An Extensive Fan Review Of ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’

The following review was submitted to us by Neelis/Dinosaur Habitat.


Dinosaurs rule the world once more in ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’. Is it epic? Is it the conclusion to the ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Jurassic World’ franchises, as promised by the tagline? Does Giganotosaurus truly want to watch the world burn? And what does a gig at BioSyn pay when you are a swashbuckling mathematician?   

Originally slated for a June 2021 release, but postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ has been making its way into cinemas across the globe ahead of the US premiere on June 10, 2022.

Reception by audiences and critics has been mixed so far, though the early release has been a financial success; however, monetary profits do not equal quality, so how does ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ hold up?

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ – the story

Picking up four years after ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (2018), Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is still haunted by the past; trying to atone for her mistakes and feeling a deep sense of duty towards the dinosaurs, she has moved on from rallying the public and politicians to more radical measures, raiding illegal dinosaur breeding facilities to expose them and have authorities shut down the awful practices conducted there.

Despite their earlier romantic struggles, Claire and former Velociraptor-trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) have made a pretty nice home for themselves and rebellious Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), who they’ve taken under their wings after her grandfather’s death.

It isn’t long before their peaceful life is disturbed; Velociraptor Blue turns up at their cabin in the woods. And Blue is not alone; she has a baby, whose origins are a mystery.

Both the baby Velociraptor and Maisie are kidnapped by a bunch of nameless poachers, led by over-the-top bad guy Rainn Delacourt (Scott Haze).

Owen and Claire give chase; with the help of Franklin Webb (Justice Smith) they learn Maisie is headed to Malta, where illegal dinosaur fights are being held by more anonymous, unpleasant people, and dinosaurs are sold for excessive amounts of money, the trades conducted by delightfully devious, and criminally underused, Soyona Santos (Dichen Lachman).

Owen and Claire briefly reunite with Barry (Omar Sy) and find an unexpected ally in veteran pilot Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), who agrees to fly them to Biosyn Valley, a sanctuary for recaptured dinosaurs and other resurrected prehistoric creatures.

Parallel to Claire and Owen’s story runs another tale; the one of Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) investigating the mysterious appearance of swarms of gigantic locusts, feeding on crops throughout the United States, destroying harvests as they swoop down and gorge on anything the farmlands offer.

Believing Biosyn is responsible, she asks her former love-interest and old friend Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) for help with her quest for evidence; invited by a familiar acquaintance, Sattler and Grant journey to the dinosaur sanctuary located deep in the Italian Dolomites. 

Touring Biosyn’s facility under the guidance of Ramsay Cole (Mamoudou Athie), Grant and Sattler are welcomed by Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), who seems more aloof than an evil genius. Alas, do not judge a book by its cover; as with ‘Jurassic World’ (2015) and ‘Fallen Kingdom’, shady stuff is going on right under everyone’s noses, including Dr. Ian Malcolm’s (Jeff Goldblum) who lectures at Biosyn for a handsome stipend, and who extended the invitation to Dr. Sattler.

Will the familiar trio manage to expose Dodgson before everything goes pear-shaped?

Through a series of high-adrenaline adventures, the two groups eventually come together in Biosyn Valley and must not only fight for their own survival, but for the chance to reveal the truth.

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ – the verdict

The story of ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ begins, of course, in 1993; Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’, based on Michael Crichton’s novel of the same name, enthralled audiences of all ages and demographics. Never before had dinosaurs been so realistically and dynamically depicted on screen.

At the time, critics lauded the visual effects but quite a few were less complimentary when it came to the human characters; they were seen as somewhat two-dimensional, entirely in service of the spectacular animatronics and CGI.

‘Jurassic Park’’s success spawned two sequels; ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’ (1997), based on another Michael Crichton novel, and ‘Jurassic Park III’ (2001).

After the third film, the franchise seemed to have been given up on by Universal. Rumors about a possible fourth film, and even a few announcements of it having entered active pre-production, swirled, but it would take fourteen years before the dinosaurs made a successful return in ‘Jurassic World’ (2015) and ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (2018).  

