Jurassic World Dominion

If you’re young enough to have seen Jurassic Park on the big screen back in 1993, then you know it was an experience that you’ll never forget. Seeing dinosaurs literally brought to life on the big screen was a giant leap for films and CGI. Now we have Jurassic World Dominion, the final film in the series, and expectations are high.

Well most people’s expectations are probably high, I’ve been increasingly disappointed with the various sequels, as they rarely have lived up to the original but seem to adhere to the same plot every time. I went into the film feeling cautiously optimistic, because it’s the last film, they’re going to pull out all the stops, right.

Maybe.

Seeing Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum back together was nice, and Jeff Goldblum playing Jeff Goldblum had some pretty sweet one-liners, but getting the old crew back together wouldn’t be enough. What this final installment needed was some teeth.

Dinosaurs are now a part of everyday life, and we’re going to have to get used to it. We’re going to have to change some aspects of our lives, as we are no longer the top of the food chain.

Jurassic World Dominion starts off good, and promises a solid film. Not only are we having to share our world, but someone has genetically modified prehistoric locust, which conveniently is massive and breeding out of control, but doesn’t eat the genetically modified crops made by Biosyn Genetics, but is threatening the entire world’s food chain. Enter the main plot arc, investigate Biosyn Genetics, who conveniently have created a massive type of Jurassic Park as part of their research facility, yada yada yada.

Now if all you want is an exciting thrill ride to help you eat a big bucket of popcorn, then Dominion has what you need, and more. The film is a lot of fun and is easily the best of the sequels. It certainly gives plenty of bang for your buck.

But I can’t help but think that it’s a colossal waste of an opportunity to make a truly amazing final act.

Now apparently Dominion had a US$165 Million budget, which is a shit tonne of money, but apparently not enough for all the CGI and special effects that the plot required. The original Jurassic Park made you believe that dinosaurs were real. With Dominion, when the film shines visually, it really shines. But in some scenes reality comes crashing down like a tonne of bricks as shoddy CGI slams your subconscious awake with the sudden and disappointing reality that you’re watching a movie rather than being immersed in an event.

A lot of this could have been remedied by spending more time on the script, trimming back the fat and maybe having a sub two hour film rather than knocking on the door of two and a half hours. There’s a fair bit of redundant scenes of basically dino porn, that would have swallowed up a chunk of budget without adding a whole lot more to the experience.

And now we enter possible spoiler territory. Select the following text if you want to read it.

Apple created a rather binge worthy TV show called Invasion, and it starred Sam Neill, for the first episode. He didn’t make it to the end, and whilst his demise seemed a little early, it was a plot twist that you never saw coming. Dominion would have been served well if some of the beloved characters had paid the ultimate price. It would just add a little bit of much needed grounding to the plot.

Talking of the the plot, for a popcorn blockbuster it’s what you’d expect, cheesey, people making bad decisions and the heroes always managing to find each other and escape death. But as a film that is essentially the final in the series, it doesn’t really set up any lasting legacy.

Then we come to the ending. Where everything is put right, where we still have to live with dinosaurs, but nothing bad will happen, everything is conveniently resolved and humans and dinosaurs sit in a circle singing Kumbaya. It just ruins everything.

And then there’s the fact that anyone who saw the original in the cinema has grown up to adulthood, yet the film remains a sanitized family friendly experience, which I understand from an investment for profit point of view, but if a franchise ever deserved a Logan style send off, it was Jurassic Park.

But that’s probably just me, and to wrap up, if you don’t look too deeply, Jurassic World Dominion is a fast paced wild ride that entertains for a solid two and a half hours. It, along with another recently released film, will certainly revive the (US) summer blockbuster mentality of the Hollywood movie making machine with an almost certain box office success.

Rating: M Suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over. Violence.

GEEKERY rating: 4/5