If in 1993 I imagined a movie about the “Jurassic Park” dinosaurs dispersing around the globe for a grand adventure, I would’ve imagined “Jurassic World: Dominion.” This sixth “Jurassic Park” film’s special effects stand on the shoulders of what came before, in the tradition of any science or technology.
But beyond the “oohs” and “ahs” and biting and screaming, “Dominion” logically continues character arcs dating back 29 years; it’s not content to be one of those “Hey, remember that guy?!” experiences.
Dodgson, we got Dodgson here
Director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow (shepherd of the “JW” trilogy) taps deeper into Michael Crichton’s catalog – the themes of “Prey” and “Next” are present — and delivers a very 2022 film about the end of the world.
Rather than runaway inflation and a global economic downtown, the movie’s threat is mutant locusts courtesy of Biosyn (the evil answer to InGen). The wary, downbeat – and sometimes sweaty — mood is much like you’d see in the real world before entering the cool theater. The oversized insects are destroying non-corporate crops. People will starve, but at the other end of the disaster, Biosyn will control the food supply.
“Jurassic World: Dominion” (2022)
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Emily Carmichael (screenplay), Colin Trevorrow (screenplay, story), Derek Connolly (story)
Stars: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern
Biosyn head Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott, taking over from “JP’s” Cameron Thor and doing an evil riff on Jeff Goldblum’s mannerisms) represents pure corporatist cynicism toward this mass die-off. Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm and at least one technician at a new government agency that tracks dinosaurs (released into the world at the end of “Fallen Kingdom”) believe there’s nothing we can do. The time for action has passed, as has the time for hope.
I can’t blame Malcolm for the defeatist attitude; he has warned the populace for 29 years – via cameos in the sequels — and been duly ignored.
Chasing Maisie
A whole host of heroes takes the traditional big-movie position that we shouldn’t give up hope just yet. But “Dominion” isn’t a case of signing former “Jurassic Park” actors then working them into the movie for nostalgia. Rather, Trevorrow – writing with Emily Carmichael – continues the romance arc for Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) from 1993, and the budding family dynamic of Owen (Chris Pratt), Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Maisie (Isabella Sermon) from 2018.
Maisie’s mysterious backstory from “Fallen Kingdom” continues in a surprising way that might be a rewrite of the original concept. But it’s emotionally effective and very Crichtonian. And the parallel between Maisie and raptor Blue’s offspring is as affecting as it is cute.
By the time of the climactic escape from a dinosaur preserve in the Italian mountains, I counted nine heroes on the helicopter. Every one has a reason to be there. Every actor is plugged in to this movie, but a special shout-out goes to DeWanda Wise as cool pilot Kayla Watts.
She’s a black-market dino runner in the middle act where “Dominion” briefly becomes “Mission: Impossible” with dinosaurs. Moviegoers are so cynical nowadays that even very good action sequences garner a “meh,” but this is a truly great one, capped with an epic shot of Owen sliding his motorcycle into Kayla’s cargo plane and a raptor falling a long distance into a lake.
Meanwhile, Grant and Sattler do a little secret-lab infiltration (riffing on “The Andromeda Strain”) and a little Indiana Jones-ing. Grant’s affection for his hat – riffing on Steven Spielberg’s Indy — is one of the few winks at the audience, and it’s all the better for being a rare case.
Engineering a disaster
“Dominion” could’ve gone wrong by being too big, with tons of pretty-but-empty shots of dinosaurs roaming the Earth, or too small, focusing on one-liners and callbacks to previous films. Instead, Trevorrow and company calibrate it exactly right. The story can exist on its own, and the action builds from the locust plot.
Crichton fans might get a kick out of these mutant insects. The swarms look like what the nanobots of “Prey” (2002) would look like if a film ever comes from that novel. (It’s unlikely to happen. After “Timeline,” Crichton refused to grant rights to any more of his books, and his estate has mostly followed that approach.)
“Next” (2006) also comes to mind. There, Crichton imagined insane scenarios coming from genetic engineering. Mutant locusts are fairly tame in comparison. But I admire Trevorrow’s relatively sober approach here.
Gigantic new star
That approach extends to the dinosaurs we see on screen. Up to this point, the “JW” saga has given us lab-created beasts like the Indominous rex, the indoraptor and the Scorpius rex. (The last is from TV’s “Camp Cretaceous,” which is good family viewing. This film might be too intense for younger kids, although we adults are very much used to the pseudo-scares by now.)
The breakout star of “Dominion” is the Giganotosaurus, the largest apex predator to ever live. A handful of other new beasts further make this experience a treat for dino nerds.
If Trevorrow ably stands on Spielberg’s shoulders, composer Michael Giacchino stands on John Williams’. “Dominion” doesn’t paste in the “Jurassic Park” theme every time Grant and Sattler are on screen; Giacchino creates his own appropriately epic score.
“Dominion” isn’t the breakthrough the original “JP” was, but it takes the next logical step, and I say it’s the best of the sequels – brisker and more focused than “Fallen Kingdom,” which I also liked. If this intelligent, measured approach to filmmaking could be duplicated by the world’s powerful organizations when it comes to the climate and other major issues, humanity might have a chance.
If not, at least we have an entertaining movie to watch in our species’ final days.