Is there anyone who doesn’t love a good dinosaur movie? Especially one with Jeff Goldblum in it? What about one movie that brings back the entire main cast of the original Jurassic Park, and the latter cast? And every conceivable dinosaur that existed or created by Dr. Henry Wu, including many new ones?
Buckle up! It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. I won’t reveal too much, and honestly, there’s enough action moments to exhaust the best of you.
When last we left Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), along with two new friends, they had managed to thwart Eli Millis’ (Rafe Spall) plans to sell off the dinosaurs rescued from the volcanic extinction at Isla Nubla,. They found Benjamin Lockwood’s (James Cromwell) niece, Maisie (Isabella Sermon) believed to be an identical clone of his dead daughter, and with information gleaned from her, managed to stop some of the sale, including Blue, the velociraptor that Owen had raised and communicates with.
Jurassic World: Dominion continues four years later as dinosaurs that escaped are wreaking havoc in the human world. Hiding out with Maisie, in a remote part of the Sierra Nevada mountains, acting as surrogate parents, Claire and Owen are trying to protect her from those who want her DNA to code into new dinosaurs that they can clone. Blue shows up with an asexually created baby, an identical replica of her that Maisie names Beta and seems to form an attachment to. When both Maisie and Beta are kidnapped Owen and Claire must try and rescue her.
Meantime, Ellie Sadler (Laura Dern) recruits Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to go with her to stop a plague of manufactured giant locusts threatening the world’s food supply. She has information that they come from a secret lab, Biosyn Genetics. That information has come to her from Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum), lecturing on Chaos Theory at the lab.
We meet a new character, Kayla Watts (Dewanda Wise), a pilot Owen and Claire need to reach the secret Biosyn location. She’s a strong character that offers much needed help.
Without spoiling the plot, our heroes must get in the lab, destroy the locusts, rescue Maisie and Blue and survive repeated attempts on their lives, all while eluding a host of dinosaurs that want to eat them. We learn some truths about Maisie that alters what she knows about her origina, and the relationship between Alan and Ellie takes a turn for the better.
Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong) responsible for the locusts, the dinosaurs, and all the evil it produces, seems now remorseful of his work and the consequences of it. Remember he’s the one always coming up with ever-bigger dinosaurs. In Fallen Kingdom it was the Indoraptor. Before that it was the Indominus Rex. This time it’s the Triandtopthisasaurus—I obviously made that up—Gigantosaurus—not kidding—that poses the biggest danger due to it’s intelligence, as well as size, bred to be the perfect killer.
I won’t reveal any secrets other than to say, remember this is a multi-million dollar franchise, so don’t expect an ending that wraps it up, but I will say it is a bumpy (future theme-park) ride.
I like the characters. Chris Pratt is in many films these days. Bryce Dallas Howard (did you know she’s Opie’s daughter, director Ron Howard from the old Andy Griffith Show? She also has a good screen presence, was the blind girl in M. Night Shyamalan’s, The Village, and directed shows like The Mandalorian, and The Book of Boba Fett. They say Hollywood is a family business.)
Jurassic Park was released in 1993, 39 years ago, a similar age bracket with the also released Top Gun: Maverick. While Alan Grant and Ellie Satler have similarly aged, both have a solid screen presence, and bring a comfort level to this film. Jeff Goldblum seems to improve with age. Perhaps that has something to do with the chaos theory espoused by his character, or just the quirky nature of both actor and character.
Whether large dinosaurs would actually bother eating little human stick figures, or whether more energy would be expended catching them than the caloric benefit of eating them, remains one of many unanswered questions. The public appetite for this franchise seems endless. No doubt there will be more films in the future, although rumor is the original casts are now done. But as they say in Hollywood, “Never say never.”
If you’ve enjoyed the franchise up to now, you’ll enjoy this one.
Directed and written by Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Star Wars:Rise of Skywalker). Run time 2hr 26min
