Jurassic World Dominion - 2022
One of my great friends gave me the most wonderful gift when it came to Jurassic World: Dominion. He went first to the theater, blazed a viewing trail before us, and then ripped it to shreds. I mean, it was a total takedown. In fact, he so thoroughly blasted Colin Trevorrow’s attempt at concluding his own sort of trilogy that…I ALMOST, kinda caught myself enjoying a few moments! Alas, so many of his critiques hit home.
The trouble starts pretty much right away with this one. The first 40 minutes are actually a kind of wonder. Never before have I seen so many characters and, well, species of creature introduced in rapidly intercut sequences that nonetheless left my eyelids growing quite heavy. The scenes are entirely aimed at propulsion, yet it was a yawn that was most readily accessible to me.
Fortunately (and not), things get better and worse from there. We’re awakened from our stupor by writing which is so poor and downright freakish in its utter lack of anything remotely approximating “conversational,” that little giggles begin to escape us. I’ve got to hand it to Trevorrow, Connolly, and Carmichael. It takes some kind of peculiar genius to make one of the greatest character actors of the last 30 years (looking at you, Ms. Dern) sound girlish and coy. Like a theater girl catching her first big break at the local acting troupe.
Dern grows on us as time passes, but only because the writers pen action dialogue far better than anything approaching domesticity. Sam Neill is mostly doing the grizzly and gruff schtick to limited appeal. He’s not bad, but his character will oddly harken back to a completely different IP franchise (Indiana Jones). I’ve never felt like Pratt was given much to do in this trilogy anyway, and Bryce Dallas Howard is perfectly adequate. This leaves old Jeff Goldblum and, well I love me some Ian Malcolm. He still had the timing and lines eliciting laughs down this time, even if he was playing a caricature of a past Ian Malcolm more than his present self.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, I mentioned things get better! At about the 40 minute mark, an absolute absurd sequence begins where some crazy raptor hybrids and some other mean dinos start a city-wide chase of Owen Grady on a motorcycle. The scene is completely bonkers. It’s also a pretty freaking awesome setpiece. And THAT is why I believe this film, while stooping to new lows, is yet a slightly better work than its predecessor - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Simply put, the action set pieces play in this one.
A few examples will suffice. There is a crazy large locusts in a lab scene. There is a little excursion between Chris Pratt and DeWanda Wise which is as much M:I as JP. (Trust me, this is a good thing). There are airplanes and takeoffs and aerial threats. Finally, when the whole cast young and old gets together in the third act, the adventure beats are not…unwatchable. Despite the utter inanity of where this whole franchise has taken us (more on this in two shakes), the action framing in this picture slightly worked for me.
So why ultimately does it fall flat? Well, I’ve just given you some real meat to chew on. Poor writing, actors out of place. I’ll add to that legacy callbacks which feel shoved in rather than arising organically from the story. But the real reason I’m writing is because of this one thought that I can’t shake. Thus far I have not read much on it in all of the detritus being mucked about over the film’s flaws.
To put it succinctly, Jurassic Park worked best when it hewed closely to the lineage of Jaws. The dinosaurs were so thrillingly new and terrifying because they were “other.” We caught glimpses of them in the shadows. They picked off “Newman” alone with a Barbasol can. They remained largely unseen, yet were an ever-present threat. Since that initial masterpiece, each progressive film has simply lost this truth more and more.
I’ll put it differently - the normalization of human and dino interaction is the great death knell of this franchise. This film opens with news tidbits about dinosaurs running with horses and brontosaurus trampling through stockyards. They’re no longer the unknown danger in the dark. They’re now that sometimes menacing omnipresent “thing” that occasionally threatens, like stumbling on a growling pit at the edge of a private property. The very nadir of crossing this line is in Owen’s mindbogglingly stupid, half-Jedi raised hand to stop a velociraptor in its tracks. A velociraptor! You know, those things that utterly wrecked a kitchen stalking two kids in one of the greatest sequences of all time in the original? Yeah, them.
This is where the franchise now has us. TOO close to that lifeform which was once so utterly foreign to us and thus so downright thrilling. When this is appended to this recycled tale of the misuse of genetic engineering, which is further affixed to a giant biotech corporation, I just think we’ve lost our way here. (And not even BD Wong’s MOST SERIOUS PERFORMANCE EVER can bring us back)!
So, where does this leave me? Well, thanks to a buddy, I kinda found a way to tolerate the proceedings. If I must watch, I suppose I’ll take Goldblum, Dern, and preposterous action stuntwork wherever it may lead me. But, if you’re dying for legacy sequels this summer, stick with that short fella named Maverick.
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