JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION: Is More Teeth Enough?
I have made no secret of my thoughts on the Jurassic franchise. That is, I’ve been calling it a “dead-end franchise” since 2001 (when the third installment was released). Despite my unironic enjoyment of Colin Trevorrow’s reboot in 2015, the writers have always struggled to keep their stories fresh, original, and thematically relevant. So much of that challenge comes from Michael Crichton, who provided such an already self-contained plot back in 1990.
But dinosaurs are cool. No seriously, they are. And there is a conversation to be had about our fascination with our own history. They are, after all, animals that have existed on our planet, long before our current definition of “animals” came to be. As a franchise of movies though, Jurassic can’t go anywhere but in the direction of “more.” Just like how Jurassic World adequately described it, the world needs “more teeth.” It’s frankly a predicament, stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Jurassic World Dominion is a bizarre Frankenstein of a movie because of this predicament. On one end, it’s a cynical, underwritten corporate product that shows every ounce of desperation to milk the consumer’s nostalgia one last time. On the other end, it’s a movie that knows the franchise has been in trouble, and with that in mind, Trevorrow attempts something new by attempting a little bit of everything.
Two Separate Plotlines with a Bit of Everything
You can check your hopes and expectations at the door literally seconds into Jurassic World Dominion. The film opens with an exposition dump on what has happened to the world since the events of Fallen Kingdom. We are now four years into a world where humans and dinosaurs are forced to co-exist, causing several political and economic problems across multiple countries. The fact that this is all delivered to us via a NowThis video perfectly encapsulates the World franchise – using 2020s methods to modernize its storytelling while also reminding us of everything currently wrong with the 2020s.
Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are now in hiding, having adopted the human clone Maisie (Isabella Sermon) and hiding her from the world (there’s a line where she is literally described as the most valuable piece of IP in the world). The plot kicks in when a group of mercenaries discover Maisie and kidnap her, along with the baby of the velociraptor, Blue. As Owen and Claire set out to rescue them, with the help of a pilot named Kayla (DeWanda Wise), they learn of an international scheme that seems to connect all the dots.
Meanwhile, in a separate plotline, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) investigates a nationwide economic crisis involving a prehistoric locust swarm and believes the tech giant Biosyn (rival of InGen, though the film never mentions this) is responsible. She recruits Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) along the journey and hooray, the gang’s back together again for the first time since 1993!
The film tries extremely hard to juggle these two plotlines at once. You can feel the shakiness and clumsiness in nearly every scene, always in danger of falling apart but barely held afloat by the talented actors. The original cast does an exceptional job at selling Trevorrow’s mediocre dialogue. Dern and Goldblum are still at their best, while Neill still carries that iconic “annoyed Dr. Grant” face from start to finish. As for the newer cast, Howard probably gives her best performance in the trilogy. With each installment, she seems to become more and more physically confident in making Claire an engaging heroine. Meanwhile, Wise is such a great newcomer, you’d wish she was in the previous two films.
As we watch this enormous, stacked cast go from one dinosaur set piece to the next, you may find yourself constantly reminded of other action films. There’s a bit of James Bond, Mission: Impossible, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc. The plot is every bit as nonsensical as you can imagine if you’ve seen the other two Jurassic World films, but there’s just enough of everything to sort of band-aid it all together.
Great Practical Effects and DINOSAURS!
What makes Dominion the most different from its previous installments is the film opens up, attempts some sort of world-building, and sends its characters across a globe-trotting adventure, rather than throwing them into a fixed location. With that premise comes more attempts to show us dinosaurs in their animatronic glory. One particular sequence brought me a feeling of joy similar to seeing the Cantina sequence in Star Wars for the first time. For the first time since the Spielberg films, Dominion has the most noticeable amount of animatronic use for the dinosaurs, which is fantastic.
Any geeks of dinosaurs, specifically people who can actually name and pronounce the species correctly, will be satisfied with this installment. Newcomers like the Therizinosaurus, the Quetzalcoatlus, and the Dimetrodon all have their moments to shine. The film also introduces a new dino baddie called the Giganotosaurus, which scientifically is indeed the largest carnivore we’ve discovered to date. Though its intimidation and antagonistic qualities pale in comparison to the Indominus Rex from the first Jurassic World, the “Giga” is mean and looks great in at least two action scenes.
Last but certainly not least, there are some legitimately fun callbacks to the original films. When it’s a line of dialogue, it can easily be cringeworthy. When it’s a dinosaur appearance, it just brings out the 10-year-old in me.
Jurassic World Dominion: Bad or Good? Maybe a Bit of Both?
So much of Jurassic World Dominion is stupid, even laughably bad at times. But it’s also a movie that does so much and has fun with it all without ever being actively terrible. The fact I still had some enjoyment out of the characters and a ton of enjoyment out of the dinosaurs says a lot about the state of this wonky franchise.
It’s sad to see the franchise devolve from the masterpiece that is Jurassic Park, but I have an inkling that the whole world has already accepted that we will never recapture Spielberg’s lightning in a bottle. Some will argue that is why we should just leave the franchise alone. Others use that to temper their expectations and just want to see dinosaurs on the big screen via summer blockbuster escapism.
Call me guilty or part of the problem but I place myself in the latter group on this one. Jurassic World Dominion is far from where we started back in 1993, but I believe the world is big enough to have both kinds of blockbusters. It’s an extremely flawed but admirable effort, full of dumb cheesy moments, plenty of action, and really cool dinos.
What did you think of Jurassic World Dominion? Let us know in the comments below!
Jurassic World Dominion premiered on May 23, 2022. It was released in theaters on June 10, 2022.
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