Honestly, I could have adapted any number of great Dr. Malcolm quotes from the other films to title this review, but this one perhaps sums it up best. (Be warned. I have a lot to say, so if you dislike long reviews, skip ahead now.)
Here's where I'm coming from:
1. Loved Jurassic Park, of course.
2. Enjoyed Lost World but disappointed by its missed potential.
3. LIKED Jurassic Park III (that's right, I'm the guy).
4. Admired Jurassic World for recreating some of the awe of the original with a slight twist.
5. Frustrated with Fallen Kingdom's disjointed structure and simplistic characters but its cliffhanger ending left me optimistic for the future.
6. Dominion... Well, another Malcolm quote sums it up: "That is one big pile of s**t."
The Jurassic World trilogy unfortunately has been one of diminishing returns. The first (JW) was a reimaging of the 1993 original (not unlike The Force Awakens was to A New Hope), but with an understanding of modern cynicism and apathy. An early line of dialogue summed up the theme: "No one is impressed by a dinosaur anymore." Genetically creating a new scarier hybrid dinosaur was an interesting angle, as it kept the scientific focus of the original but provided a meta commentary not just on the JP franchise but on all Hollywood monster movies. While it was no masterpiece, Colin Trevorrow gave a new idea to ponder alongside the dinos, which neither Lost World nor JP III did.
Fallen Kingdom was very messy. Since JW resolved its plot quite well, new storylines and characters were created out of thin air, and logic was pretty much thrown out the window. John Hammond had a partner? The island houses an active volcano? Human cloning going back years? Claire now works for PETA for dinosaurs? The last surviving raptor is John McClane? A Freddy Krueger like dinosaur was created that hunts children in their beds for the purpose of...military combat? Yet, for all of Fallen Kingdom's problems, J. A. Bayona at least gave us some new atmosphere and ended on an intriguing note. By releasing the dinosaurs into the mainland, the door was left open for a number of interesting directions to take the final film.
What's baffling about Dominion is how it manages, at great effort, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (pardon the pun). It was supposed to be the franchise's grand denouement. The set up was there--a fastball down the middle --and instead of a homer they hit a long popup to left field while the audience waits with increasing disappointment for the inevitable catch. I didn't care to research what went wrong with Dominion's planning process, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple scripts with different ideas, and Trevorrow (back in the director's chair, and again one of the writers) decided "let's use them all!...except for the one that examines the logistics of dinosaurs living amongst humans...that one can be trashed."
As other reviewers have discussed, dinosaurs are merely tangential to Dominion's messy plot. For much of the 2 1/2 hour runtime, it's easy to forget about them, since instead the film decides to focus on...the human characters (and locusts?). Aside from the original, the JP movies have had a consistent problem with its human roles, most either being annoying, doing inexplicably stupid things (even the good guys, Nick Van Owen, anyone?), or just being plain boring. It's the last one that hurts Dominion the most.
In JW, Owen (Pratt) and Claire (Howard) were stereotypical but capable leads with some humorous interactions. Fallen Kingdom stripped away most of Owen's charisma and gave Claire's personality an unwelcome 180. In Dominion, Owen is now Generic Action Hero, and Claire has made a full transformation from Take-Charge Corporate Executive to a worried mother (over a child who isn't hers) who screams and panics a lot with Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern) when encountering bugs. So much for women inherit the earth. Maisie (Sermon) also returns from Fallen Kingdom. Sadly, instead of focusing on her grappling with being the first human clone, they've reduced her to an unlikeable angsty teen who serves as a MacGuffin for the others after she's kidnapped by the bad guys for reasons not entirely clear.
Bringing back the original cast is pointless if you give them nothing interesting to do. Dr. Grant (Neill) is perhaps the saddest case. In the 20 years since we've last seen him he is still digging up dinosaur fossils and apparently has done nothing else with his life. He has fallen from an intelligent, capable leader to a clueless figure who mostly follows others around looking as confused and bored as the audience. Dern as Dr. Sattler fares the best; she is given the most to do and tries to inject life into the nonsensical plot. Goldblum as Dr. Malcolm is a welcome return, but our favorite nonconformist chaotician would NEVER go work for a genetics lab. Near the film's end he provides an amusing commentary on the movie's absurdity (e.g., his deadpan to Pratt: "You made a promise to a dinosaur?")
