I am not a giant fan of the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World series. Sure, I was amazed in 1993 when Jurassic Park came out and the graphics were stunning. But I didn’t particularly care about any of the movies that came after it. But you can watch all of the movies on Amazon Prime and my husband and I were bored…so we watched Jurassic World Dominion over the weekend.
Four years after the events in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs are now living in the world alongside humans. Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) finds out about giant locusts that are destroying crops around the United States. She turns to her old friend, Alan Grant (Sam Neill), for help. Together, they travel to Biosyn, a genetics company that set up a dinosaur preserve in Italy. Meanwhile, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) are raising Maise Lockwood (Isabella Sermon). When Maise gets kidnapped by Biosyn operatives, they must travel to Italy to get her back.
This movie felt so much longer than it actually was. The runtime clocks in around 2 hours 27 minutes. And that felt about an hour too long. Adding to that, the science didn’t feel legit. Granted, I’m not a geneticist so I am completely out of my realm. The explanations they gave for Beta, Blue’s baby, and Maise both felt wrong. Not that the science has to be perfect to make a movie enjoyable. It just didn’t make this movie enjoyable.
Other things that seemed wrong in the movie: Why was Ellie, a paleobotanist, investigating the destruction of current day crops? Why did she turn to Alan, a paleontologist, when she found out about the giant insects? While you can squint your eyes a bit and maybe think that the insects could possibly be in Alan’s wheelhouse, the crops are definitely not in Ellie’s. I know they were brought in for nostalgia’s sake but at least give them an actual real reason to be there.
As for the Maise/Owen/Claire storyline, they all felt very wrong. We know they have lived together for four years but we don’t really see them interacting a whole lot before Maise gets kidnapped. I would have liked for the plot to focus more on setting them up as a family instead of pulling in Ellie/Alan/Ian as a throwback to Jurassic Park.
If you like the Jurassic World series, you might enjoy Dominion. While I didn’t enjoy the movie a lot, it doesn’t leave the series open for another movie. I appreciate that. I just wish the series could have ended with a bigger bang.