Campbell Scott) who is film’s cartoonish villain.
Henry Wu (BD Wong), Barry (Omar Sy) also returned along with newcomers Kayla (DeWanda Wise) and Ramsay (Mamoudou Athie).
There’s a messy plot, unimaginative storytelling, and the stakes aren’t as interesting as every human trying to survive a dinosaur attack (that’s way cooler). It’s the dinosaur story nobody wanted or cared about. Director Colin Trevorrow does an excellent job staging the action sequences. He drops the audience right in the middle of the chaos – like the raptor chase sequence in Malta. Unfortunately, none of the sequences are memorable. The editing is so frenetic, you can’t even enjoy watching dinosaurs chase people through the streets. Except for the guy on the e-scooter that gets devoured.
Speaking of that sequence…how does a dinosaur that weighs 6-8 tons sneak up on you? How do you not see or hear it. A lot of the films jump scares rely on people being surprised a 12ft tall dinosaur is standing next to them – noise canceling AirPods aren’t that good. And how do you outrun a raptor? How does any human survive in this world?
The film is all over the place. Humans make promises to dinosaurs, people are living as if there aren’t dinosaurs around, and billion dollar facilities don’t have great security. The CIA even has a division that handles dinosaurs. It’s really difficult to summarize what the film is about other than asking “What if mutated locust devoured our food source?” Maybe that’s mid episode of Black Mirror or a really interesting plot for Outer Limits. One thing is clear, that plot doesn’t belong in a Jurassic Park movie.
Jurassic Word Dominion is the best film idea from a 6 year old that was made by the dumbest person you know. It makes a half hearted attempt to include dinosaurs. Its focus on PED locust, crops, and DNA is a choice and not one most fans want to see. There are fun films that are bad and bad films that are fun. Dominion is a bad film that is bad with very little redeeming factors. This is a sad end to the franchise but it might be for the best. Luckily, fans will always remember how they felt after that first date.
Grade: D+
the people's critic 