THE JURASSIC franchise started in 1993 when Steven Spielberg filmed Michael Crichton’s book and it was a blockbuster.
Crichton wrote a sequel in 1995, “The Lost World”, and Spielberg filmed this in 1997, another hit.
The succeeding sequels are no longer based on any book, including “Jurassic Park III” in 2001, “Jurassic World” in 2015, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” in 2018, and now, “Jurassic World Dominion”.
There were several other animated films, video games and even a TV series made on the “Jurassic” franchise.
“Jurassic World Dominion” was torn to pieces by reviewers who seem like they expect it to win an Oscar or, at least, be as winning as the “Top Gun” sequel.
In our case, we weren’t that disappointed as we were really not expecting much other than it be a U.S. summer popcorn flick.
The movie is set four years after the last one where Isla Nublar was destroyed by volcanic eruption.
Dinos are now all over the world, freely roaming and living side by side with humans. This movie combines cast members of the first movies with the newer ones.
Chris Pratt as Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing live in a remote mountain region to protect Maisie Lockwood (Isabel Sermon), the granddaughter of Benjamin Lockwood, one of the partners in the dinosaur project played by James Cromwell in the 5th movie.
Maisie was just cloned by her late mom and a greedy bio-engineering company, Biosyn, led by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott), now wants to capture her to study her DNA.
Owen and Claire try their best to protect Maisie but she is bored from just staying in their remote cabin all the time and so, she rebels.
In the last movie, Owen has tamed a velociraptor called Blue and now, it has its own baby that Maisie calls Beta, also the product of cloning. Biosyn thugs succeed in what is the film’s main plotline, the abduction of both Maisie and Blue.
Owen and Claire then try to pursue the kidnappers to rescue Maisie and Blue.
They first get to Malta where there is a black market with dinosaurs being sold illegally, then to the Dolomite Mountains in Italy where the Biosyn headquarters are located and where Maisie and Blue are being held captive.
Meantime, giant locusts appear and eat all the crops planted by farmers, but they spare the crops that used Biosyn products.
Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), a scientist we first met in the very first Jurassic movie, suspects that the deadly locusts come from Biosyn itself.
She then meets Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), her romantic interest in the first Jurassic film, and they join forces to investigate on Biosyn operations.
Other characters join them, like Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise), a renegade cargo plane pilot who flies them to the Dolomites; scientist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldlum), who invites Ellie and Alan over to the Biosyn headquarters to help investigate the locust problem; lead geneticist Henry Wu (BD Wong) who’s been present since the first Jurassic movie; and Ramsay Cole (Mamoudou Athie), head of Biosyn Communications who side with the good guys.
We also get to meet various other dinosaur species: a quetzalcoatlus that attacks Kayla’s plane, a therisinozaurus, a pyroraptor, a dilophosaurus, and a giganotosaurus who had a showdown with the remaining T-Rex in the film’s rambunctious climax.
As may be expected, we have a happy ending. Ellie and Alan renew their romance while Owen, Claire and Maisie get to return to the mountain cabin with Blue so she can reunite with her mama Beta. And even the dinosaurs get to live with humans happily ever after.
The movie’s production values are amazing.
We read that they used 18 animatronic creatures of varying shapes and sizes, amplified by CGI to make the dinosaurs seem as real as possible, including fully feathered dinosaurs, making the computer imagery seem seamless to offer grand visual spectacle.
But when it comes to the premise that humans would get to live peacefully with dinosaurs who breed unchecked, it’s quite difficult to believe since dinos can easily take over and make other animals extinct.
Governments would then have to intervene to get rid of them.
Nevertheless, the ensemble cast looks like they’re enjoying their heroics amidst all the chaos and mayhem.
This is surely more of a major fan service, specially for fans of dinos and those who’d be thrilled to see Laura Dern and Sam Neill still alive and renewing their nostalgic romance after 30 long years.