In the summer of 1993 my parents brought me to see this little dinosaur movie called Jurassic Park. I was almost 6 at the time and while watching it, I could tell my mother felt that this was a little too much for a kid my age. I remember a tyrannosaurus rex was chasing a jeep and Jeff Goldblum was saying his famous line, “must go faster,” and my mother turned to me to make sure I was okay. I was! And loving every minute of it! Almost 30 years later, I returned to the movie theater to see the “final” movie in this franchise, Jurassic World: Dominion (2022).
With this being the sixth entry in the series, it has had its ups and downs, but the big thing for me is that it always delivers a fun adventure with dinosaurs! Sure some are better and more interesting than others, but still… dinosaurs! Dominion is set four years after the previous movie, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), dinosaurs have now been let loose into the world and everyone must learn to live with these giant creatures – thanks a lot John Hammond. But something that I felt was that even though they are everywhere now, the dinosaurs felt very secondary. I know the main focus is humans, but where the dinosaurs always felt like a big part before, in this they felt more like background pieces. None were truly established, so when they showed up, it felt more like: “Well, we need to have some dinosaur action here, put in the Giganotosuarus.” Which is fine, but it also took away the sense of danger. And this is an issue I have seen in a few films in 2022 already. I do not fear for the characters, ever – never once was I worried they weren’t going to make it out alive. When the sense of danger is no longer present, then everything else feels very flat.
Going into this, I was incredibly excited to see back on screen Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant and Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, and I really enjoyed seeing them in this movie, but I felt what they were doing was not particularly necessary to the plot. Actually, I believe that if you took them out everything would have happened the same regardless. But on the flip side, I was more interested in their story/adventure than I was with the heroes we have been with the previous two movies: Chris Pratt as Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing, Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood, and newcomer DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts.
[***Fallen Kingdom SPOILER ALERT***] While the reboot heroes’ story made a bit more sense to the actual plot of the movie, again I wasn’t as interested in them. And I believe that part of it was I really did not like the direction of Fallen Kingdom, and where we ended up in there. At that point the story became more about genetic mutation in creatures than dinosaurs; with the reveal that the character Maisie Lockwood is a clone. Which in Dominion makes her a very sought after individual; with the big bad corporation this time, Biosyn Genetics, wanting her DNA.
Let’s switch over to the things I liked about this movie. Dominion really felt like a natural continuation from where we last left off in Fallen Kingdom, and I know I said I wasn’t a big fan of where Fallen Kingdom ended, but with that being said, I really do respect that Dominion continued with what was set up previously and did not try to course correct from there. Dinosaurs have been let loose in the world, but there are also people who are using these dinosaurs as weapons. Are dinosaurs being weaponized weird? Absolutely! But there were plans of this being set up in Jurassic World (2015) and that continued into Fallen Kingdom and then we got to see that in action in Dominion.
[***SPOILER ALERT***] We also saw other genetics companies want to use John Hammon’s research used for other things. Benjamin Lockwood (played by James Cromwell in Fallen Kingdom) wanted to use the research for human cloning. And as revealed later in Dominion, Biosyn wants the research to control the world’s food supply.
Now the thing that I absolutely loved about this movie was bringing back the character Dr. Lewis Dodgson. I have only read the first book, and I believe he plays a bigger part in The Lost World book, but having him in there really brings this whole series full circle. He was the reason why Dennis Nedry, in Jurassic Park, sabotaged the parks security system to get the dinosaur embryos, back in 1993. Bringing Dodgson into this felt very natural and needed as we got to see what exactly he was doing over at Biosyn labs, and why his character is actually the true reason why everything fell apart from the very beginning.
So I have to say I was a bit torn on this movie. Overall, there were things that I really did not like here, but there were things that I did love quite a bit! Though I did feel a little let down at the end of the day. I really hope this is the end of the series, but at the same time I am very excited for when I can view this at home and do a big Jurassic Park / Jurassic World trilogies viewing.
5 out of 10 for Jurassic World: Dominion.