In one of the most famous scenes from 1993’s Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm says that the scientists who brought dinosaurs back to life for an amusement park “were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” The same could easily be said of the Jurassic franchise as a whole, and while the series has constantly talked about how viewers want bigger and more intriguing monsters to reel in audiences, Jurassic has fallen into these same traps over the past thirty years: going bigger, wilder, without ever capturing what made the original so great. Not even Steven Spielberg—the director of the original film—could bring back this magic with his 1997 sequel, The Lost World, and even with rebooting, bringing back old favorites, and creating insane new dinosaurs, Jurassic has failed time and time again at realizing what made the original an unassailable summer blockbuster. The Jurassic series never bothered to stop and think if they should keep going.
But, to quote Dr. Ian Malcolm again, life finds a way, and the Jurassic World trilogy of films has kept this franchise moving forward like a dino-filled freight train, whether we want it or not. Supposedly wrapping up the “Jurassic era” of this series is Jurassic World Dominion, the sixth installment in the Jurassic franchise, which only highlights that the wonder these movies once had has long faded out. These films have never come close to the majesty of Jurassic Park, but Dominion is without question the worst movie to come out of this franchise, and further proof that it’s time for this Jurassic world to finally go extinct.
Dominion is set four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, where Isla Nublar has been destroyed and, thanks to the heroes of Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs now roam amongst the humans. Naturally, this has caused plenty of problems, since stegosauruses are clomping around on interstates, and velociraptors are now traipsing around the woods. One would think from the end of Fallen Kingdom and the beginning of Dominion that this latest film might further explore this new world where humans and dinosaurs live together—an interesting idea that this series has only given slight hints at in previous films.
But nope! Instead, Dominion spends most of its time in nondescript woods and generic laboratories once more. If it’s broke, why bother to fix it? Dominion attempts to pay homage to fans of the original trilogy and the new World trilogy and effectively fails at both. One story follows Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) as they infiltrate the pharmaceutical company Biosyn, with the help of Dr. Ian Malcolm. Biosyn has been genetically engineering locusts that have been decimating non-Biosyn crops, which is threatening the world’s food supply. Instead of pitting this iconic trio amongst dinosaurs once more, Dominion mostly faces them off against giant locusts, which is about as compelling as it sounds.
Dominion’s other story centers around Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who are attempting to find their kidnapped, kind-of-adopted clone daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon). At the very least, this story at least slightly explores what this new world looks like, complete with a dinosaur black market, and a combination of dinosaurs in real-world situations that boasts one of the film’s best action scenes. Through this story, we also get one of Dominion’s best additions in DeWanda Wise’s Kayla Watts, who brings a much-needed burst of energy to this mostly mundane affair.
Yet both of these stories fundamentally miss what people once loved about this series. With Sattler, Grant, and Malcolm, these three are mostly relegated to referencing the original in as many ways as possible (including these characters wearing the same clothes thirty years later, and embracing the memes that have arisen from Jurassic Park). Meanwhile, Owen and Claire’s globetrotting adventures, even when it works, intrinsically feels like it’s part of an entirely different movie. Colin Trevorrow’s direction doesn’t help much either, as these two stories are stitched together haphazardly, and with action that is frequently nonsensical. Even minor choices, like how a character gets from one situation to another in order to tie all these characters into one giant climax, lacks any coherency.
The screenplay by Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael (with a story by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly) seems to be struggling to make itself exciting, while there’s so much untapped potential surrounding these characters at all times. Not only is there quite literally a world now full of dinosaurs that is mostly ignored, but there are also genuinely fascinating ideas that are hinted at and completely disregarded. For example, Dominion hints that Biosyn and its CEO Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, who is having fun as an overly villainous tech boss) have a tie to the events of Jurassic Park—a parallel story that has existed for all these years that we’re only now seeing—but relegates this to little more than yet another minor joke for fans of the original.
But like all the other Jurassic Park sequels, Dominion’s greatest curse is that it’s dull, however, this one takes the boredom to a whole new level. Dominion is by far the longest film in this series, and every minute is felt in this tedious adventure that doesn’t seem to have any idea what it’s doing. Almost every joke falls flat, every action scene lacks stakes, and again, that mixture of awe and danger that once made this series so enthralling is completely absent here. Instead, Dominion is a shell of a franchise at its best, desperate to coast on the love of the original without managing the tonal requirements.
Dominion isn’t just the worst film in this frequently disappointing franchise, it’s also one of the worst major blockbusters in recent memory. By uniting the stars of these two trilogies, Dominion shows that it doesn’t know what to do with the previous generation of this series (except where they should end up and little else), and that the current generation was never that interesting to begin with. Dominion wants audiences to remember what they loved about the first film, yet without harnessing any of the joy or spectacle that made this series such a standout when it launched in 1993. Instead, Jurassic World Dominion is an exhausting slog, a legacyquel that doesn’t seem to recognize where the power of that legacy comes from, and overarching idiocy that permeates every scene in the film. To quote Dr. Malcolm one final time, “That is one big pile of shit.”
Rating: D
Jurassic World Dominion comes to theaters on June 10.
Read more about Jurassic World Dominion:
'Jurassic World Dominion' Director Colin Trevorrow Reveals Scrapped Titles for the Franchise
The Different Versions of 'Jurassic Park 4' the World Never Got to See