What has endured most amongst fans, almost ironically, is a deeply rooted love for the original characters; Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler and Dr. Malcolm inspired generations to seek out careers in palaeontology and science.

Dr. Ian Malcolm in particular remains incredibly popular amongst film enthusiasts; and Jeff Goldblum delights in the character’s popularity, having reprised the role not just in sequel films, but a car commercial and the various ‘Jurassic World: Evolution‘ games.

This popularity only made it a matter of time before Grant, Sattler and Malcolm would return to the world of dinosaur escapades. But with five returning leading characters, three returning supporting characters (though two are really cameos), four newcomers, one renewed villain, and Maisie’s story continuing too, do they get a chance to truly shine?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ tries to squeeze in so much everyone’s individual stories are bogged down, even with the gargantuan runtime of two-and-a-half hours.

Most of the time it feels more as if the entire film’s a comedic approach rather than a serious continuation of the series and a re-introduction of beloved characters; Dr. Malcolm talks, but his words, unlike his dire warnings and razor-sharp analysis in both ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘The Lost World’, are hollow, meaningless; even his rivalry with Dodgson can’t reach the heights of the adversarial quips traded with Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) in ‘The Lost World’.

And so it goes on; Dr. Sattler and Dr. Grant have surprisingly little to add, aside from their own little mystery-espionage adventure, and are written rather abysmally.

A completely  ridiculous subplot is introduced, erasing things we learned (or thought we’d learned) in ‘Fallen Kingdom’ regarding Maisie’s origin story, which is now so muddled and contrived (the “Benjamin Lockwood – John Hammond fallout”-spiel makes no sense at all now), it defies any desire of exploring it further.

Claire and Owen, by comparison, have a more straightforward and slightly more serious arc, and given their history there is a surprisingly touching moment between Claire and Owen on Kayla’s aircraft. Owen, having taken on the role as surrogate dad, is far less goofy, a welcome approach. Both Kayla and Ramsay are appreciated additions to the story, though they get far too little screentime (Ramsay’s character especially suffers from the bloated cast of characters).

The dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, too, feel underused. Most of them only appear once, dutifully carry out their parts in the story, then are gone just as quickly as Delacourt and Santos.

With the exception of the (very effective) reveal of the Therizinosaurus, the introductions of the dinosaurs are distinctly underwhelming; they aren’t helped by some unimpressive CGI work and highly disappointing animatronics. Not once do they reach the greatness of Stan Winston and his team’s work on the original ‘Jurassic Park’ films.

And though it was heralded as the new big bad dinosaur, Giganotosaurus turns out to be the chillest theropod in the franchise. It lumbers around a bit, and even gives half-hearted chase to our heroes once, but it mainly being absent from the larger part of the film is what stands out most.

By comparison, the mystery of the locusts, admittedly and pleasantly, feels as if it came straight out of a Michael Crichton novel. And some of the humour in the film (“he slid into my DMs”) truly works and draws hearty laughs.

For all its flaws, and Colin Trevorrow’s insistence of them not featuring when ‘Jurassic World’ entered production sometime in 2013, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ now introduces feathered dinosaurs, some of them first seen in ‘The Prologue‘ (2022); it’s a radical and deeply appreciated step forward for the franchise – the fierce Pyroraptor especially is a fabulously spectacular plunderer, echoing the memory of ‘Jurassic Park III’’s marvelous Velociraptors.

A tighter, more competently written story, shorter runtime and less filler-characters might have made for a better, more entertaining film. Even though the pace is high and everyone’s continuously horse-riding, driving, cycling, running and flying from set-piece to set-piece, I found myself bored at times because it was hard to keep up with the action, and also, about halfway, hard to care for what was going on. 

The absence of any tension and playing it safe to please a very wide demographic (of fans) takes away any edge it otherwise might have had.

