Jurassic World Dominion Movie Review
The end of the Jurassic Park franchise is finally upon us with Jurassic World Dominion. We follow Owen and Claire as they try to protect their adopted daughter Maisie in a world where dinosaurs roam free, threatening humanity's place on Earth. I wasn’t looking forward to this movie after the fiasco that was Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. Dominion however, managed to surprise me and give a fun but inherently flawed dinosaur flick.
The main reason why Dominion is so fun is the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are an impressive combination of practical and special effects, making them look realistic. The designs of the newer dinosaurs were incredible; my favorite being the Therizinosaurus. It had a long neck, bright blue feathers, and razor sharp claws. It was a combination between a T-Rex and Freddy Krueger, making it easily one of the most terrifying dinosaurs that I have ever seen. This reminded me why I loved the original Jurassic Park movie so much. It made me believe that dinosaurs really lived among us.
Dominion was also filled to the brim with intense action sequences. I was having so much of a ball watching the dinosaur battles, fist fights, shoot outs and car chases, that I didn’t even care that the story leading up to these were lackluster. I had a huge smile on my face watching Chris Pratt ride on a motorcycle while avoiding two bloodthirsty velociraptors that are hot on his trail. There were also traces of horror mixed into the movie and that gave the Jurassic franchise something fresh to utilize. Dominion does a great job creating tension and building up to effective jump scares that made me drop my popcorn.
As enjoyable as Dominion was, there were plenty of flaws that brought it down for me. Dominion has a rough story that goes in multiple directions without properly developing any of it. I originally believed this movie was going to focus on dinosaurs roaming the Earth, but Dominion focused on Maisie hiding from the government, a baby velociraptor being kidnapped, and mutated locusts destroying the world’s food supply. This was extremely disappointing because the past two Jurassic World movies were setting up for dinosaurs escaping and roaming the Earth, but in this movie, that aspect is pushed to the background and treated like a nuisance rather than a world changing event. The dialogue was also horrendous. My shoulders were starting to cramp from the amount of tensing up they did whenever the characters spoke. The worst offenders were Claire and Maisie, to no fault of the actors. Their characters had the most cliche mother/daughter relationship and that led to some disgusting lines between the two.
It’s clear to me that Jurassic World Dominion is not well made, however I felt good after watching it. It was very fun, despite being a bad movie. This movie fails to completely recapture the magic of the first Jurassic Park movie, but it will at least hold Dominion over your excitement level.
