By Seth Lukas Hynes
Film reviewer Seth Lukas Hynes has taken a look at Jurassic World: Dominion, starring Chris Pratt, Sam Neill and Laura Dern Rated M.
Despite being an earnest tribute to the original Jurassic Park, Jurassic World: Dominion is not nearly as smart, scary or suspenseful.
With cloned dinosaurs loose across the globe, classic and new characters must join forces to avert a world-ending threat.
Dominion’s poor first act has campy yet bland henchmen and a fuzzy sense of where the main characters are going. Campbell Scott seldom conveys any menace as main antagonist Lewis Dodgson, CEO of corrupt biotechnology corporation BioSyn. Crop-eradicating genetically-engineered locusts are the plot’s main driving threat, which is a bizarre plot decision for a dinosaur thriller.
The T-Rex, the star of the entire franchise, feels neglected, and Giganotosaurus, the new dinosaur antagonist, has a cool demonic design but leaves little impact. Some of the set-pieces feature the raw survival horror of the original trilogy, including a very tense scene in a swamp, but the action sequences are burdened with contrived details and misplaced humour. Dominion’s callbacks to the original trilogy are appreciated – Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum return together for the first time since the original Jurassic Park in 1993 – but the film has too much nostalgic affection for the old guard to put them in any convincing peril.
As for the scant positives, the old and new cast have fun chemistry, B.D. Wong delivers a surprisingly poignant performance as repentant geneticist Henry Wu, and the dinosaurs are brought to life with amazing animatronics and puppetry, as opposed to the other World films’ CGI creatures.
Jurassic World: Dominion is a lukewarm conclusion to the Jurassic Park franchise, and is playing in most Victorian cinemas.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