At times the film’s more ‘Bourne’ or ‘Mission: Impossible‘ than ‘Jurassic Park’ / ‘Jurassic World’. As a friend described it; the film feels very much as if you’re watching a string of excellent video game levels.

Is it epic? No. Is it the conclusion? Also no. The open end, unfortunately, hints at more to come. I’m hoping Trevorrow and Universal Studios will hand over the reins to other writers and directors; preferably filmmakers who aren’t hardcore fans of the original films and therefore capable of taking a step back, critically evaluating what does and does not work, only then to come up with engaging, intriguing stories and characters.

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ has its heart in the right place, but the execution is dreadful. Though it will no doubt make an obscene amount of money over the coming summer, it’s not destined to become a classic. One thing is clear; dinosaurs will rule cinemas once again and they, unlike that tagline’s promise, are very much here to stay.


Do you agree with this fan review, or do you have a different view? Share your thoughts below, and as always stay tuned to Jurassic Outpost for the latest!

Jurassic World Alive Celebrates Four Years of Gameplay!

Calling all Jurassic World Alive players, and in case you missed it: Jurassic World Alive is celebrating four years of gameplay this year! Read on for more about the milestone, four years of gameplay statistics, and a new sweepstakes for a trip to a Universal Studios resort!



From Universal, Jam City, and Ludia:

Jurassic World Alive, Jam City and Ludia’s award-winning geo-located game featuring the fiercest dinosaurs from Universal’s Jurassic World franchise, is celebrating its fourth anniversary this month! Jurassic World Alive has been downloaded by over 32 million players worldwide and played for over 20 billion minutes, equivalent to over 38,000 years!!

To celebrate this 4-year milestone and ahead of the Jurassic World: Dominion film release on June 10, we released a new live action trailer featuring just some of the iconic dinosaurs in Jurassic World Alive, including fan-favorite raptor Blue, Beta and the iconic T. rex as they inhabit the player’s world, wherever they are.

In addition to the limited-time thematic events always taking place in the game, players will be able to get up close to creatures found in the new theatrical release thanks to a free Jurassic World Dominion scent that will be waiting in players’ game mailboxes from June 8! When activated, scents attract select dinosaurs to appear near the player’s location. Players will also have the opportunity to capture and unlock new prolific dinosaurs through the month of June from the films including Giganotosaurus, the formidable big baddie from the new Jurassic World: Dominion film.

Additional Jurassic World Alive milestones players have achieved the past four years include:

Total Creatures Unlocked: Nearly 400 million

Total T. rexes Unlocked: 1.95 million

Total Darts Fired: 38 quintillion 

Total PVP Battles: 729 million

Total Supply Drops Spun: Nearly 6.2 billion

Universal, Jam City, and Ludia will also be hosting a sweepstakes where one lucky winner plus three guests will be invited to their choice of Universal Studios Resort, in either Hollywood or Orlando. Details can be found here.

The sweepstakes is open to age 18+ residents of the United States and Canada. Runner ups also have the chance to win Jurassic-themed Mystery Boxes and special in-game rewards.



Check out the Jurassic World Alive Dinosaur Day 2022 Trailer below!



Congratulations to Universal, Jam City, and Ludia on the success of Jurassic World Alive and four years of gameplay! What are your thoughts on Jurassic World Alive? Are you a regular player, and if so, how have you been celebrating the anniversary? Let us know in the comments and check out gameplay screenshots below!


Jurassic World Dominion earns $26.44 million domestically in third weekend, crosses $700 million Worldwide

After two straight weekends on top of the domestic Box Office, Jurassic World Dominion shifted down the chart into 3rd place with an estimated domestic weekend gross of $26.44 million, a 55% drop from last weekend. New release Elvis came in tied for first place with an estimated $30.5 million with Top Gun: Maverick who climbed back up the charts. The weekend actuals will be released tomorrow afternoon to show the true winner. The other new release this week, The Black Phone, also from Universal Pictures, debuted in 4th behind Dominion with an estimated $23.37 million.

