Jurassic World: Domínio

If I were to list out all the things this movie focuses on, dinosaurs would be fifth or sixth, behind multiple storylines that range from bland to useless. I'm baffled by how little focus is on dinosaurs. And I don't just mean they are barely onscreen. The original Jurassic Park barely had any for the first hour. But everything leading up to that, the story, dialogue and themes, were all focused on dinosaurs.

That's not the case with Dominion. The majority of the storylines are tangentially related at best, completely unrelated at worst. Imagine watching Taken but Liam Neeson has to watch out for dinosaurs... that's one storyline. You could replace dinosaurs with any scary creatures and it would make little difference to the plot.

On top of that, they did a poor job of balancing so many storylines with different characters. Or maybe it's because every single one is uninteresting. And the moment when the different characters come together falls completely flat. I compare it to Stranger Things, when the stories converge and the crew is finally together, those moments are so impactful and exciting. They feel earned and elevate everything after. In Dominion, you don't feel any kind of magic.

Some parts were so bad they made me cringe or roll my eyes. But that wasn't the case for the majority of the movie. So why such a harsh score? Because this movie, which is the definition of a popcorn flick here to entertain us, is unbelievably boring. I had 8 hours of sleep last night and drank a Red Bull, yet I was struggling to stay awake. I had to un-recline.

All of the action scenes are forgettable. Literally. It's only been a few hours and I can remember maybe a couple cool moments. And one thing I couldn't believe, the climax action sequence is straight-up copied from one of the previous movies. I won't say which one, but I'm baffled they went this route. It's even sadder when you realize it's worse than what it copied in every way.

As for the dinosaur effects, at times the animatronic dinosaurs look like toys. And the CGI dinosaurs look a bit off. I don't think it's poor CGI but something about it doesn't feel right.

I am so disappointed this is what they gave us for their self-proclaimed "epic conclusion of the Jurassic era." Especially after Fallen Kingdom left us with such an exciting cliffhanger, the chaos that awaits the people of the world when dinosaurs are unleashed upon them. That's not at all what we get.

I loved the first Jurassic World. And while the second is highly flawed, it's still entertaining and filled with tension and suspense. I felt none of that with Dominion. (1 viewing, opening Thursday UltraScreen 6/9/2022)

6th film in the Jurassic series that brings back the main 3 actors of the original Jurassic Park movies to share the screen with the main actors of the Jurassic World Movies to give a grand sent off to the entire series. Unfortunately, both sets of actors are split up in two completely different stories that combine towards the climax and one of the stories ( The one with Neil, Dern and Goldblum) is ten times more interesting than the other one ( The one with Pratt and Howard). In fact, with a heavy rewrite and a better director at the helm, the story involving the original Jurassic Park characters would have a been a very good Jurassic Sequel on its own right. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, so we are stuck with a another bad Jurassic World sequel that does not know on what it wants to be .

The story involving the original Jurassic Park cast is actual a very interesting one that involves corporate espionage and genetic engineering. A story on which if it had a stronger screenplay, a better director and a direct focus on what this series is really about , it would have been a great continuation of Michael Crichton's work and a great bookend to Steven Spielberg's first two Jurassic Park films (The original and it's only true and worthy sequel "The Lost World"). Unfortunately under Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly dimwitted screenplay, the story only scratches the surface of the subject matter and is shoehorned to run parallel with the other story in this movie, which is not very thought out and is really pretty bad . Fortunately for the audience, the characters of Alan Grant , Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm are as endearing as ever and the actors are having a fun. Jeff Goldblum can read a phone book and make it interesting, intelligent, funny and entertaining. His character's sarcastic wit is so on point in certain scenes that you end up thinking that Jeff is trying to break the 4th wall to let the audience know on how he really feels about this movie. Sam Neill is great as well, making a welcome return to his character and he actually looks happy to be in this film ( A far cry from the tired performance he gave in the horrible "Jurassic Park 3" but who can blame him) and Lara Dern is as intelligent, spunky and sassy as ever. The charisma and chemistry of all three of the returning Jurassic Park actors more than make up for the half baked plot line they are working with.

