I remember the first time I saw Jurassic Park. I was a little kid, and my interactions with dinosaurs had been mainly with the animated series Dino-Riders (check it out) and the legendary animated film, The Land Before Time. What I got from that first Jurassic film is a childhood trauma that to this day scares the hell out of me. These dinos were not Little Foot and Ducky. They killed a lot of people, and were scary, and I used to imagine a T-Rex was outside my window at night as I tried to sleep. But as I grew up more of these films came out and they became less scary to me, and less entertaining.
In the sixth film of this franchise the current cast and the old cast unite to take down a corporate billionaire who is trying to exploit the dinosaurs, but something goes wrong, and they are all running for their lives trying to escape the scary dinos. Which is pretty much the plot to most of these Jurassic films. But that's why we see these films. To see the people get eaten by the T-Rex, and hunted by the Raptors.
The first Jurassic Park film was mind-blowing in both effects and story, but the others that followed lacked the same originality. When Jurassic World came out, I felt like the franchise had something new to say, at least to me, but has since gone back to being stale popcorn films. Jurassic World Dominion is no different. The basic premise of the film branches off from the previous installment, Fallen Kingdom, but when you try to build a story on top of one that wasn't so great, it makes your story not so great either because you're not starting on solid ground.
Let's start with the OG cast. Sam Neill and Laura Dern return as Alan and Ellie, once former lovers who have lived their lives and now looks like are going to reconcile. They are on a mission to prove Jeff Bezos, I mean Elon Musk, I mean some super rich guy is using mega locust to take out crops that aren't his so he can control the world's food supply and get even more wealthy and crazy. Jeff Goldblum is also back as Malcolm and is pretty much there just for jokes and quips.
What I missed from this film however was the jokes and quips of Chris Pratt. He and Bryce Dallas Howard are back from a third time to try and protect their foster daughter Maisie and try and get Blue's baby back from the evil rich dude. This film also lacked my boy Blue. Pratt played it pretty serious the entire film and I don't think he cracked one joke the whole film, which not why I go to see Chirs Pratt in films. I mean, I enjoyed The Tomorrow War without a lot of Pratt jokes, but I think that film is better than Dominion.
I'm not saying the film is bad. It was just what I've come to expect from a Jurassic film. But really, I also felt like nothing happened. At the beginning of the film the dinosaurs are out in the world, and humans are trying to integrate them into the society. By the end of the film nothing has changed except the locust problem was solved. Fallen Kingdom wasn't great in my opinion, but at least it changed the franchise rules to where tinstead of the dinos being on the island they were set free in the world. And that's still where we're at by the end of Dominion.
I don't believe this is the end of the franchise. It's just the end if the actor's contracts. In less than ten years we'll get a new Jurassic film with a different cast. These movies make way too much money to just go away. We watch them to see dinosaurs eating people, and as long as we get that, that's all we need to see to part with our money. But if I can make a suggestion for a Dino-Riders spin-off, I think we can see something really bonkers!
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