Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) review: the conclusion to the Jurassic era offers a big screen scaly, feathery and insect-y spectacle!

Cinema, since its earliest formation, has been the ultimate special effect. The illusion of the wildest fantasies or closest realities, being all around us. And in 1993, when Stephen Spielberg’s Jurassic Park walked with dinosaurs, the ultimate effect was achieved. Much like the late great Richard Attenborough’s well meaning but misguided John Hammond, Spielberg in adapting Michael Crichton’s novel, wanted to give us something that wasn’t an illusion. Something that was real. Something we could see, and almost touch. Even all these years on, in the dawn of advancing CGI, that film’s blend of practical and new age computer generated technology, remains spellbinding, but equally as importantly, so too do its characters and it’s, ever more meaningful, story.

Naturally success dictated expansion, and over the years, some have found themselves echoing Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm, in saying the makers have spent so long thinking how they could, they never stopped to think whether they should. Five films on, and we have yet to see a successor that stands shoulder to shoulder with the original film, but as the franchise has rumbled forward like a defiant and often triumphant Tyrannosaurus Rex, there is something to be said for taking a moment to look back. Across two direct sequels, and a sequel/reboot trilogy, the Jurassic series is constantly being re-evaluated and embraced, and like the dinosaurs themselves, there’s no stopping it. But is that really a bad thing? Because, really, I’ve enjoyed every offering in some way.

In an age where the legacy sequel (David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick) is increasingly ruling the box office roost, some are greater than others admittedly, but as life has trudged on, many of us seek the escape of those earlier years, and so I learned to stop worrying and love the – adopts the Mr. DNA drawl – Dinosaurs. Of course we should not stop aiming for excellence but there’s no shame in a series not quite being able to match the spine-shivering impact of that first “Welcome to Jurassic Park”.

Anyway, onto the film that is seeking to be the “Epic Conclusion to the Jurassic Era”, the Rise of Skywalker of the Jurassic series if you will. And, actually, that comparison is a pretty fair one to make, which will immediately confirm or deny your thoughts going in. Jurassic World: Dominion is a film that will be made or broken by what you are wanting from it going in. If you are expecting dinosaur action, returning faces and a foot on the pedal big screen experience, I very much doubt you will leave disappointed, even if you may still leave slightly surprised…and I think in a good way.

Four years on from the events of Fallen Kingdom, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt) live in the wilderness, secretly raising 14-year-old biogenetic clone Maisie (Isabella Sermon), protecting her from the powers that seek to use her for greater evils. Until that evil comes for her, and for the baby Velociraptor offspring of Blue. Meanwhile Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) are unexpectedly reunited, as they head off to meet Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) at the Biosyn company, to enquire about why a plague of locusts are attacking specific crops. In this now dinosaur loose world, what really is going on here? And are both these terrible events linked?

Already, you get the idea that this story is not at all what was expected, considering Fallen Kingdom’s simple closing ‘dinosaurs among us’ set up. Yet, in spite of the overwhelming general consensus, I had a great time with Dominion. Its frantic twists and turns go ever further into more mad territories, as it riffs on the age old ‘never trust a corporate powerhouse, even more so when they claim to be doing good’ plot line. That said, I appreciated the fact director/co-writer Colin Trevorrow and fellow co-writer Emily Carmichael did not go the easy, safer, route and attempted to tell a more divisive story, with cautionary themes about GMO foods, animal black markets and a proud streak of environmentalism running through it, especially come the satisfying closing moments of the film, which ultimately divert expectations to reach a conclusion that alludes to the solace of nature, even in the face of the tyranny of mankind.

Perhaps the point can be made that Dominion made hard what should be easy, and it would indeed have been all too easy to make a dino-infested world story but all the same I enjoyed its chaotic energy. And you still get plenty of dino bang for buck…hell there are finally some feathered dinosaurs here too. 

Dipping into western and sci-fi genres, the action was plentiful, the many franchise throwbacks were fun, just as the dinosaurs themselves were well designed and the use of so many outstanding practical effects was a delight. In fact the practical aspect showed up the CGI at so many points, in what is a theme park-like cinema experience! Accompanied of course by a reliable score from Michael Giacchino.

I got such a kick out of seeing the legacy characters back, alongside the new trilogy characters, and this film had a number of standouts among its cast of old and new. Particularly Neill, Dern and Goldblum (who fit back into these parts effortlessly) when it comes to the older characters, and the scene stealing DeWanda Wise (who is just excellent) when it comes to the new. I found myself comforted by the company of these characters and it brought the story to some degree full circle. With some very apt moments that echoed the points of the original film, amidst this DNA-spliced plot of environmental devastation.

Dominion was indeed a long watch but a full one, and I felt that, if this is the end of the series, it went out in an enjoyable fashion, with a cinematorium-rumbling spectacle that, for me, delivered. 

Dinosaurs…and locusts…oh my!