"Jurassic World: Dominion" has finally roared into theaters, but how does it stack up to
the rest of the "Jurassic" franchise?
And which new character totally steals the show?
Keep watching for the best and worst "Dominion" has to offer.
One of the biggest selling points of "Jurassic World: Dominion" was a reunion of the original
cast.
It's the first time all three original cast members have been in the same film since "Jurassic
Park."
Famously, Sam Neill and Laura Dern sat out 1997's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" as
Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm took center stage, while Neill and Dern came back for "Jurassic
Park III."
To be fair, it's true that Goldblum had a quick cameo in "Fallen Kingdom," the second
"Jurassic World" movie.
However, he didn't interact with the main cast at all, and was only in bookend scenes,
so that hardly seems to count.
There is an undeniable, palpable nostalgic thrill in seeing them together on the big-screen
again, after nearly three decades apart.
"I could use your expertise."
There's no way around it: Pratt's wannabe-rogue adventurer cliché Owen Grady has always been
one of the worst elements of the "Jurassic World" films.
The character itself, an archetype of the "man's man" cool guy, doesn't really fit alongside
the more everyman heroes from the original trilogy.
"Who's the Alpha?"
"You're looking at him, kid."
In fact, those characters are more heroic precisely because they're not highly-trained
with military backgrounds, but still nonetheless rise to the challenge to fight and survive
anyway.
There's an element to the originals that — due to the characters' relatability — puts the
audience in their shoes, and lets the viewer imagine how they themselves would respond
to the extraordinary circumstances.
It adds stakes and tension that a generic action hero simply can't deliver.
Worse, Pratt simply doesn't sell "tough guy" well.
While he did bulk up for "Zero Dark Thirty," and was an ostensible action lead in the "Guardians
of the Galaxy" and "Avengers" films, his persona was still that of "sarcastic goofball."
In fact, the "Guardians" movies go out of their way to deflate Pratt's Peter "Star Lord"
Quill character at every opportunity, treating him as a parody of the tough '80s action heroes
he saw on Earth before being abducted.
While it's cool that "Dominion" finally brought the old gang back together for one last dinosaur
adventure, it is newcomer DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts who steals the show.
Honestly, it's a shame she couldn't have been the main character of the film.
Watts plays a jaded, roguish pilot who is embedded in the underground world of transporting
black market dinosaurs.
Beyond DeWanda's natural charisma, and the character being cool throughout, she also
has a great character arc to boot.
The actual protagonists — played by Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard — don't really have
any internal struggles to grapple with (all their struggles are external, like trying
to save their adopted daughter), and neither do the original "Jurassic" actors.
DeWanda's Watts, however, has to actually grow and change in the story, going from cynical
and brow-beaten to courageous and crusading.
Sure, it's a bit archetypal, but at least it's something.
Simply put: she has the best lines, the best deliveries, is seemingly having the most fun,
and gets to experience growth.
When she receives a new plane at the end of the film, it might be the single most emotionally
satisfying moment in all of "Dominion."
A major plot component of "Dominion" is that Campbell Scott's Dr. Lewis Dodgson and his
corrupt genetics company ByoSin have been using prehistoric DNA to genetically alter
locusts in an effort to control and monopolize the food supply chain.
They do this by unleashing giant locusts to eat all the grain from farms that don't buy
ByoSin proprietary seeds, since the locusts have been modified to not eat crops from the
ByoSin seeds.
This is how all three of the original "Jurassic Park" characters get involved in the story.
Ellie Sattler is on a mission to expose ByoSin and its genetically-modified locusts since
the disruption of the food chain could cause global starvation, which Dodgson sees as a
small sacrifice in maximizing the company's profits.
She then enlists the help of Dr. Grant, who both meet up with Ian Malcolm, who is employed
at ByoSin's secret facility.
The issue is that there are just as much — if not more — action set pieces involving the
characters escaping giant locusts than there are of them dealing with dinosaurs.
You know, the thing audiences bought their tickets to see.
While there are some interesting ideas within the locust subplot, it overwhelms and devours
runtime that should be devoted to dino action.
Like all "Jurassic Park" films, the most fantastical element of "Dominion" isn't the fact that
dinosaurs are now walking the Earth.
No, the real fantastical element of "Jurassic Park" films is that evil corporate CEOs and
their businesses eventually get their comeuppance and have to pay for their crimes.
It's a satisfying fantasy, manifested in the original "Jurassic Park" novel onwards.
The stories have always had an anti-capitalist, or at least anti-corporate stance.
Colin Trevorrow's "Jurassic World" films are no exception.
