'Jurassic World: Dominion' blends the old and the terrible
Universal
If you didn’t know better, you’d think Chris Pratt had never acted before. His performance in “Jurassic World: Dominion” consists of “serious face” and “thinking face” and other shockingly unconvincing looks straight out of “Zoolander.” As a funny actor tries to be intense (yes, this is his third “Jurassic” movie, but he’s never been this bad), all you can do is laugh.
If you still didn’t know better, you’d have no idea that the first “Jurassic Park” remains an all-time classic—mandatory side note: I spoke at length with star Ariana Richards for my book “Talk ‘90s with Me,” which you can preorder right now—considering how little finesse and impact arrives in this sixth installment of the massively successful and perhaps never-worse franchise. (“The Lost World” is also awful. “Jurassic Park III” is underrated. The other “Jurassic World” movies are OK-ish.) The first movie, obviously directed by Steven Spielberg, used patience, performances and one remarkable shot and set piece after another to deliver a summer movie that checks all the boxes; for “Dominion,” director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow (who directed “Jurassic World” but not its sequel, “Fallen Kingdom”) brings back doctors Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and gives them dialogue the actors look pained to deliver. Ellie claims Ian slid into her DMs. Really. Typing that sentence broke my fingers. Not really. Maybe.
Most importantly, though, we can just be very direct and say that the story here stinks. The “Jurassic World” world has now reached the point of giant, food supply-decimating locusts, underground dinosaur dealers, child kidnapping, and, yes, another rich, evil doofus destined to be consumed by his own hubris figuratively/an actual dinosaur literally (Campbell Scott). There’s so much setup and lots of dino screaming and almost nothing lands because Trevorrow resists tension and credibility in favor of size and repetition. (Plus, most of the action is totally incoherent.) By the time “Jurassic World: Dominion” starts replicating moments from the original movie—and this happens a bunch—you’ll already be about an hour past anything in the same hemisphere as hope.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Two or three times, usually when something is moving slowly underwater (either person or dinosaur), “Dominion” takes a breath and steals yours, allowing the magnitude of the fear to hang in the air as a human is hunted. But it goes without saying that just because CGI can do a lot more than it could decades ago doesn’t mean that returning to this once-impossible creation is automatically more impressive. Quite the opposite, actually; this is a film that has been made with little love or intelligence or skill, only money and computers and where can I sign this big check.
It’s hard to believe that there won’t be a new trilogy coming soon, perhaps “Jurassic Mountain” or “Jurassic Galaxy.” (The series is already ridiculous, are we too good for space dinosaurs at this point?) “Jurassic World” is over, I think, and none too soon.
D+
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