Lizard kings dethroned
Although probably not the final film, “Jurassic World: Dominion” is the final film in the second “Jurassic Park” trilogy that began in 1993 with Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park.” The new film brings back Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum as old friends paleontologist Alan Grant, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, respectively.
Set four years after “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” (2018), from the Bering Sea to the Dolomite Mountains in Italy, dinosaurs roam the Earth. Operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and raptor wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) live in the woods in the American West with their adoptive adolescent daughter Maisie (Brit Isabella Sermon), who is going through a rebellious stage. Owen and Claire fear for her safety, especially with raptor Blue and its child Beta in the forest.
Meanwhile, a fishing vessel is capsized by a Godzillalike dinosaur eager for king crab appetizer ( I guess), and Sattler frees a cute and weirdly fake-looking dino from an illegal breeding facility in Nevada. Giant Cretaceous-period locusts destroy crops all over the Midwest.
Suddenly, Maisie and Beta are kidnapped by evil longhaired mercenaries. The Biosyn Genetics corporation has a Bond-villain-like facility in the Dolomites, where Ian Malcolm is employed and where Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler travel to meet the clearly too highly strung and obviously evil Biosyn CEO Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott). Although the climate seems wrong, surrounding Biosyn is a mountain forest full of dinosaurs, including a T. Rex and a Giganotosaurus.
Nothing if not derivative and formulaic, “Jurassic World: Dominion” recycles tropes from, of course, the original film, but also everything from “Godzilla,” “King Kong,” “Jaws,” “Alien” and Bond films to the Ray Harryhausen, cowboys-and-dinosaurs, stop-motion joyride “The Valley of Gwangi.” Owen will once again use “the hand” to control raptors, even those he has not trained.
“Jurassic Park: Dominion” feels more like an amusement park ride than a movie (there is, of course, also a Universal Studios ride). There are crashes, chases, tunnels, caves, a frozen lake and innumerable close encounters. But some dino heads look like papier-mache.
Scenes set in Malta featuring the actor Omar Sy and exotic-looking Dichen Lachman (TV’S “Severance”) seem once again lifted from a Bond film with Owen fleeing chasing raptors instead of minions of SPECTRE on a motorcycle down narrow, cobbled streets. Is it possible that “Jurassic Park” director and series producer Spielberg has always wanted to make a Bond movie?
Pratt and Howard have chemistry, but not much heat, and the characters remain a bit ridiculous. In one scene, Howard dangles in an ejection seat from a tree, a tasty offering for a passing dino. BD Wong also returns from the 1993 film as Dr. Henry Wu.
Standouts in the new cast are Dewanda Wise (TV’S “She’s Gotta Have It”) as sassy, rogue pilot Kayla Watts and Mamoudou Athie as Biosyn rising star Ramsay Cole. Drums and trumpets are courtesy of Michael Giacchino. Hair and make-up are super. CGI not so much. The screenplay by director Colin Trevorrow (“Jurassic World”) and Emily Carmichael (“Pacific Rim: Uprising”) is more concerned with hitting beats and conjuring up memorable scenes from other films than dialogue or originality.
“Jurassic World: Dominion” contains intense action, violence, monstrous creatures and profanity.