Rating of
3/4
Over-Indulgent, Messy But Wildly Entertaining
Chris Kavan - wrote on 06/20/22
It's easy to see the series is spinning its wheels by this point but it's still entertaining and thanks to the inclusion of a trio of familiar faces, at least tries to go out on a high note.
Dominion is once again about power run amok, this time in the form of Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) - a cross between Steve Jobs and Elon Musk - who has turned his company, Biosyn, into a $1 billion giant thanks to genetics. But, of course, the good-natured face of the company is hiding some dark secrets.
Secrets in the form of kidnapping Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) who has been kept under close watch - and near prison conditions - by Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) after it is revealed she herself is a genetic clone of her own mother. But teens will be teens and Maise, along with the offspring of raptor Blue, is taken away and, of course, her parents will stop at nothing to get her back.
Meanwhile, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is investigating a massive locust outbreak that is decimating crops and, left unchecked, looks to completely upend the ecosystem. But not just any locusts - genetically-enhanced locusts that, guess what, leave Biosyn crops alone while chowing down on everything else in their path. She contacts and old friend, Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and gets him to help her infiltrate Biosyn with the help of an inside man - another old friend in chaostatician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). It's not long before new meets up with old as Owen and Claire, along with smuggler pilot Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) likewise find themselves headed for Biosyn.
I'm not sure why critics lament the lack of dinosaur action - I thought they had plenty of action from a raptor chase scene (right out of a James Bond film - or perhaps Fast and Furious) to a smackdown between T-Rex and and even bigger Giganotosaurus along with plenty in between. The locust sub-plot - along with the somewhat surprising arc of long-standing villain character Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) is a bit lame, but not as overblown as critics also complain about. Mainly, I was just glad to see Dern, Neill and Goldblum back together and not miss a beat on their characters.
While Dominion is a summer blockbuster through and through, it's still a fun ride. I liked it better than Fallen Kingdom (the whole splicing thing was even messier than giant locusts) and while it squandered the idea of humans and dinosaurs living together or fighting to survive each other - it isn't the train wreck I was expecting, either.
