“Dodgson! Dodgson! We’ve got Dodgson here! See? Nobody cares.”
Trevorrow and crew inherited the JP franchise, but by this third and (hopefully) final outing they have clearly run out of ideas. They fumble and stumble around, regurgitating scenes and ideas from just about every previous film (they even re-do the finale from the first Jurassic World). By this point all the magic and wonder are gone, and the last vestiges of life have been sucked dry from this once promising franchise.
Dominion suffers from a severe lack of a plot (or maybe too much plot). There are multiple twisting sub-plots that never coalesce together or amount to much of anything. The sub-plots feature a genetically engineered swarm of locusts that threaten to bring about the end of days ( That's right, we have a JP film about locusts. At least it's something different? The Dinosaurs almost act as set dressing), the kidnapping of Maisie from Fallen Kingdom, a Biosyn Dinosaur preserve where they research Dinos for pharmaceutical applications (Biosyn is the evil company that recruited Dennis Nedry in the first JP. The preserve/facility definitely reminds of the OG JP), the kidnapping of Blue's baby (whom I've nicknamed Baby Blue. This sub-plot is all but forgotten for around 90% of the film. Don't expect much Blue in Dominion either, as she's only in the first act and a scene in the last), and more.
Colin Trevorrow is back in the director's seat and does an awful job, unable to juggle all the various sub-plots. The first two acts or so might give some people whiplash as Dominion jumps from location to location, before eventually settling down at the Biosyn preserve. There is absolutely no through-line in Dominion, and it it feels like we've seen all this done before, but better. It leads to a sense you are drowning in a sea that consists of an excess of nothing.
The set-up that Fallen Kingdom left us with is all but ignored, which might be the most infuriating thing about Dominion. This installment had potential up the wazoo, but Trevorrow (for whatever misguided reason) thinks sticking to the same-old same-old is the best route. To think we could have had a movie about the threat of Dinosaurs living alongside humans/ humans learning to live with and survive the Dinosaurs. THAT could have been a cool time at the theaters. The big bad Dino (named the Gigantosauraus, a real Dino that actually existed) is essentially an after-thought, and isn't introduced properly until well into the third act (I will say the AA for the big bad is super impressive, though).
The OG cast from the first JP film return (Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and BD Wong. Neill and Wong easily emerge as the strongest of the bunch. In fact, Wong's performance as Dr. Henry Wu might be the only consistently great thing across all the JP/JW films he appears in). Campbell Scott fills in for the role of Lewis Dodgson, and might be the weakest of the human antagonists in all of the JP/JW films. I appreciate that they chose to include the OG big bad from the first JP, unfortunately Dodgson is essentially a boring, evil Steve Jobs.
It's nice to have the OG cast return, and their characters feel handled fairly well (They feel true to who they were in the first JP). It's appreciated that they are in the entirety of the film. Shame that Dominion waits until the final 20 minutes or so to introduce the Jurassic World main characters to the Jurassic Park main characters .
Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles. They are fine, but not particularly memorable (At least Pratt looks consistently cool). Isabella Sermon returns as Maisie, and is even more grating than she was in Fallen Kingdom. DeWanda Wise (as Kayla, a cocky and cool pilot) and Mamoudou Athie (as Ramsay, one of the underlings to Dodgson) are the only memorable new actors/characters.
The cast of characters here aren't as dumb as they were in Fallen Kingdom, but they aren't given a whole lot to do. Just about the only "great" part of Dominion is an extended Dino action scene in Malta. There isn't a whole lot of Dino action in Dominion, most of our time is spent with the human characters. The script (by Colin Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael) isn't the worst I've sampled, but definitely features some groan-worthy lines and reveals (like Ian Malcolm talking about a dog humping his leg).
Let's hope that Dominion really is the final outing for the tired and weary JP franchise. It's been bled dry at this point, and Dominion very well might be the worst of the entire series (it's certainly the least inspired). It feels great to see the OG cast return, the practical and CGI SFX both practical and CGI mostly impress (The AA for the Giganotosaurus is very cool) , and that Malta scene is lots of fun. Unfortunately, that's about it for the good in Dominion. I really wanted to like this film. I was hoping for fun bad, but instead I got boring bad. The park is officially closed. At least we'll always have Malta.
1 STAR
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