Almost
30 years ago, Jurassic Park thundered into theaters, forever changing
the cinematic landscape. Steven Spielberg’s iconic film was based on Michael
Crichton’s best-selling novel that brilliantly channeled people’s endless fascination
with dinosaurs. It was beyond a box
office hit, grossing close to a billion dollars during its 1993 release. It
also revolutionized visual effects, leaving old-school stop motion dinosaurs in
its dust.
Jurassic
World: Dominion
ain’t your father’s Jurassic Park…This 6th and “final” instalment in the JP franchiseis
a huge, loud, expansive spectacle that brings together the original cast (including
dinosaurs) and the franchise’s 2nd generation stars for one last
scaly hurrah.
The
film opens with a cable news clip that tells us that dinosaurs have escaped
from the ruins of Isla Nublar and are now everywhere. Once that has been
established, director Colin Trevorrow puts the cinematic pedal down and doesn’t
let up for two hours and twenty-seven minutes. The somewhat muddied plot involves Biosyn, the
shady corporate heir to John Hammond’s InGen, run by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell
Scott), a Jeff Bezos type who is using dino DNA to “benefit mankind”. Uh huh. (If
Dodgson’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the original bagman who
handed Dennis Nedry the infamous can of shaving cream/bio-sample tubes in the
original film.)
Luckily,
Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is onto Biosyn, corralling her reluctant former
colleague Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to visit their remote headquarters where
the third member of the original Jurassic team, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum)
is a visiting scholar in residence.The
Biosyn retreat is also a world sanctuary for… dinosaurs.The OTHER parallel-running plot involves the
genetically-engineered child (the wonderful Isabella Sermon) of an original
Jurassic Park scientist who is in hiding with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and
Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). Her unique genetic makeup makes her a
very valuable commodity and a target for kidnappers. The two Jurassic Park
worlds - old and new - collide when she is
kidnapped and Owen and Claire follow her trail from the Pacific Northwest
to the alleyways of Malta and, the futuristic Biosyn complex itself.There are breathtaking man v. dinosaur chases
that rival any James Bond or Jason Bourne pursuit. Jurassic World Dominion
also drifts into Indiana Jones territory with a knock-down, drag-out fight in a
seedy dinosaur smuggler’s market, complete with a dino fighting pit, of course!
Trevorrow,
who ably helmed the previous two Jurassic Park movies, really hits his
stride with this film – from a dino roundup on horseback in a vast prairie to
stunning mountain photography in the Italian Alps and dino-mayhem in the dense
forests of the Pacific Northwest.The
film brings back old favorites like the T-Rex and the raptor “Blue”, and
introduces new ones like the Quetzalcoatlus, a huge, feathered dinosaur and the
Dreadnoughtus, which resembles a Brontosaurus on steroids – 27 dinosaur species
in all. According to the production materials, each creature was grounded in
reality under the strict supervision of a leading paleontologist. The film’s visual effects are rivalled only by
its audio effects – every crash is bone-jarring and the various dino roars are
teeth-rattling.
While
Pratt and Howard are great performers and have developed a wonderful onscreen
chemistry, it’s the return of the original cast members – Neill, Dern and
Goldblum that really got the preview audience clapping.Even original JP scientist Henry Wu (BD Wong)
is on hand to try to rectify his mistakes. They all step back into their roles as
easily as you’d pull on a favorite shirt; and Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm patois is
as wry and quirky as it was in 1993.Time has been kind to them all.
For
this epic conclusion to the cinematic Jurassic era, Universal has pulled out
all the stops and is seeing their cash cowasaurus off with a bang.