Dominion officially crossed the $300 million mark domestically on Sunday and became the 9th film in Universal Pictures history to do so. The domestic total now stands at an estimated $302.77 million. Four of the six Jurassic films have reached this milestone with only The Lost World: Jurassic Park ($229.1 million) and Jurassic Park III ($181.2 million) coming in under.

Internationally the film grew it’s total to an estimated $443.9 million and total worldwide it is now up to $746.7 million. It is the 13th film for Universal Pictures to cross $700 million worldwide and the film is likely eyeing a final total north of $900 million. Unfortunately it is currently looking likely that it will be unable to join the billion dollar club. How the film holds next weekend domestically over the 4th of July holiday and how it fares when it opens in Japan on July 29th will give a much clearer picture on if there is any chance at $1 billion. Regardless if the film reaches that or not, it is still going to finish as one of the most successful films in studio history.

What are your thoughts on Jurassic World Dominion’s third weekend box office numbers? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Jurassic World Dominion stuns Lightyear to remain #1 by earning $58.66 million in second weekend

Domestic Box Office Upset! Jurassic World Dominion was widley expected to drop to #2 during it’s second domestic weekend with the new release of Disney/Pixar’s Lightyear. Last weekend Dominion opened to $145.1 million, the third best opening in franchise history, and in it’s second weekend it dropped 59.6% with an estimated three day total of $58.66 million. Lightyear had been long expected to have a very big opening and push the dinosaurs down the chart but the film underperformed with an opening weekend of only $51 million, which was not enough to dethrone Dominion. The domestic total for Dominion currently stands at an estimated $249.79 million.

The second weekend for Dominion just came in under what Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom did in 2018 ($60.9 million) but there are several factors that are leading to the lower box office numbers then one might have expected for what is being advertised as the conclusion of the series. Disney/Pixar release of Lightyear this weekend, along with Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick continuing to surprise everyone as it made another estimated $44 million this weekend to come in third place plays a big part. Three big films currently in theaters at the same time eat into each other’s box office potential, add in that with about 39% of pre-Covid era moviegoers saying they are not yet ready to return to cinemas and a low Rotten Tomatoes score (currently 30%) have all played into how well Dominion has been doing.

Now that isn’t to say Dominion is not doing well at Box Office because it certainly is, it is just not doing the same overall numbers as Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom previously have done in the recent trilogy. The film officially crossed the $200 million mark on Friday and became the 27th film ever for Universal Pictures to do so and currently sits at #16 all-time in studio history domestically. By next weekend, Dominion will push into the top 10 and will have a chance to crack Universal’s all-time top 5 (would need to surpass $368.4 million) by the end of it’s domestic run. If it does accomplish that, four of the top 5 domestic Universal movies will be from the Jurassic franchise.

Internationally Dominion is up to an estimated total of $372.39 million for a worldwide total of $622.18 million. That is just above the $618.6 that The Lost World: Jurassic Park had made globally in 1997.

What are your thoughts on Jurassic World Dominion’s second weekend box office numbers? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Deadline

Jurassic World Dominion’s EPIC BATTLE PACK™ Set Launches on Beyond The Gates

Jurassic World Dominion is here, and Mattel have flooded stores with many toys from the new Jurassic movie. Last month on the show we debuted a Legacy Collection favorite, but this month’s episode of Beyond The Gates mixes things up as we unveil the ultimate Dominion set: the EPIC BATTLE PACK!

In this episode of the show we are joined with Mattel’s mastermind and head legend Rafael Bencosme, who discusses the three dinosaurs development and how the designers worked with the team at Industrial Light & Magic to bring these toys to life!

Lead visual effects supervisor from ILM David Vickery walks us through the intricate process of designing Jurassic World dinosaurs – you won’t want to miss this!

This episode is full of behind the scenes from Dominion!

Be sure to take a deeper look at the making of this wonderful set by checking out the episode now, and if you haven’t already, head to Target.com to pre-order this exclusive set!

