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Jurassic World: Dominion

Jurassic World Dominion

The third and final chapter to the Jurassic World trilogy is here, and we're not particularly impressed.

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The bottom line is that even though the third (and final) Jurassic World film brings together the entire Jurassic gang, across several generations, it's without a doubt the worst in the trilogy, and not only that, it lacks suspense and horror, yes, all the aspects that are usually associated with these films, and we are left with a film that runs for two hours and 20 minutes that only momentarily offers memorable moments.

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It's almost hard to condense into realistic text length how much is wrong with Jurassic World Dominion, but I have to try. In a way, this is both an all too broad narrative that takes us around the globe to show us how it has affected our world to see dinosaurs move freely between us, and at the same time it is far too narrow. A toe-curling news presentation shows glimpses of man's clashes with apparently superior predators, but then subsequently the film steps away from this and zooms in so granularly on Chris Pratt's Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing and Isabella Sermon's Maisie Lockwood. The film is too narrow to paint a true picture of modern society under threat, and too broad for human history as a whole to really grow strong roots.

But; the dinos are out among us - and they affect everything from fishing to crops, from highway safety to... well, you name it . But that's actually not the primary threat here - the primary threat is genetically modified grasshoppers threatening to destroy the world's food supply. You read that right, the movie does not consider the dinosaurs, or the impending challenge it will be to coexist with them to be the "problem". Instead, it fabricates a whole new threat, and a whole new genetics company, Biosyn, led by Elon Musk/Tim Cook-inspired Lewis Dodgson.

It requires Owen, Claire and Maisie to gain outside expertise in the form of old acquaintances Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm played by Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. They do it brilliantly, in fact no one is decidedly poor, but the ensemble has grown enormously with additions like Omar Sy's Barry Sembene, Mamoudou Athies' Ramsay Cole and Kayla Watts' DeWanda Wise. Yes, there are so many characters in the same picture throughout the film, so there's not enough time to dwell on every single character.

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Jurassic World: DominionJurassic World: Dominion

Hyper-personal and character-oriented, a broad and societal perspective? Who gives a damn , as long as there are dinos, yes? This is there too, and the film's best sequences are when Jurassic World Dominion gives in, giving us beautiful, intense sequences where the human must seriously submit to a physically superior opponent. There's a particularly extended scene in Malta where Pratt drives from raptors on a motorbike, and it's really cool, and likewise there are aspects of the third act that can make your adrenaline pump. Jurassic World Dominion is without a doubt the best when it leans into what we know and expect.

But the film is both far too densely packed, and far too slack-jawed to handle all these individual sequences, and by the end you're frankly so numb that even fairly fine sequences between the new and old cast become little blips on a broad starry sky of forgettable overexposure.

It's important to state, however, that Jurassic World Dominion is not decidedly bad. It all reeks of unfulfilled potential far more than anything else, and if you already didn't care much for either the original World or Fallen Kingdom, no aspect of Dominion will change your mind. It is, a little too often, a blunt instrument.

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05 Gamereactor UK
5 / 10
overall score
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