Two more returning roles need mention. One of the more interesting things JW and Fallen Kingdom did was bring back Dr. Wu (B. D. Wong), making him a brilliant but self-indulgent geneticist. Wong sold it very well and it seemed like a natural progression for his character. He felt Hammond never gave him the respect he deserved (like Nedry), so he became determined to make bigger and greater accomplishments (i.e., hybrid monsters) than his former boss, unabashedly and at any cost. It was an interesting heel turn, making Dr. Wu (while never a major role) the most believable human antagonist of the series. Instead of resolving Wu's villainous arc, Dominion inexplicably reverses course and strips him of his hubris. Looking ungodly sick, Wu gives a mea culpa to Maisie for his creation of...giant locusts. No mention of his regret for recklessly creating the hybrid killing machines in the last two movies. Another good set-up from prior movies wasted.
And then there's Dr. Dodgson (Scott). JP enthusiasts will remember the character's cameo in the first JP as the competing geneticist who hires Nedry to steal the embryos. And true fans know he played a more prominent role in the second novel. It seemed like an inspired choice to bring back Dodgson, a villain who connects to the plot of the first film and, by proxy, to its three returning heroes. Yet, in his interactions in Dominion with Sattler, Grant, and Malcolm, they never learn of his involvement in JP. Indeed, even Dodgson doesn't seem aware that they were involved in JP, although his character should certainly know that. But for a quick shot of the infamous muddied Barbasol can in his office, you could completely forget who he is. He acts more like an eccentric Steve Jobs with only one foot in reality than the cutthroat scientist he should be. "We've got Dodgson here!"...yet "nobody cares." Nedry was right.
If you've read up to this point (congratulations), you'll note I've barely mentioned the dinosaurs. Say what you will about the other movies, but at least they were all about the dinos. Many had distinct personalities that made them terrifying. One of Fallen Kingdom's mistakes was recrafting the sole surviving raptor (the villains of the first JP) as the hero, and raptors are no longer scary. Dominion goes further. Now the raptor (Blue) has reproduced (don't ask) and is a doting mother. There's no menace, and, further, Blue is sidelined for most of the film.
Yes, there are dinosaurs, including other types of raptors. Dominion takes Fallen Kingdom's lame concept of laser-guided raptors and embraces it, resulting in a motorcycle/cargo plane chase through Malta that, while visually impressive (and welcome as the first action sequence 45 minutes in), belongs in a Bond or Bourne movie. (Dominion hops across several genres.)
Where these never-before-seen dinosaurs came from is unknown. No more than 50 were released in Fallen Kingdom, and these new species were not among them. No explanation...moving on. Some new dinos in Dodgson's "animal preserve" (*cough* new park) seem interesting, although we don't know anything about them. To the film's credit, there is a tensely shot sequence involving Claire hiding in a lake from a spine-chilling carnivore. It's the closest Dominion comes to recreating the quiet fear of the original, and it's due to the movie deciding to slow down and take a welcome breath.
Though why this lake is liquid when another lake in the same general area and time is frozen over enough to walk on shows a lack of continuity. It feels as though the creative team became entirely overwhelmed with the snowballing plot threads and characters that inconsistencies like this became commonplace. Trevorrow reportedly was pleased Covid delayed the film's release a year because it would allow them more time in post-production, yet with the uneven editing and overall breakneck pace, you wouldn't know it. They had extra time to edit together a cohesive, understandable plot and failed to do so.
But Dominion's biggest sin is that it simply isn't scary. Aside from the noted lake sequence, there is no terror, no dread, no sense of dangerous awe. A new apex predator bigger than the T-Rex is supposed to frighten us. It doesn't. When the paths of the JP leads and JW leads finally merge while cornered by the big dinos, they act like they're in peril, but we don't buy it. We don't believe any of these stars will die (they don't), and we're not invested enough in them to care anyway. The characters lack agency, and it's boring. Dominion mostly swaps quiet scenes of terror of humans using their wits to face off against dinos (e.g., JP's T-Rex escape, raptors in the kitchen) for interchangeable dinos fighting each other in yawn-inducing brawls.
During one of these, Dr. Grant notes aloud: "This isn't about us." How true, and how sad. Dominion fails to exert dominion over itself.
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