This latest instalment picks up from where the previous movie, Fallen Kingdom in 2018, left off – with the pre-historic creatures released from there imprisonment to freely roam the earth. Vox pop coming out of the cinema auditorium was not positive. Jurassic World: Dominion is spoilt by a convoluted plot but is saved by the grand reunion of the veteran cast.
Jurassic World: Dominion begins with snippets of click-bait news footage of random pre-historic birds and animals causing chaos in the towns and cities.
This is the first dislocating theme of the movie. After the first scenes of humans around the world living with pre-historic creatures, that’s it – we don’t return to this theme beyond the narrow story line itself. The franchise has supposed to have been inverted with the creatures in our world instead of a park.But this is no version of World War Z with a global feel.
The movie is saved by the old gang having a reunion. Laura Dern coaxes Sam Neill out of isolation to fight the mutant locusts. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas
Howard have become foster parents. And this take us to the next dislocating part of the movie – the storylines that don’t meld into one.
We have the teenager , Maisie Lockwood, being protected and then caught and then saved again. Then we have main story of the rogue BioSyn company boss seeking to dominate the world by using modified locusts to kill off non-BioSyn modified crops. He also wanted the girl as she is a clone. But, by half way through the movie, once the reveal was made, I found myself having lost interest in how the plots weave into one. It may have looked good on paper but two story lines never really came together. Maise’s cloning story is simply not spun out.
These two story lines are precariously joined together by the actors. We are introduced to the old gang. The pairs form a group, meet Jeff Goldblum and fight the evil boss together. Ultimately, it’s their acting that shines through – particularly the eccentric Jeff Goldblum.
Along the way, there are the pre-historic creatures. The movie could have easily been back in its theme park – by the time the story had taken us to the BioSyn HQ in Italy we were as good as back in Jurassic Park.
Whilst the various pre-historic birds and animals are ever present there is a lack of jeopardy that the previous movies gave us: humans clashing with the creatures very rarely showed real fear. I came away from the movie wondering how the main story line of the evil boss felt somewhat disconnected from the pre-historic creatures – only the Baby Blue seemed to have a solid role.
Finally, at nearly two and half hours it is a long movie. It could have and should have been half an hour shorter. There was too many scenes to work through that overcomplicated it. The one shining moment in Malta was my sole sense of feeling involved in the plot – action scenes and thrills. By the end of the movie I had completely forgotten that these creatures were supposed to be roaming the earth. It ended with the evil boss being caught.
Jurassic World: Dominion is strictly for the Jurassic Park/World fans. Its botched story line and reliance of lots of CGI creatures and a full complement of veteran actors does not do enough to satisfy the Saturday night movie goer crowd.
