‘Jurassic World Dominion’ Review – Second Opinion
Stars: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, Isabella Sermon, Campbell Scott, Justice Smith, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong, DeWanda Wise | Written by Colin Trevorrow, Emily Carmichael | Directed by Colin Trevorrow
Jurassic World Dominion ends the trilogy that started seven years ago, and my only wish is that it never started in the first place.
Four years after the previous instalment, Jurassic World Dominion shows us a world where dinosaurs live alongside humans and the challenges that it brings. It’s an interesting idea, however it’s handled in such an unoriginal way that the film’s run time already begins to feel like a drag and disconnects its audience from the very start. From then on, the plot is loosely strung together as the main characters bounce from scene to scene with no real idea of what they want the film to be. There are sections that feel like they want the film to be an espionage thriller with Sam Neill and Laura Dern returning to steal data from a new sinister company. Another sequence felt more like the film’s attempt at branching into a James Bond or Mission Impossible movie and the whole time I was just wishing I could watch either of those instead.
Jurassic World Dominion bounces in tone and genre in such a way that the film never flows. You continually feel as if you’re being pulled out of the story which causes you to begin questioning and breaking down everything that doesn’t make sense. These are films where crazy, unrealistic things happen, but what the original manages to do is get you to care about the characters, and to invest in the world, before throwing anything crazy at you. Great films suck you into their world so you never stop to question it when the ridiculous events start to happen. Here however we are never invested in the world or characters, therefore we question every ridiculous moment on screen, and in Jurassic World Dominion there are plenty of ridiculous moments.
The biggest problem these new instalments continue to fail with is their characters. There is no one to root for or feel any sense of jeopardy with. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) remain two of the most uninteresting characters in any blockbuster franchise. I still don’t know what they want, who they are, or what goals or motivations they have. They are outlines of characters thrown into generic situations that never seem to have any real danger or consequences to them. In this new instalment they run through set piece after set piece with random dinosaurs thrown in. The personalities of these characters never get to shine through and, more than anything, I found them annoying and boring.
It’s a sad end to something that should be full of wonder and spectacle. The original Jurassic Park stands tall to this day and is not only a magical blockbuster but a truly great film, with storytelling and filmmaking that rivals anything released before or since. The biggest problem I feel with these films is they don’t seem planned or structured. The studios know this franchise will make money because of the love of the original and the wonder of dinosaurs on the big screen. So the studio seems to just want to crank out the next film, with generic plots, lifeless characters, and nothing new or original to bring us. As Ian Malcolm said in 1993: “You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and now you’re selling it. They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should”.
* 1/5
Jurassic World Dominion is in cinemas now.
