Bloated but action-packed Jurassic finale
Jurassic Park: Dominion
(M, 147 mins)
Directed by Colin Trevorrow Reviewed by James Croot ★★★
For all the volcanic excess, narrative leaps and downright cartoon villainy of 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, it at least left audiences in an exciting place.
Having escaped the Lockwood Estate’s auction, a selection of dinosaurs were now free range, roaming California with seeming impunity.
As Now This reporter Gemma Zhao brings us up to date, we learn that while they have survived, they haven’t exactly thrived.
As well as struggling to adapt to our version of Earth, they have also been targeted by unscrupulous humans, keen to exploit their desirability, scarcity and potential to be weaponised.
A global black market is burgeoning, and large pharmaceutical and technology companies like Biosyn have seemingly used the cover of a sanctuary to hoover up as many species as they can.
Former Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is still in the liberation business, carrying out covert operations where she can, and joining partner Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) in protecting Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) from those desperate to get their hands on her.
However, now aged 14, she is in no mood to be shut away from the rest of the world. Increasingly rebellious, her propensity for wandering into town worries her guardians greatly.
But while Owen also has his beloved velociraptor Blue and her baby Beta to protect, there’s a larger and more immediate threat to the planet’s overall flora and fauna.
Reports from farmers from Iowa to Texas indicate crops being destroyed by plagues of seeming indestructible locusts with suspiciously ancient DNA.
To palaeobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) it’s enough of a potential nightmare scenario that she feels there’s only one man she can reach out to for help, her old friend, palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill).
Convinced that she knows who is responsible for the giant bugs, Ellie eventually persuades Alan to embark on a potentially dangerous journey with the promise that she already has a contact on the inside – chaotician Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).
What follows is a surprisingly unrelentingly dark (don’t be surprised if our censor reviews the current Australian cross-rating of M before too long), often frightening rollercoaster ride (those not keen on the more confrontational moments of David Attenborough wildlife documentaries would be best to give this a wide berth) that, while offering plenty of thrills and spills, feels a touch bloated as it grinds through the gears, familiar franchise beats and a strange melange of genres.
Dominion is a real Frankenstein of an action horror, part-Mission: Impossible adventure, partFurious-esque family drama, part-Land of the Lost-like comedy, part-Godzilla-or-Alienstyle creature feature.
At times, the dinosaurs almost feel like an after-thought, so focused are we on the machinations of the clearlynefarious-from-the-moment-we-seteyes-on-him, Steve Jobs-esque Biosyn boss Dr Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, all but twirling an invisible moustache). Even his name feels portentously and pretentiously clunky – a hybrid of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll and his birth name Charles Dodgson.
But if director and co-writer Colin Trevorrow and company’s scripting and pacing feels a little all over the shop, there are plenty of breathtaking and crowd-pleasing sequences (peril awaits everywhere, from frozen reservoirs to jungle swamps) and more than a few memorable moments and inventive shots. Indeed, so much is propelled towards the viewer that you almost wonder that, had this been delayed until after James Cameron’s first Avatar sequel, we might have been donning the silly specs to view this as well.
In the end though, apart from what ‘‘biggest carnivore the world has ever seen’’ they’ve cooked up this time, what we’re here to see is the combining of the legacy characters with the more recent ones.
Thankfully, Neill, Dern and Goldblum aren’t just there to pass torches, or proffer sage wisdom (although they do both). All three are right in the thick of the action.
Our Kiwi icon and Los Angeles’ finest do their best Hart to Hart impersonation, and everyone’s favourite screen eccentric hits peak Goldblumy-ness, seemingly left to run riot in improvising his own dialogue (or maybe he just makes it appear that way).
After what has felt like an interminable wait – four years in reality – Dominion does have an air of disappointment and the path chosen by Trevorrow definitely won’t be what many hoped for.
However, there is no doubting that he has given us one hell of a spectacle, even if it does all threaten to go down in a flaming heap of chaotic action.
Jurassic World: Dominion is now screening in cinemas nationwide.