There’s more very exciting items coming to Beyond The Gates, stay tuned!

Jurassic World Dominion roars to an estimated $143.37 million domestic opening weekend

UPDATE: The actuals for Dominion came in a little higher for the domestic opening at $145,075,625.

The sixth film, Jurassic World Dominion, which is being marketed as the “Epic conclusion for the Jurassic era” roared to an estimated domestic opening of $143.37 million this weekend. While it was not record breaking such as Jurassic World was in 2015 ($208.8 million) it is still one of Universal’s biggest opening weekends ever.

The opening is Universal Pictures’ fourth biggest opening of all time, trailing Jurassic World ($208.8 million), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($148.0 million) and Furious 7 ($147.2 million). Weekend actuals will be released on Monday afternoon.

Exclaimed Universal Domestic Distribution Boss this AM, “This incredible debut for Jurassic World Dominion is driven by not only the loyal fans of the original Jurassic trilogy beginning in 1993, but many new fans experiencing Jurassic for the first time as our casts united for an epic conclusion.  After a long journey from being the first Hollywood film to safely return to production during COVID, up through our global release dates, we’re thrilled for our filmmakers and talent who worked tirelessly on this movie, and for our great partners in exhibition benefitting from a tremendous start to their summer.”

Also, Dominion saw another estimated $177 million come from international markets bringing the worldwide total to $389.2 million.

What are your thoughts on the domestic opening box office numbers for Jurassic World Dominion? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Deadline

Jurassic World Dominion scores $18 million in domestic Thursday previews

Today is June 10th, the official domestic opening for Jurassic World Dominion! However, the film had Thursday afternoon/evening preview showings, and the sixth installment of the Jurassic franchise grossed an estimated $18 million! For comparisons, Jurassic World earned $18.5 million in 2015 and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom earned $15.3 million in 2018 for Thursday previews. Early tracking indicated the film was headed to a $165-205 million opening three day domestic opening, however tracking has since dropped and the expectation is now in the range of $125 million+. Please check back on Sunday for the official three day estimates.

Universal/Amblin’s Jurassic World Dominion earned $18M in previews, but that’s not just from 4PM showtimes yesterday, but also other stunt previews earlier this week

Please Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: Deadline

‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ Soundtrack Details and New Track Revealed!

Jurassic World franchise composer Michael Giacchino has announced the ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ soundtrack – complete with release details, formats, and a brand new track from the film!


The full score album will be available digitally, on CD, Vinyl via Mondo, and in Dolby Atmos June 10th. One brand new track, “Da Plane and Da Cycle”, was released early today – you can listen to it via Apple Music, Spotify, and via YouTube below!


Giacchino has returned with his signature bombastic Jurassic musical style and pun-filled track titles. The album boasts 32 tracks – plenty of music for the massive film that Jurassic World: Dominion is shaping up to be. We are enjoying the score so far and can’t wait to hear more when Dominion releases next week!


What do you think of this new track from Jurassic World: Dominion and the album details we’ve learned today? Let us know in the comments, and follow Jurassic Outpost for all the latest as we head towards June 10th!

DeWanda Wise Confirms Extended Cut of ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’, more of Kayla Watts’ Backstory!

In a new interview with Collider, Jurassic World: Dominion star DeWanda Wise revealed more about the process of developing her new character Kayla Watts, and even confirmed an extended cut of Dominion!


Jurassic World: Dominion will introduce DeWanda Wise as Kayla Watts, a former Air Force pilot who becomes integral to the mission Claire, Owen, Maisie, and Drs. Sattler, Grant, and Malcolm find themselves on in the film. Wise spoke to developing her character’s backstory, saying:

“I gave Kayla a dialogue pass. I gave Kayla a full dialogue pass. She was already very clear on the page. I had a couple of touchstones that were nonnegotiable. Her background’s her background. She was always Air Force. I knew that there were certain moments in the script that I had to execute, so I knew that she had to have a certain physicality for you to believe that she could pull Chris Pratt out of the water because he is I don’t know how many times my actual size. So there were certain things that I wanted to ensure that were true, but also, we workshopped her. Truly like old school theater nerd, we both went to NYU and workshopped her for a couple of weeks to really refine and integrate her backstory.”


