JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION - June 10th - Andy's Review

[AndyDursin]

Doesn't look bad at all. I have to go anyway. lol

[Monterey Jack]

Took only three movies to finally get us to the Jurassic WORLD part.

[AndyDursin]

I only thought it was called JURASSIC WORLD just because that was the name of the park...kind of like how Disney World followed Disney Land, Jurassic World followed Jurassic Park. I didn't expect the ultimate goal was to get off the island again, seeing how badly it turned out in THE LOST WORLD.

[AndyDursin]

Who likes this? Seriously. As much crap as we rightly toss at Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino has become a veritable hack who can "handle an orchestra". It might not have started out that way -- I know a lot of us felt he had promise when he was writing video game scores in the vein of Williams and others back in the late '90s -- but he's long fallen into a hack pattern and writes one push-button score after another like this. Actually to be fair to Hans, I think Giacchino's dramatic scoring sense is worse than Zimmer and most of his clones. His whole idea of "drama" is the same three notes getting louder.

A computer could output a track like this (and probably better):

[Eric W.]

Long gone is the Giacchino that was aping John Williams and some others to great success in Medal of Honor videogames with robust, thematic orchestral soundtracks. Listen to some of that music and be dazzled.

[AndyDursin]

5/10

"Jurassic World"'s Colin Trevorrow returns to direct and co-wrote this "final" entry in the JURASSIC WORLD "trilogy" -- an overwritten, overplotted, overcast finale that's drably shot and offers nothing new at all in terms of special effects set-pieces or dinosaur action.

What's worse, dinos often take back seat to Trevorrow and co-writer Emily Carmichael's main scenario -- that a genetically engineered crop of locusts inadvertently produced by an original "Jurassic Park" character, Louis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, who wasn't in the old movie), now threaten the world's food supply unless something can be done. That "something" means two things: first, the bad guys abducting the young girl clone from the last "World" installment, who's since been cared for by series heroes Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard; while original "Jurassic Park" stars Sam Neill and Laura Dern head to the same European biolab in the hopes of exposing the locusts as products of the company.

It's "nice" that Trevorrow brought back Neill, Dern and Jeff Goldblum (who disappears from the movie for nearly an hour) but none of them are supported by the dialogue they had nearly 30 years ago in Steven Spielberg's original "Jurassic Park." Even worse, the fact the trio -- who notably lack the energy they had 30 years ago -- have been elevated to co-stars means whatever momentum the movie tries to generate is consistently undercut by having to cross-cut, none too effectively, between "A" and "B" plot strands. The net result comes off feeling more like a “Fast and the Furious” sequel than a “Jurassic Park” movie.

This also means Pratt and Howard's natural chemistry is curtailed -- along with whatever emotion there could have been with the raptor "Blue"'s offspring, Beta, also having been abducted by Dodgson's goons. There's simply too much happening in this overstuffed movie for it to register -- too many characters, including brief returnees from the original "Jurassic World" and its previous sequel, "Fallen Kingdom," plus a black lesbian pilot whose sole function in the movie seems to be the one line that declares her sexuality.

These are issues that might have been more forgivable had Trevorrow staged this sequel with some exciting set-pieces -- but there's literally nothing here we haven't seen before. Dinosaurs lunging at Pratt in an open field? Seen it a bunch of times. Helpless humans trying to use a car as a staging ground to get by a large meateater? Ditto. Flying dinosaurs that attack from the skies -- it's all recycled leftovers, making you think COVID protocols may have forced Trevorrow to "reskin" scenes that not only have been produced before, but far more effectively. Even "Fallen Kingdom" had some stylish dino scenes intended to scare audiences, and were more exciting than anything in this particular film.

With Michael Giacchino's forgettable score mostly tossing all of John Williams' themes aside -- despite more a direct connection with the 1993 "Jurassic Park" -- "Dominion" is the least of this trilogy, and probably ends up neck and neck with Spielberg's misfired "The Lost World" sequel as the nadir for the franchise. The dinos surely still have some cinematic life left in them -- but it's time to find some fresh filmmaking voices to bring them back from the brink of extinction.

[Eric W.]

No surprises there. Nice write up.

[AndyDursin]

Even Theo noted the "bad dinosaur"'s demise was exactly the same type of impalement that occurred to the "bad dino" in FALLEN KINGDOM! Talk about deja vu, even our 2nd grader noticed it before I did!

The "overstuffed" run time and "too many characters" problem reminded me of the last few FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies. It's almost like they used those sequels as a blueprint of sorts for this one. And I shook my head at the black lesbian -- there were already a half-dozen lead characters in this movie, there was no point to adding another one outside of checking a diversity/inclusion box. And I have news for them: no kid going to see this movie cares about the sexuality of any of these characters. They want to see dinosaurs. How ridiculous and transparent can you get.

Either way -- Theo "loved" it but it's pretty terrible for all the reasons I outlined. The previous two WORLD movies were both far more entertaining than this one.

