Jurassic World 3

A dead-eyed Chris Pratt presides over this convoluted mess of Bond-style villains and toothless action that even the original cast can't save from ...

And the essential thrill of the first Jurassic Park movie, from Michael Crichton’s novel, is completely gone: that vital sense of something hubristic and transgressive and wrong in reviving dinosaurs in the first place. This could have been fun, but there is something so arbitrary and CGI-bound and jeopardy-free about it, as the film joylessly chops in bits of Alien, The Swarm, Bourne and 007. Nowadays, beefy velociraptor handler Owen (Pratt) lives a remote, almost hermit existence as a kind of dino-cowboy, with his wife, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), and their adopted daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon), the cloned child of Sir Benjamin Lockwood’s daughter. This new movie begins a few years after the destruction of the “Isla Nublar” compound for dinosaurs. You’ve heard of Blue Steel. This is Brown Steel. Or Beige Steel. And the very worst thing of all is Chris Pratt. It’s painful to remember how funny he used to be in TV’s Parks and Recreation, as well as Guardians of the Galaxy. Now he’s the boring action lead, forever doing smoulderingly hunky looks directed past the camera.

Nostalgia and new thrills make an interesting marriage in an imperfect but otherwise exciting Jurassic World Dominion.

We see realistic versions of several of the dinosaurs (updated from what we knew about the era at the time that the original Jurassic Park was made) and a surprising new bio-threat is introduced that ends up ultimately competing with the dinosaurs for the biggest current threat to humanity’s survival as a species. That’s a warranted frustration with the continuation of the franchise, but Dominion still has enough going on to keep it both exciting and fun for audiences. Jurassic World Dominion may be leaning heavily into nostalgia, but every single one of its newcomers is an impressive introduction to the franchise. Most notably is the character of Claire Dearing. She’s given breakneck character changes between Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, none of which are earned in any way that’s meaningful. While none of these are insignificant flaws, Jurassic World Dominion still manages to play with dino DNA in a way that keeps you excited and marks some notable improvements from previous entries. Jurassic World Dominion is one such flick, combining this generation’s heroes with those of the ‘90s with a surprising amount of success.

(from left) Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), ...

Alas, that means the film ends on a low note, complete with a redundant and repetitive climax which is unwilling to offer anything cruel, mean or unfair. It may not be as good as Camp Cretaceous or The Book of Henry, but it’s a whole lot of movie. Along the way they reunite with a few Jurassic World characters (yes, Omar Sy, Justice Smith and Daniella Pineda got paid) and meet a rogue mercenary pilot (DeWanda Wise) who eventually becomes a sympathetic ally. Without getting into better/worse, Jurassic World: Dominion occasionally feels like Colin Trevorrow’s answer to The Rise of Skywalker and Aquaman. The retcons, reveals and character-specific nostalgia A) aren’t about appeasing alt-right Nazis and B) mean more to the characters than to the audience (the big reveal gives B.D. Wong a chance to *act*). Moreover, it’s clear Trevorrow also wanted to make a movie that is every movie all in one. But the first two thirds, especially the whirlwind first half of this (admittedly overlong) 146-minute picture plays like an overstuffed checklist of stuff we haven’t seen in a Jurassic movie. The most remarkable thing about Jurassic World: Dominion is that it seems to exist as it otherwise would have even had it been made in non-Covid times.