The same can't be said for the returning Jurassic World actors, whose plot line is a direct sequel to the events of the horrible "Fallen Kingdom" and it does not help that both Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard look disinterested in their roles. Pratt, who was a welcome addition in "Jurassic World" just looks tired and bored here and Howard, (who in my opinion had a harder character to play and that reason being is the fact that her character changes personalities from one film to the next ) looks ready to move on from this franchise. Their story involving the kidnapping of the clone child of "Fallen Kingdom" and Blue's own baby raptor is so bad that it's an anchor over the neck of this movie. Their story ends up as a bad rip off of the Jason Bourne series. You have shady bad guys, bad stereotypes, a unbelievable plane crash and a fight with dinosaurs in a city (Anybody who still crying over the T-Rex in San Diego in "The Lost World" should keep their mouths shut after they see this terrible sequence in this film). Not to mention the characters striking super hero poses in certain scenes, which makes this story impossible to take seriously. Fortunately or unfortunately if you think about it, the two parallel stories connect towards the climax and our heroes meet for the first time. Which is also eye opening because you can see how shallow the characters from "Jurassic World" are compared to the characters of "Jurassic Park". Not to mention the fact that the "Park" actors are making an effort to bring something to this mess while the "World" actors are just going through the motions.

Which is a shame because Neil, Dern and Goldblum remind the audience on why the original Jurassic Park is such a class act and that was because it had great characters and great actors behind them. Unfortunately, not even their Herculean efforts can stop this film for being crushed by the weight of its own stupidity.

Before I went to this film (because my Grandson is nuts about this series of films) I read one newspaper review. It wasn't glowing, but it was positive. Unfortunately, this is a mess. Others have already talked about the issues I have. Granted, this is an empty headed summer movie, it could still have been done with some serious thought. I was hanging in there throughout with a new dinosaur attack every three minutes, and velociraptors going at fifty miles per hour and not getting tired. Humans being assaulted time after time and yet showing no fatigue. I also didn't see a scratch on any of them. But the best of all was the promise made to a baby dinosaur and his mother that precluded saving the world from famine. Not to mentioned the coincidences of everyone showing up in just the right places. I still don't understand how they got into that facility so easily. The return of the original cast was not helpful other than Jeff Goldblum's sarcasm. Anyway, it's all been said. This is a poor movie.

When I go to a Jurassic Park movie, I want something above all else-hyper realistic dinosaurs in cool environments, seeing them frolic in natural habitat, defend territory, battle other dinos for dominance, hunt humans, and the like. From the opening island scene with the brachiosaurus to the T-Rex reveal in the rainstorm, dinosaurs were front and center in the original Jurassic Park, inspiring a sense of grandeur and awe. The dinosaurs were what mattered, and everything else was peripheral-even the plot to get off the island. We all wanted another glimpse of the T-Rex, or were anxious to discover where the raptors were lurking.

So that was the first one. Now in this sixth installment, not only are dinosaurs relegated to a commercialized product that's seen on every tv screen in the movie, but they're demoted below the humans, genetics, and even mutated locusts in terms of importance. In a two and a half hour movie, one would expect dinosaurs to fill almost half that time, and yet they pale in screen time comparison to all the human characters. Instead, the director tried to insert cameos of the legacy characters in forced interactions and honestly cringey dialogue, shifting the focus away from the real meaning in the Jurassic Park franchise-awe for dinosaurs. The wonder is now gone.

I have given it five stars in respect for the franchise and the limited appearances of some of my favorite dinosaurs, but I'm sad to see that the director forgot what made Jurassic Park so special in the first place.

This movie was so utterly predictable it was a little painful. Luckily the nostalgia nods were sprinkled throughout and mostly not forced. You can tell they tried to have some funny one-liners which fell flat a lot of the time. They need to take some notes from Marvel on those. The CGI and action was as good as you'd expect and offered favorable intensity. The story itself was somewhat lazy IMO. Did I mention it was totally predictable? I left the theater going...meh.