Review: “Jurassic World Dominion”

The synopsis and trailers for “Jurassic World Dominion” imply that the fragile balance on Earth between man and his environment will be forever changed due to the dinosaurs that were set loose four years ago at the end of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.”  It seems far-fetched that a handful of dinosaurs could take over a world where man is working hard to prevent the extinction of other wild animals.  Considering all of these dinos were specifically designed to be unable to reproduce, they seem to be multiplying faster than rabbits.  But as we’re quickly shown, the big threat isn’t dinosaurs.  It’s genetically mutated locusts.

This two-and-a-half-hour movie has two main storylines that eventually meet up.  First, we have CEO turned dino-activist Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her once again boyfriend Owen (Chris Pratt) playing house with young Maisie (Isabella Sermon), the human clone from “Fallen Kingdom.”  We’re supposed to believe this is a loving family unit, but they’ve essentially kidnapped Maisie and are holding her in a remote cabin against her will.  Also living in the forest nearby are Blue and her baby raptor, Beta.   Both Maisie and Beta are suddenly kidnapped by an unknown group and whisked away.

Meanwhile, in a recreation of an early scene in Jurassic Park, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) recruits Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to visit BioSyn (get it?), the company that now holds the patents to Dino-DNA.  This villainous company is based heavily on Apple, including the circular headquarters and a Jobs/Zuckerberg knock-off named Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott).  Ellie has been tipped off by a mole inside of BioSyn to one of their more devious endeavors.  The mole turns out to be none other than Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who is one of the small bright spots in this bloated behemoth.  It’s no surprise that BioSyn is also behind the abduction of Maisie and Beta, and this is what eventually brings these two storylines, and all our heroes together.   Unfortunately, it takes forever to get to this point, and once we’re there the remainder of the movie is mostly assembled from shoddy recreations of scenes from the original.  It’s not clear if this is meant as an homage, or if it’s to fill in some blanks for the younger generation who haven’t seen the first movie? Regardless, it feels lazy and forced.  There’s no sense of danger, and doing the exact same thing as another movie in the same series does nothing to advance the overall narrative.

Also frustrating is the goulash of genres that are thrown together.  We’re teased with a Western at the beginning, which has absolutely no relevance 10 minutes later.  There’s an exciting, although completely implausible, “Bourne Identity” sequence that immediately follows scenes inspired by “Indiana Jones.”  It’s hard to reconcile a sequence that is actually visually exciting and entertaining when all of the events that lead up to it, and the behavior of the main characters during it, are ridiculous.  When the movie finally gets to a climatic dino-on-dino battle, the climax of all these movies, it’s another retread, but this time in near darkness.  If your action is only revealed by a couple of swirling spotlights (where did those even come from?) it’s not exciting. It’s a sign that you don’t trust the CGI, which is unacceptable for this series more than any other.

This film is being referred to as the end of the second trilogy.  But it’s not the end due to any real conclusion, it seems they’ve just completely run out of new ideas.