Rating of
1/4
"Jurassic World? Not a fan."
Matthew Brady - wrote on 09/06/22
More like ‘Locusts: Da-Minion’, lol.
So here we are, at the end of the line for Jurassic Park/World series (well for now, since this movie made $995 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 2022), but as for now, it’s the finale.
There was a lot of potential for Dominion, with the last movie ‘Fallen Kingdom’ ending on a massive cliffhanger, with the dinosaurs being set free into the world and how the modern world handles the animal attacks. On top of that, this marks the return of the original 1993 characters: Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm, with the OG actors returning as well. On top of that mount Everest of expectations, this is supposed to conclude the 29 years of Dino madness.
This should’ve been the Endgame of the Jurassic Park/World series, right guys? Instead, it’s ‘The Rise of Skywalker’.
Jurassic World Dominion is one of the most boring summer blockbusters I’ve seen this year. I have seen some people call this harmless fun, but I don’t know what movie they watched because this dragged! While watching this in the cinema, I was shocked by how bored I was during a loud movie. You’ve got seven characters equally spread out in different locations where the film would sometimes cut back to them, having their subplot. Although the main thing that moves the story along isn’t the dinosaurs taking over the world, no, it’s the locusts who are causing the conflict, and 99% of the movie focuses on a cloned kid. What? Why? And who cares?
Throughout the movie, I didn’t care about anything, and why should I? Everything in this new trilogy has been disappointing.
Each of these movies has an interesting premise that doesn't get developed enough and instead is turned into dumb action movies. The first Jurassic World movie shows the park opening, and we see John Hammond’s vision come to life. The second movie is where dinosaurs become a part of the illegal wildlife trade and the concept of human cloning. And the third movie is about dinosaurs running free in the modern world. And yet, after three entries, they ruined it each time.
Chris Pratt looks zoned out at this point. His eyes look so dead. Bryce Dallas Howard is at least trying, but I have to say, her character arc as Claire is the wildest in any blockbuster movie. In the first movie, she’s the park operations manager of Jurassic World and looks like a stereotypical businesswoman in a suit, and now in the third movie, she’s no longer in that position and lives a happy life in the woods with her adopted daughter who is a human clone. Lol, what?
Sam Neill and Laura Dern are the least painful part of the movie, as the scenes between Ellie and Alan felt like sweet old friends reuniting after all these years. Jeff Goldblum doesn’t give a shit and is doing whatever he wants, sometimes making fun of the material given to him, which is amusing to watch. I’ll give this movie credit for treating the original cast with respect, unlike the new Star Wars trilogy.
We have a newcomer to the franchise DeWanda Wise, a character with no more exciting features than just driving a plane and getting our heroes to a specific location for the climax. I don’t even remember her name, and neither would you.
The human antagonist in this movie is Lewis Dodgson; you know from the 1993 film who was there for two minutes to give Wayne Knight a Barbasol can, “Dodgson! DODGSON! WE’VE GOT DODGSON HERE! See? Nobody cares.” Anywhere, he’s the villain, who looks like he works for a phone company rather than a scientist. Dodgson is played by Campbell Scott, who replaced the original actor in the 1993 film, and if you want to know why? I would suggest googling Cameron Thor, then you’ll know why. Campbell Scott gives off an awkward and nervous performance, which explains why I didn’t find him threatening. There’s one unintentionally funny scene where he has a massive hissy fit in front of his co-workers. There are some strange choices in this movie.
While I respect the filmmakers for using practical effects for some scenes, especially the animatronic dinosaurs, but even that got overshadowed by the heavy CGI and my boredom. The action scenes weren’t exciting or memorable. One thing that didn’t make sense was how Claire managers to outrun a dinosaur with ease on foot, and yet Owen on a motorcycle couldn’t.
The movie felt unbelievably long, clocking in at two hours and twenty-seven minutes long, yet after all that build up still didn’t feel like it was ready to end. The dialogue is cheesy and awful. The editing is atrocious and has so many continuity errors. The “Joker dinosaur” aka Giganotosaurus Rex, which director Colin Trevorrow teased during the marketing, in the end, didn’t do anything noteworthy. It was acting like any other animal doing its thing to survive. We don’t see it killing anything except for a couple of locusts.
So yeah, I didn’t like this movie very much. This might be the worst movie in the Jurassic franchise. Much worse than Jurassic Park 3 and Fallen Kingdom. At least Jurassic Park 3 is shorter, and Fallen Kingdom had some good stuff. Both movies delivered on Dino action and are not painfully dull.
