Jurassic World Dominion consists primarily of two stories. In the first, trilogy protagonists Owen (Christ Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) lead an effort to find their quasi-adopted daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon), who is kidnapped early in the film by an evil company that wants to study her cloned genome. In the second story, the heroes of the original movie, Drs. Allan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Satler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), attempt to infiltrate that company to investigate and reverse a plague of genetically modified, giant locusts that are devouring crops around the world, threatening a global food shortage.
You might notice that neither of these plots have anything to do with dinosaurs. And you might ask: isn’t this supposed to be “Jurassic World”?
Good question.
And not only do these two plots not involve the creatures that we’ve all paid to see, but they lend themselves to very little emotional investment. In the case of the Maisie storyline, it’s made clear before her kidnapping that she hates her current life as, basically, a prisoner in the woods. So her removal, during which she’s never hurt nor threatened to be hurt, doesn’t cause much alarm. In fact, if anything, she seems to be happier following her kidnapping than before it. The rescue effort, then, isn’t exactly gripping storytelling.
And in the case of the locust storyline, none of the characters in the film are affected by the supposed global catastrophe of the locusts, so the threat is only theoretical, talked about. All we see is one independent farmer whose crops are eaten up. Too bad for her, I guess, because she never reappears. Are people around the world really going hungry because of the locusts? This is never shown to us, so we never feel the danger.
These baffling mistakes in central story conception suggest a franchise with no ideas left. Jurassic World Dominion is sad and predictable. It goes through the motions of a blockbuster, but the aim of these gestures is merely to justify its own existence, not to provide enjoyment.
The movie is disturbingly similar in, in fact, to another failed trilogy conclusion: Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (2019). Both films jump from setting to setting with disorienting, aimless action that doesn’t advance the story. Both films are satisfied with generic messages of empowerment, eschewing believable dilemmas or moral stands. Both films dredge up old characters from the franchise’s heyday to unite with the newer, duller cast, enabling eyeroll-worthy banter about old geezers being out of touch and kids being downright crazy these days.
On that last point, though, there’s an intriguing wrinkle here, because in Jurassic World Dominion, the kids actually are crazy.
In the original Jurassic Park films, most of the main characters understood that having man-eating dinosaurs around was a very bad idea. But in this film and the previous installment, the characters are possessed by the insane belief that having these creatures around is a good idea. And not only that; they believe that dinosaurs should be allowed to simply roam free—not on a remote island, mind you, but here in the wilderness, where they’re certain to eat people, drive other species to extinction, and mess up the entire ecosystem.
Who would defend such a position? Late in the film, Owen and Claire risk the lives of every character to save a baby velociraptor, which will surely devour a few campers some day, because Owen promised its mother that he would. Malcolm appropriately deadpans: “You made a promise…with a dinosaur.” But he and the entire audience are defied: the baby raptor must be saved.
Where is the military? Why hasn’t every dinosaur been exterminated? What is this madness? Apparently there is a black market for dinosaurs: why? Do people want illegal, disobedient pets that will kill them in their sleep?
Jurassic Park was a fine idea, because it was conceivable that one man could err drastically enough to enable the existence of such a park. But Jurassic World? Come on. We’re not that dumb.
Although, apparently, we’re dumb enough to believe the marketing hype and buy tickets to see this movie—just like the dinosaurs being herded into containment using brain microchip “signals.”
Hey, maybe they’ll fit in here in 2022 after all.
-Jim Andersen
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