[Monterey Jack]

The Skyfall motorcycle chase with Pratt evading raptors...?



The rest?

It's about as "Good Enough" as Fallen Kingdom was...a few fleeting moments of pleasure awash in a sea of worn-out cliches (the villain as a tepid Steve Jobs clone is about as lame and played out as the Trump-bashing in the last one). Some of the dino scenes have bite, but overall it's depressing how, after SIX of these movies, they still can't come up anything interesting to do with it. There was the inkling of an eerie, resonant idea in the last one with the "granddaughter" of James Cromwell's Dr. Hammond stand-in (Isabella Sermon, maturing into the British Hailee Steinfeld) turning out to be a clone of her deceased mother, but they back off on the disturbing implications of this by making her actually her mother's child (so, then why does she look like her identical twin in photos and old footage? ). The rest is reheated leftovers, mildly fun in fits and spurts (like that Bond/Bourne sequence in the middle with the Malta black market dino ring), but I just wish they would go Full Apocalypse with this and give us the Jurassic WORLD they strongly hinted at by the end of the last one. When swarms of genetically-embiggened LOCUSTS (engineered by a miserable-looking BD Wong, sporting a sweet early-90s mullet) are the major threat in a movie about dinosaurs let loose upon the world, you done messed up.

And I shook my head at the black lesbian -- there were already a half-dozen lead characters in this movie, there was no point to adding another one outside of checking a diversity/inclusion box. And I have news for them: no kid going to see this movie cares about the sexuality of any of these characters. They want to see dinosaurs. How ridiculous and transparent can you get.

I tolerated the character (as someone else pointed out, she reminded me of Baloo in the Disney Tale Spin series, which was kind of cool, and she had an assured charisma), but her "I like redheads, too" line made me groan. "See, see?! Representation...!"

[AndyDursin]

There are already 6 leads in this movie already. Regardless of race/sexuality, it's utterly useless to have her there basically holding Pratt's hand for a half hour. She serves no dramatic purpose at all outside of taking away material from the highest paid actor in the film. Stupid. In fact this whole movie rendered Pratt and Howard's characters nearly meaningless.

I definitely liked it less than you did.
Not that Fallen Kingdom was great, but I rewatched it recently and it's actually pretty good. A LOT better than this one, much tighter in its writing, with some decently crafted, claustrophobic dinosaur scenes -- all of them better executed visually and technically than anything in this film. The worst of the series for me outside Spielberg's own stinker.

[Monterey Jack]

I would only give the movie a 5/10 or C+ grade overall, but that motorcycle chase is really damn fun and I wish the movie could have maintained that pitch of creativity longer.

[AndyDursin]

It was like something out of Fast and Furious or Mission Impossible with dinosaurs instead of cars, just dumb.

[Monterey Jack]

It was like something out of Fast and Furious or Mission Impossible with dinosaurs instead of cars, just dumb.

Dumb, but at least fun and energetic, which the rest of the leaden movie couldn't match.

[AndyDursin]

One other thing that this movie really missed -- kids like rooting for dinosaurs. They did a good job in the previous two movies kind of finding some "hero dinosaur" whether it was Blue or the pachysaurus in Fallen Kingdom for them to root for. This movie didn't even bother. They could've used Blue as a major part of the story but instead just employed the dino's kidnapping as a plot device. The creature's not in the movie enough to register -- and the dinosaurs, too often, have too little to do with the plot. Instead we get a gay pilot and Sam and Laura rekindling their romance (sorry, about 10-20 years too late for me not to find cringe-inducing), which I can tell you NO KID WILL CARE ABOUT.

Just very ironic a sequel they brought back the Jurassic Park stars to participate in ends up being the least like Jurassic Park of any film in the franchise. And then the ending is basically the same ending as the previous movie, meaning nothing was advanced by the plot. Like you wrote, they couldn't even spend time exploiting what it was like for dinosaurs to exist amongst everyone: "Oh look it's a brachiosaurus in a parking lot". Really? That's the best they can do?

The kicker is that Giacchino's score is just dreadful on top of it, the modern equivalent of Hanna-Barbera underscoring that's plastered over every scene and does nothing but reaffirm what you are looking at. As far away from John Williams as you can possibly get -- ironic for someone a few people once proclaimed was the "heir apparent" of orchestral film music.

I mean I can find a "dumb monster movie" in all kinds of other places. This one's, for me, fully deserving of the franchise-worst reviews it's getting, and a major step down from even the films in this "World" trilogy, which were both tighter and better written/executed.

[Monterey Jack]

Instead we get a gay pilot and Sam and Laura rekindling their romance (sorry, about 10-20 years too late for me not to find cringe-inducing), which I can tell you NO KID WILL CARE ABOUT.

Who wanted to see a 75-year-old Neill and a 55-year-old Dern rekindling their tepid "romance" from the first movie? This isn't exactly Han and Leia, here.