Alright, so... let's pick up right where we left off before. Plus about four years.
Now, you may remember that I rather enjoyed Fallen Kingdom at the time that it came out. My opinion on it has soured a bit upon re-viewing, I'm sorry to say. I'd hesitate to call it "bad", but it's an odd duck in the Jurassic Park franchise. It's not Jurassic Park III bad, but it was still eclipsed by the first Jurassic World film in terms of scale and presentation. With Dominion touted as "The Epic Conclusion of the Jurassic Era", will it be able to surpass expectations? Let's have a look!
As always, beyond this point there be spoilers. You have been warned.
The film begins with a view of how the world has gone crazy since the reintroduction of dinosaurs into the Earth's ecosystems. There's mass panic and chaos all over the world as the governments try to figure out what to do, a company called BioSyn (which, while not appearing in the film Jurassic Park did actually appear in Michael Crichton's novel as a competitor of InGen) has built a massive wildlife preserve in the mountains of Italy, and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Darling (Bryce Dallas Howard) are living off the grid in Nevada to take care of Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), who is wanted by the authorities for her status as a rumored genetic experiment.
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| Stop! Hammer time! |
However, one of the main draws of the film is the fact that the three principal actors from the original Jurassic Park have returned to their old roles. Enter paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), who is investigating plagues of locusts that have been chewing their way through many of the crops in the Midwest, all those crops that curiously aren't using BioSyn seed. She has been invited to BioSyn's aforementioned Italian preserve by none other than Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and has requested to come along her old flame Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) as a witness as they try to figure out what BioSyn is really up to.
And yes, the original trio show up and not only have one scene together, but several scenes.
I can just feel J.J. Abrams screaming in impotent rage at his own stupidity!
That is one bit of praise that I'll give Dominion right off the bat - it actually does respect its legacy characters and they don't feel like superfluous add-ins that are there just to get the butts into the seats. Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm actually do things and contribute to the plot in meaningful ways.
The plot kicks off with Maisie, now being fourteen, getting increasingly irritated with Owen and Claire keeping her cooped up in the middle of the Nevada woods. In other news, Blue has had a child that Maisie affectionately nicknames "Beta". Both Maisie and Beta get captured by poachers working for BioSyn and Owen and Claire cowboy up to go and rescue them.
Insert 136-ish minutes here and we have the completed film.
Another thing I can say I like is that the film does not shy away from the premise set up in Fallen Kingdom. We get to see not only the chaos of a world where dinosaurs have been suddenly and violently reintroduced, but the aftereffects of that chaos where you have certain individuals (both legitimate and otherwise) trying to exploit the dinosaurs for their own ends. Some of them far more malevolent than others.
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| See you later, maybe? |
This includes Soyona Santos (Dichen Lachman - Daisy Johnson's mother Jiayang from Agents of SHIELD), a dinosaur smuggler who seems to be a sort of dark mirror to Owen in regards to the raptors. Whereas Owen trained them with a mutual respect of a sort, Santos seems to be more keen on brainwashing. Her attack method involves using a laser pointer and the raptors immediately attack and kill whoever said laser was pointed at, pursuing their target even unto death against their own survival instinct.
... it's kind of a pity that she only shows up for the two or so scenes, then gets arrested by French intelligence and is never seen again. I really felt like there was more they could have done with this character. Although, director Colin Trevorrow has said that she could make a reappearance in future installments should they happen, so that's something.
Likewise with the return of Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), who is this time played by an actor who is very less child molester shaped. He is there, kind of being a weird Steve Jobs stand-in but with only part of the showmanship. That's not to say that he's bad in the role, but he definitely isn't, but he just doesn't have an overabundance of impact that couldn't be filled in by other characters and his death scene mirrors that of Nedry's from the original film in a little bit of complete karmic overdrive.
Yes by the way, all jokes to dig at the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy aside, it is great to see the OG Jurassic Park trio back together for one last ride. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and especially Jeff Goldblum just slide right back into their roles as though they had never left them. Which was a hell of a nostalgia trip for me, seeing as Jurassic Park is the first film I ever saw with them in it. Also, no joke, Jurassic Park was my favorite movie when I was a kid. I should probably get around to reviewing it at some point. There's also, notably, a healthy (but not distracting) number of inside jokes regarding the original film, such as Grant at one point being asked if he knew how much voltage was used in the electric fences of the original Jurassic Park, or Malcolm having his shirt unbuttoned and then embarrassingly mumbling as he buttons it back up.
The man has still got it! Comedic genius!
We also get, however brief, the interaction between the originals and the newbies. I'm sad to say my headcanon about Owen being the kid that Grant scared to death with a raptor claw in the first movie got thrown out of the window at Mach speed, but otherwise it's pretty good. The mutual respect between the two teams and their need to band together to escape the insanity of yet another Jurassic Park situation. It's honestly some good stuff, even if it isn't dwelt on for very long.
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| Owen would have gotten Artax through the Swamp of Sadness. |
I will say I was a little underwhelmed by the final battle between the T-Rex, a Therizinosaurus, and a Gigantosaurus. It's sad when you can have three gigantic apex predators in a battle and say that it was underwhelming, frankly. That said, the T-Rex gets a last minute redemption for the piss poor fight in Jurassic Park III (not that this is the same T-Rex, but shut up, I make the rules up as I go) and it was pretty entertaining to watch. I don't know, I think Jurassic World topped it with a T-Rex, and team of Raptors, and the Mosasaurus teaming up and taking out the Indominus Rex might have been the pinnacle in terms of final dinosaur bouts.
That said, I have very few complaints about this one. And... oh, right. The locusts. Thanks, Editor!
To get back to that plot point about the locusts, it turns out that BioSyn is behind them. It seems that Dodgson is perfectly happy to get rid of most of the crops that will feed the people of the Earth as well as the animals... which includes his own dinosaurs, so I'm really not sure what his endgoal was here. The film implies that the locusts being so long-lived was an accident that they can only fix with Maisie's DNA, but that really doesn't explain what the ploy was in general. To buy up the land from non BioSyn seed using farmers? To force them to buy BioSyn seed? It seems oddly short-sighted for a man who keeps going on and on about opportunities and the future.
And yes, the locusts creep me the hell out! Torch them all and let Insect God sort them out!
Also, we get a retcon about Maisie's nature as a clone of Charlotte Lockwood - namely she isn't. She is lab grown, but she is completely Charlotte's daughter. Why she wasn't just told this, seeing as that was the cover story that her grandfather gave her to begin with, I have no idea. Still, it fixes something from Fallen Kingdom that was kind of stupid, so I'm willing to let it slide.
All told, Jurassic World: Dominion is 146 minutes that is both an enjoyable ride and does well to honor the legacy of the films that came before it. If this is to be the end of the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise, then it's definitely ending on a high note. However, given that the film has already made back eight times its budget (and counting), I suspect that this is not the last time we will be taking a look into that world of 65 million years ago brought into the present.
Then again, perhaps I just haven't evolved enough to see it differently...
Jurassic World: Dominion is now in theaters from Amblin Entertainment, Perfect World Pictures, The Kennedy/Marshall Company, and Universal Pictures.
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