Written by Tyrone BruinsmaI didn't see Jurassic World: Dominion in cinemas and when I heard that it was the worst reviewed film in the franchise, I was skeptical. I'm presently annoyed at the current film discourse where anyone's opinion can become the "popular" consensus-even if that person is an uniformed moron, grifting bigot or jaded fanboy. So, to all the critics and clickbait YouTube mongers who said this film was bad...please stop. If this was the worst film of the year (it's not) or the worst film of the franchise (nope) then you don't know jack about jack. Jurassic World: Dominion is probably one balance the best of the Jurassic World trilogy and the most consistently entertaining. And yes, the Extended Edition is a vastly superior animal compared to the theatrical cut. Can film critique, analysis and discourse get better instead of living in the age of memes, "woke cinema" and everything being the best or worst film ever.
Following from Fallen Kingdom's climax where dinosaurs no exist throughout the world, Dominion sees dinosaurs interacting with humans, taken for research by tech giant BioSyn, used in black market dealings and causing their usual chaos. Complications arise for Owen, Claire, Dr Grant, Dr Sattler and Ian Malcolm when locust swarms cause havoc on the world's food supply, and both human clone Masie and raptor Blue's offspring are kidnapped. What proceeds is a globetrotting adventure to save two young beings and stop a tech company's unintentional destruction of the planet. This is easily the most different feeling of the Jurassic Park franchise, was large chunks set in a snowy environment and feeling closer to a James Bond or Mission Impossible installment. That's fine with me, as one criticism the series has earned is feeling too similar with "Dinosaurs on an Island" being the mostly single note it plays. Seeing dinosaur rustling in the snow, raptor chases in a city and plenty other unique dinosaur set pieces are welcome additions to the franchise. The extended edition's biggest addition is the awesome prologue showing prehistoric Earth with dinosaurs before having Rexy smash up a drive-in theatre. It was removed from the theatrical film for feeling "too much like a Terrence Mallick film" (even though Eternals was that) and released as a preview online. I prefer this opening being in the film as it shows us something the series never has, it looks really cool an even gives Rexy a small arc. Despite our big loveable T-Rex being the star of the franchise, don't expect to see too much of her. This film is primarily relying on a variety of creatures from new raptors, dilophosaurus, a giant pterosaur, and some others I won't spoil. The somewhat breakneck pace and consistent set pieces keep the film from lagging. Jurassic World speed ran through its first act and Fallen Kingdom had an overly long and boring second act. Dominion manages to make the extended edition's 160 minute runtime never feel extraneous. The extended edition does add in more character beats and even a really fun mini-dino fight that I thoroughly enjoyed. The new and returning cast members do solid work, though I think Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcolm was a bit silly even by his standards. Maybe he could've sacrificed himself and been eaten at some point? My two favorite characters were new girl bosses with DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts and Dichen Lachman as Soyona Santos. Seriously, they should've been in more of the film. The biggest transformation for me was Claire's character: starting off this trilogy as a somewhat cold, business focused, child blindspotting character and this film seeing her in corporate espionage and caring about her surrogate daughter. The CGI and practical effects were great as always, with returning Jurassic World cinematographer John Schwartzman creating some fantastic visuals. There's a repeated motif of shadowy figures backlight by a monochrome light and it seriously works in creating gorgeous vistas. It's very hard to say this film is badly made, poorly shot or terrible to look at. I know the story and script is where most armchair screenwriters got their nuts in a twist, but there's only a few instances of "ok, that didn't need to be there" that bothered me. Was there stuff that I didn't like? I think the obvious "locusts as Plagues of Egypt" reference was fine, I just wished they were either scarier, impacted the moment-to-moment plot more, had a big set piece or got shown off like in the Exodus: Gods and Kings sequence. And not all of the comedy lands, but most blockbusters have that problem. I'm also a little disappointed the Indominus Rex/Indoraptor storyline didn't continue and Spinosaurus never got to return to the franchise. Also, there was one sequence involving caves that I wish was longer or came back again. But a number of long-standing series arcs come to a satisfying close as far as I'm concerned. I think the film community's devolving state is one reason why this film wasn't so well reviewed. The other problem is people forgetting what Jurassic Park is. Jurassic Park is not some high art, flawless masterwork of cinema; it's an amazingly perfect version of a B-Movie made by a filmmaker who understand filmmaking. The sequels have been at their best when continuing that ethos and finding new things to do. The Lost World was a very fun, but thematically different monster film than the original with great filmmaking. Jurassic Park 3 is the worst of the series because it's a story-less retread of prior ideas and suffered from Joe Johnston throwing the script out 6 weeks before filmmaking. Jurassic World was a fun, big, colorful B-Movie that attempted meta-commentary on itself which is better than nothing. And Fallen Kingdom might've been lopsided but was at its best during the gothic horror movie moments and looked incredibly. Dominion is not the worst of this franchise, it's not even the worst big budget film of the year (that's still Secrets of Dumbledore) and is pretty goddamn fun. Learn to enjoy films more people, because I'm started to get very tired of the raw nerve, no brain, cynically motivated hot takes. 8/10
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