Corporate villain Dr. Lewis Dodgson is at least partially based on Elon Musk (including
a reference to his ill-fated Hyperloop) and looks quite a bit like Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Life in "Jurassic World" seems to imply that unethical billionaires and hyper-capitalists
could get their lives majorly disrupted for their crimes at any moment.
Perhaps DNA splicing isn't such a bad idea, after all.
Bringing back the original cast is a welcome move, and a huge nostalgia rush, not to mention
an excuse to watch great actors playing iconic characters.
Unfortunately, the overly reverent tone of the "World" films can become grating.
There's also cringey callbacks, like a repeat of "must go faster" when Malcolm gets into
a car, or when a character tells him to close his shirt, since his chest in the first "Jurassic
Park" became a meme, among many, many others.
Even the romance of Grant and Sattler, alluded to and implied in the first film, plays out
like overwrought fan fiction.
Grant sputters around Ellie like a nerd trying to woo the cheerleader at his high school.
If Neill or Dern were lesser performers, it could have stopped the movie in its tracks.
In 1993, "Jurassic Park" was at the cutting edge of modern paleontology.
Before, dinosaurs had been depicted as slow, lumbering and entirely reptilian.
The revolutionary theory that dinosaurs evolved into birds was pretty new and still in its
relative infancy when "Jurassic Park" was released.
"Even the word 'raptor' means 'bird of prey.'"
However, the original theories that were groundbreaking in the early '90s have since become outdated.
This includes substantial new evidence that dinosaurs were probably in fact feathered,
rather than scaly.
This introduced a problem for the rebooted "Jurassic World" series, which was being developed
after these theories of feathered dinosaurs became widely accepted in the science community.
Do you keep the dinosaurs looking as they did in the earlier films with their iconic
(and highly merchandisable) designs?
Or do you try to do what the first film did, and exist on the cutting edge of paleontology?
While the first "Jurassic World" decided to go with classic designs, in "Dominion," feathered
dinosaurs are on display.
For die-hard dino fanatics, it's as big a thrill as anything else in the film.
What the "Jurassic World" series of films promised — and especially what the end of
"Fallen Kingdom" promised — was a world overrun by dinosaurs.
Yet, the entire back half of "Dominion" is set in Dodgson's secret ByoSin facility — and
it is one of the biggest issues with the film.
True, there are some decent setpieces out in the supposed dino-infested world, but by-and-large,
the main bulk of the action takes place in the aforementioned ByoSin genetics facility.
At least it's not another secret Isla Nublar site or theme park.
But in many ways, the sterile Silicon Valley-inspired lab environments in "Dominion" are somehow
less interesting.
It's all just white, bland corridors.
It's slightly better when the characters are running around outside the facility, but since
this is surrounded by an artificially-grown prehistoric jungle full of swamps, caves,
and giant trees ... it might as well just be Isla Nublar.
The "Jurassic World" films took two entire movies to get to the point where dinosaurs
have finally reached the mainland, wreaking havoc on civilization.
Now they're here, and aside from the Malta chase scene and various black market dinosaur
operations, very little of the film expands upon a premise which once seemed so promising.
The scenes where the film works best are when it's showing how the world has changed.
Whether it's a construction crew having to use flares and equipment to lead a wandering
dinosaur away from their site, someone lassoing a dino on horseback, or a Mosasaurus overturning
a fishing boat, those are the scenes where the movie shines.
Despite the mediocrity of the rest of the film, a beautiful ending montage is a sight
to behold.
There are Triceratops marching with elephants in Africa, Saurolophus galloping with horses
in the Midwest, a Mosasaurus swimming next to blue whales, children feeding "Compies"
like ducks in a Washington D.C. park, and more.
It's all beautifully shot, wonderfully scored, and — like the Malta scene — a too-rare
scene that capitalizes on the "Jurassic World" premise.
What helps set it apart from the more ominous ending of "Fallen Kingdom" is that instead
of showing the potential violence inherent in the idea of dinosaurs coexisting with humans,
it focuses on the beauty and potential.
It also underlines a main theme of the films, about how nature always finds a way.
The "cloned human" plotline introduced in "Fallen Kingdom" was a late film twist; in
"Dominion," it wants to be the film's emotional spine.
The movie suffers because of it.
Sure, tying the cloning tech into the creation of humans is a clever idea, but the problem
with this big swing is that it's a miss.
"Jurassic" films are about dinosaurs, not the mama drama of cloned humans.
"He created another.
He made her again."
Some of this might be due to the plotline's execution.
Since Isabella Sermon's Maisie Lockwood is essentially the same as a regular person,
it's hard to see her as anything that special, especially when compared to bringing an extinct
species back to life in the modern era.
She's the reason the world is overrun by dinosaurs in the first place ... and the series just
awkwardly glosses over that.
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