Jurassic World Dominion movie review: Franchise finale runs low on dino power and lacks original thrills

Language: English You went in looking for answers, on how the saga could possibly end. The dinos had entered human terrain at the end of the last film, and they promised to be back on a grand chase ’n chomp binge, hulkier and hungrier than before, to wrap up the decades-old Jurassic jamboree with a bang. There’s chomping and chasing that goes on this time too, but it’s mostly set-piece formality to play out the film’s 146 minutes. Importantly, it all comes with an irony. Jurassic World Dominion isn’t strictly about dinosaurs. As monsters of all shapes and sizes get sporadic footage of mayhem, you realise Colin Trevorrow’s new film was merely using their presence in the way a barely-there Bollywood plot uses the cosmetic item number. For all its pre-release noise, Dominion is a dated tale about — believe it or yawn — a corporate baddie’s scheme to wrest global food distribution monopoly using genetically enhanced locusts. So, where do the dinosaurs fit into this story? They don’t really, and that’s a problem. This story could have been shot for the screen at less than half the film’s $165-million budget and without showing any dinosaurs whatsoever. Unless, of course, you consider dinosaurs roaming around freely on human turf — as they started to do at the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom — obviously sets off a milieu of insecurity and fear that lets greedy corporate billionaires as Dr Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) kickstart evil plans to take over the world’s grain supplies. The film’s early portion is entirely invested in showing how the prehistoric creatures compete with wild mammals for prey or wander into humans spaces, especially sparsely-populated and back-of-the-beyond localities. There is a promise of the ominous in these scenes, and you’re curiously hooked to the plot to see if it culminates the franchise with a deeper context, setting up a gripping apocalyptic adventure.

Writer-director Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael’s screenplay, however, isn’t interested in deeper contexts. They introduce the locusts almost out of the blue after meandering through the initial phase of the story. Swarms of huge locusts, of the size never seen before, start destroying crops all over. There is a strange exception, though. Fields that have sown seeds marketed by the bio-engineering company BioSyn mysteriously remain untouched by the insects. As the film establishes this backdrop, Trevorrow and company seem unsure about how to carry the narrative forward or how to maintain storytelling mood or pace. So, along with the locust attacks, they introduce a shoddily executed subplot that concerns the raptor Blue and Maisie, the little cloned girl of the last film who is now a teenager. To keep the runtime busy, they also bring back an assorted mix of cast members from the past Jurassic Park / World films but give the actors very little scope to score with familiar roles. Jurassic Park originals Laura Dern as Dr Ellie Sattler and Sam Neill as Dr Alan Grant find their way into this screenplay as they get down to cracking the locust mystery. Ellie has received a call from Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who is presently at BioSyn, and as the Park trilogy trio gets down to business, their story uninterestingly starts looking like dozen-odd Hollywood dramas of the past that tried setting up suspense with themes of corporate misdemeanour and vile gains. Meanwhile, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) of the Jurassic World films live in a remote secret location, protecting Maisie (Isabella Sermon). The raptor Blue lives in the wilds nearby. Twist in the tale comes when Maisie is kidnapped along with Blue’s baby Beta. It becomes clear soon enough the kidnappings could have to do with genetic experimentations at BioSyn. Blue apparently has the ability to procreate without a partner, and Maisie’s being a cloned human being naturally puts her in peril. Neither the locusts track nor the one about genetic experiments concerning Maisie and Beta is coherently explored.

If the early portions of Dominion look like sombre suspense drama, the mood tries shifting to Indiana Jones spirits after a point, as Owen and Claire land up in exotic Malta, and then Italy, to play out a longdrawn series of stunts in order to rescue Maisie and Beta. For some airborne action, the script throws in the mercenary pilot Kayla (DeWanda Wise), which in turn justifies the inclusion of a pterodactyl attack. Ellie, Alan and company, meanwhile, are engaged in a brief subterranean chase, as the film tries accommodating faint horror elements of The Descent variety. In short, anything goes on as the script tries to keep the audience hooked without actually having a clue of how to go about it. Even the bunch of dinos lined up right at the end for the signature face-off sequence, which has come to mark the climax of every Jurassic World film, seems disinterested in all that goes on.

For those who identify with the Jurassic films as a growing-up process over the years, the finale would come across as doubly disheartening.

The trouble with Dominion is the makers clearly didn’t have a narrative gameplan despite the lavish monetary and CGI support at hand. When the film tries falling in line with the classic Jurassic formula, the result is a gag bag of rehashes. When it tries to do its own thing, which it rarely does, the outcome is far from engrossing. Overall, Dominion is a predictable fare that suffers from a malaise most Hollywood franchise finales reveal: It is driven too much by the lust to cash in on what worked many times before and garner mega bucks in the process. “We need more teeth.” One is reminded of those words by Claire’s little nephew Gray in Jurassic World. Dominion sure could have done with a lot more teeth. Rating: * * (two stars)

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist, and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR