"Jurassic World: Dominion," Entertaining Talent if Boring Story

With the ever-evolving developments of the sci-fi genre into deep outer space, it seems somewhat odd to be immersed in the ancient history of the dinosaur here on Earth. And yet, Jurassic World: Dominion delights in the adventure. In a landscape so inundated with reboots and sequels, it would be effortless for Dominion to be swept under as another cash-grab. It is. And it isn’t. In an entertainment landscape that may be dino-ed out, Dominion keeps moving and shaking, even when it rewrites itself.

When the first Jurassic World film was made and released in 2015, there’s no way the creatives and studio had an entire 3-film plot mapped out. Similar to how the Star Wars reboot trilogy was reworked and rewritten with each film, so is the Jurassic World franchise. And it shows. With every film, there’s a changing set of pre-established knowledge that shifts to fit the narrative of the current film, even in small ways. If you can’t integrate an established set of events into the narrative, perhaps that’s not the story worth telling.

That said, the integration of the original cast (Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum) for the final reboot film is done very well. Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm already appeared in the trilogy’s second installment, making the integration of all three characters (Dern’s Dr. Ellie Sadler and Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant) organic and well-integrated. As a standalone film, Dominion is immensely entertaining. The film is directed well, acted well, and produced well.

Bryce Dallas Howard shines in this film, finally getting her “hero” scenes, a far cry from the haughty CEO type running around in heels she played in the first Jurassic World film. Howard’s knowledge of cinema and filmmaking show in the progression of her acting talents. As a director, she’s keenly aware of how her character can and should move within the frame. She’s just delightful. Howard and Dern as such a compelling duo. It would be great to see Howard direct herself in a film opposite Laura Dern.

Even though the Jurassic films are staples of Hollywood cinema and the dinosaur/predator genre film, it is possible to take a trope too far. When a trope gets in the way of the protagonist(s) achieving their goals, time after time, there has to be some editing for economy of story. So, this will be an unpopular opinion (*cue the BBC 1 jingle*), but it must be said: Jurassic World: Dominion has too many dinosaurs.

No one in this film can take two steps without facing a dinosaur boss each time they want to level up during the two-and-a-half-hour runtime of Dominion. Nearing the film’s end, Dr. Ian even has a line to the effect of “this fight isn’t about us” as two predator dinosaurs go head-to-head. This huge CGI dinosaur fight is used to 1) add in another obstacle to the end of the questline and 2) to wrap up an unnecessary D-plot asking which dinosaur is the top predator (hint: it can’t be just one, because this is Hollywood and not how actual ecosystems work).

In the film’s first act, a throwaway line about dinosaur food-chain dominance sets up a scene in act two, where Howard’s character Claire must sneak away from two territorial dinosaurs. That setup paid off just fine without giving the excuse for the cast to run across a dinosaur boxing ring to make it to their getaway helicopter. Dominion’s final act took way too long to wrap up and really would have benefitted from some economy of story to get it down to the 2-hour mark.

Overall, Jurassic World: Dominion is a fun, well-acted, CGI-heavy film about many things, most of them with nothing to do with dinosaurs, with the added tension of fighting some dinosaurs at every step in the plot. Still, would watch again.