Wise also spoke to unseen past dinosaur missions that could have influenced her character, important costume design decisions, and perhaps even a future story we might see for her character:

“I won’t say because, you know, maybe there will be another thing. I’m vying for a prequel. Anyway, that’s not the point! Point is, I talked about it a lot funny enough. One of my co-conspirators with Kayla, which you can see very clearly in this film was [costume designer] Joanna Johnston in the construction of that character, so a lot of her adventures we built into the wardrobe.”

While she didn’t reveal any specifics, she did tease something to look out for in Dominion and perhaps beyond:

“She had this moment, and it’s probably gonna be in the extended cut, maybe, we’ll see, but she has this beautiful pair of brass knuckles and we have this entire backstory of this adventure that she had gone on in South Africa — [laughs] Girl, I love backstories! — where she procured these knuckles. Because a lot of Kayla has this kind of Indiana Jones, she’s been everywhere. Some of her travels are for work and she goes on them because she has to go on them, and some are just for her.”


Finally, Wise was asked about how the fall of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World influenced the person her character has become:

“She really makes a true hero’s call. There’s something that’s awakening inside of her when we meet her at the top of this movie and it’s because she’s in part very disillusioned, you know? She’s very disillusioned and disappointed at the folly of man. And she’s in this place when we first meet her that’s just like, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ and she’s just made a living off the mistakes of the people who have come before her. So you kind of have this level of resignation, but there’s something that’s building in her that she’s come to the end of the line of herself where she’s just like, ‘There is something I can do though, actually.’ And that was really inspiring to me to be like, we can all be heroes in a way and that at any moment we can make those turning points for ourselves to stand up for something when we see something happening.”


You can read Peri Nemiroff’s full interview for Collider here, or watch in video form below:


All of this new information on the background of Kayla Watts is exciting and intriguing for Jurassic fans, not to mention what is seemingly confirmation of a forthcoming extended cut of Jurassic World: Dominion! What do you think of this news and the inspirations DeWanda Wise found for her character? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned to Jurassic Outpost for the latest Jurassic news!

Images via Collider and Universal Pictures.

REVIEW: ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’

The following is a guest article contributed by Ruann Jovinski of ‘Jurassic Park 4.4’ first published in Portuguese and now translated to English. The review is largely spoiler-free, however small spoilers to follow:

Last Friday myself and a bunch of fans were invited by Universal Pictures to a very special event in São Paulo, Brazil – a visit to the Iron Studio’s owned Jurassic Park Burger restaurant, a screening of ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ (we even got JP tattoos for free, but that’s another story).

Before the movie started, we got to see the trailer for ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’, which was then followed by a very short segment were two minions were confronted by their own version of Rexy.

From there is where the fun began.

Jurassic World Dominion opens with an exposition heavy “Now This” news montage that catches the audience up to speed on how dinosaurs are now free to roam the world and introduces the mega-corporation BioSyn. While one would expect it to be exciting and primarily set up BioSyn, it mostly serves as a Fallen Kingdom recap rather than a striking or needed introduction to the film. This segment feels odd, but thankfully the movie soon finds much sturdier footing:  from there we are introduced to two different storylines that have much more in common than we are initially led to believe.

This movie brings back the classic Jurassic Park characters in a huge way, driven by Ellie Sattler. Likewise, the Jurassic World characters are trying to make their peace with the world they helped create as well as take care of Maisie Lockwood – the clone girl who they essentially illegally “adopted “after the events of Fallen Kingdom. 

