I’ll just start by saying that I think the original Jurassic Park is one of the greatest movies of all time. It’s up there in the historical pantheon of classics everyone should see at least once. I also thought Jurassic Park III was fine and Jurassic World was pretty good. But when it comes to Jurassic World Dominion, it pains me to say that my opinion is far, far different.
I believe that Jurassic World Dominion is the worst movie so far in 2022 and one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Had I not been reviewing the movie, I might have left the theater in the first third… and it would have been the right decision. I can count on my hand the number of movies I have walked out of.
Spoilers Ahead
There is almost no character development in this film. If there is character development, it occurs at intense moments with dialogue that should never happen in moments of life or death. Female characters suddenly share intimate thoughts on off-topic issues right as a dinosaur is ready to eat them. Just like character development is non-existent and nonsensical, so to are the actions sequences strung together in a way that makes absolutely no sense. Characters who were not in the area suddenly appear out of nowhere just in time to join an action scene with no explanation as to how they arrived. It doesn’t matter and neither does this film.
The CGI is also just terrible. I don’t understand how this was approved for theatrical release. There are many times, perhaps most of the times, when dinosaurs look far worse in this movie than in the nineties original. Particularly bad are baby dinosaur renderings and practical puppets. They look like toys, not anything real whatsoever.
The plot of the film is stupid, the bad guy is an Elon Musk parody (complete with Hyper Loop reference) who is never threatening in the least, none of our heroes are ever believed to be in danger and there is no tension whatsoever. The acting by some of the participants is just cringe-worthy and I found the whole film painful to watch. The script has us jumping from place to place, never caring about anybody in the places we just jumped into. Perhaps the very worst, however, is Laura Dern’s character who just spits out political college talking points that make no sense. One minute she’s tackling industrial farming, the next she is telling someone how to be a female role model. And all of this is to save a clone kid with special blood, plus a baby raptor, so they can put a disease into giant grasshoppers that will alter their DNA and kill them. Yes, that’s really the plot.
The movie ends with a message for us to coexist. I wish to never coexist with this film ever again. When the T-Rex defeats an allisaurus (or gigantisaurus or whatever the **** it was) through the help of the people and an Edward Scissorhands dinosaur (this has nothing to do with anything else in the story mind you) and we finally get to the end of the movie, I was happy to finally be able to leave.
To give you an idea of how bad this film is:
Jurassic World Dominion is like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, but the entire movie is just Shia LaBeouf swinging through the trees with the CGI monkeys. For two hours.
Score: 1.5 (Terrible)
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P.s. I’d rather watch a nine-hour marathon of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness back-to-back-to-back with no bathroom breaks than watch Jurassic World Dominion even once more.