Dominion brings us to a whole new world with many different set pieces and concepts that have never before been seen in the Jurassic franchise. From the snowy mountains of Sierra Nevada to the populated streets of the island Malta and the dense BioSyn Valley in situated within the Dolomite Mountains of Italy.  Dinosaurs are free in our world, trying to survive, and humans are adapting to this ever changing set of circumstances. We see illegal trafficking of dinosaurs in black markets, and what happens when dinosaurs wreak havoc in city streets. This is a whole new Jurassic World.

The movie is far from perfect – the plot is bloated, the pacing is horribly rushed, and many of the characters feel slightly out of key – but at least in my humble opinion it is much better than the two previous entries. ‘Dominion’ revisits Jurassic Park’s Techno-Thriller roots diving into the power of genetics like we have never seen before and some of the plots points are for sure something we could easily have seen in Crichton’s work. 

I was thrilled and extremely happy to see Dr Alan Grant and Dr Ellie Sattler’s shenanigans throughout the film, interacting with another another, other characters, and of course dinosaurs. The chemistry between Sam Neill and Laura Dern is strong as ever. Jeff Goldblum as Dr Ian Malcolm is another great win – this movie really belongs to the classic Jurassic Park cast. 

Outside of the classic characters, the newcomers are also great: standouts would be DeWanda Wise’s “Kayla Watts”, Mamoudou Athie’s “Ramsay”, Campbell Scott’s “Lewis Dodgson”, Isabella Sermon’s “Maisie”. Of course, BD Wong’s Dr. Henry Wu is also back and he’s better than ever. Yes, Dr Wu does get a meatier role and a stronger arch this time – something much overdue. Bryce Dallas Howard gets to flex her muscles as Claire both physically and emotionally as we are presented with a more sentimental and even haunted version of the character. Chris Pratt brings nothing new to Owen – he’s pretty much the same as the last two films, however played a little more seriously and doesn’t lean into out of place levity during serious scenes like in Fallen Kingdom.

As for the dinosaurs, Dominion brings some incredibly new additions to the franchise in the form of the territorial Therizinosaurus, the menacing Giganotosaurus, the tiny Moros and the vicious Atrociraptors. We also get to see some old friends like the venom spitting Dilophosaurus – which feel like a throwback to 80’s films more than Jurassic Park. The Pyroraptor is another standout, though sadly virtually every moment of its scene is in the trailer – this one was criminally underused and it’s insane Dr. Alan Grant never meets it. That would have been a full circle moment to his Velociraptors are birds speech in Jurassic Park.

As I said before the movie is not without it’s flaws, which comes in form of some very odd creative decisions, the lack of crucial dialogue to better explain some of the plot points (this movie often feels like a sequel to a movie we never got) and what I thought were the worst offenders – The animatronics. Yes, there are many (many!) animatronics in this movie and they all ended up looking very rubbery and stiff, looking more like Dark Crystal or Star Wars creatures than the living breathing animals Stan Winston Studio created. Perhaps this is in part the fault of the way they were filmed – but I really thought most (if not all) should have been touched up with CGI, especially the Microceratus.

The soundtrack is quite fun and has its moments, but I also feel Giacchino could have used more of the original themes – after all this movie is the “epic conclusion” of the entire saga and the return of the original characters, which comes with certain thematic expectations.

In general I can say I really enjoyed ‘Jurassic World Dominion’ and I had a great time and I just can’t wait to see it again. It has the flaws of the first two Jurassic World films, but BioSyn driven plot line and return of the classic characters really elevates the fun. It’s hard not to have certain expectations – this was meant to be the close of a series of stories that began in 1993 but ultimately just feels like another sequel. I wish the movie was longer as it needed to flesh out the story and characters, be less choppy, and build more believable stakes. Likewise some of the effects, both practical and CGI, needed more work – it’s unfortunate that some of the CG is  weak considering how long they had to work on the film (Blue and Beta are a large offender here).

Ultimately this movie left me wanting more – both in good and bad ways –  but most of all good. And thankfully, Dominion is not the end, but a brand new beginning. More will come, and the movie makes that clear.


Stay tuned, as more of our team sees the movie and are allowed to publish reviews new review articles will be added!