By Roshan Chandy
This would send the dinos into extinction.
Jurassic Park (1993) is responsible for me falling in love with cinema. I remember being a 5 year dino-loving child in early 2000s Bangkok when my parents introduced me to Steven Spielberg’s classic Michael Crichton adaptation. I loved the dino effects, the action, the borderline horror. I essentially loved the fact that it’s that quite literally jaw-dropping concept of a theme park where the rides eat the guests – a great spiritual successor to another Crichton classic Westworld.
Jurassic Park was seminal in the 90s for Spielberg the same way Jaws was for him in the 70s. I would even say it was “Jaws on all fours” and even a tad better than that horror classic. I just remember the shot of the water rippling as the T-Rex approaches and the Raptor kitchen stakeout. This was all some of the scariest stuff in a PG-rated family blockbuster and proof Spielberg knew how to make a really good horror flick.
Unfortunately the sequels were less than “dinotastic”. The big problem with the second film was that it tried to subvert that “guests eaten by attractions” formula that worked so brilliantly in the first film. It did this by introducing the T-Rex into the big city – bit Godzilla, eh? The third one was a tad better as that one stuck more rigidly to the first film’s formula and I enjoyed Colin Trevorrow’s first Jurassic World movie which really captured some of the excitement of seeing dinosaurs and Jurassic Park on the big screen for the first time. Its sequel stuck much to this formula, but was disappointing given it was directed by The Orphanage’s horror auteur J.A Bayona and failed to be the “Nosferatusaurus” of the Jurassic franchise.
Now, Colin Trevorrow is back behind the camera for what promises to be the final chapter in the Jurassic saga. Set 4 years since the destruction of Isla Nublar, Jurassic World Dominion takes place in a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist. There are velociraptors charging through the alpine mountains on a hunt. There’s brontosauruses stumbling their way through the villas of Venice. And there’s Chris Pratt’s hunky, handsome raptor handler Owen now living with his beautiful, redhead wife (a strawberry-fielded Bryce Dallas-Howard) and their genetically engineered and very English-sounding adopted daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon). She’s the grandchild of the godfather of Jurassic Park – Prof. John Hammond who was played so crinkly and magically by the late Richard Attenborough back in 1993.
As this is the final film in a franchise, it’s become such tradition to rope back in previous characters from the classic series. These include Sam Neill’s sardonic Dr. Alan Grant looking a little greyer, but no less handsome and Laura Dern’s blonde bombshell Dr. Ellie Sattler who hasn’t aged a day. And Jeff Goldblum who comes equipped with quips as the slimy Dr. Ian Malcolm who was the arch-nemesis in the original film and the not-so-great star of the second one.
They’re all back to stop a Bond-style, Spectre-like corporation from sending us back to the Cretaceous. This involves chasing dinosaurs through both the Italian Dolomite mountains and Venice itself. Yes, there are dinosaurs running through the streets of Venetian Italy…
That concept of “dinos in Venice” pretty much sums up everything wrong with this flaccid and fatuous last installment in the Jurassic saga. This is the worst film in the franchise by some distance for a number of reasons. The first is that it completely trashes the Jurassic Park formula that made the first film such a masterpiece.
Jurassic Park was great because it’s essentially a story of a theme park gone wrong where the hunters become the hunted and the attractions eat the guests. This was a strong trait in all of Michael Crichton’s novels which were all about rides attacking customers. In Westworld, it was androids. In Jurassic Park, it was dinosaurs.
The second film is the worst in the franchise to date because it scrapped that formula and essentially became a Kaiju-in-the-city movie which we’ve all seen a billion times in Japanese monster movies. ‘Jurassic Park’ has always worked best when at its most stripped down, straightforward and simple. It’s no wonder therefore that all the films that came after that terrible second film have stuck more closely to the first one’s formula.
This movie really scraps all of that. It turns the prized formula into a 007-style action potboiler. Really?! 007 with dinos?! I don’t think so! Everything about this movie wants to be a Bond film. You’ve got Chris Pratt as the smoldering, raptor-whispering ladies’ man. You’ve got Bryce Dallas-Howard as the eye-candy Bond girl. I suppose this movie wins points over the Bonds for feminism by having the main Bond baddie a woman. She is, however, heavily sexualised and turned into a blonde bimbo sexpot. So Jurassic World really is more Jurassic than the Bond movies…I never knew that!
There’s a chase through the Alpine mountains that very much resembles the ski resort action of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969). There’s a whole segment set on the rooftops of Venice which very much looks like that terribly tragic ending to Casino Royale (2006). The main villainness even has a sexually-charged session with Chris Pratt’s raptor whisperer. A distant callback to Electra King from The World Is Not Enough (1999)? I think so…
The point is Bond works for what it is because it’s essentially a franchise about a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” in itself; flirting with the ladies and beating quips out of one-liner-worthy bad guys. “Jurassic Bond” just doesn’t work because that’s not what this franchise is about. Jurassic Park has always been a franchise about theme park rides eating the riders. It just doesn’t make sense to turn a dino movie into a globe-trotting spy actioner. It’s a bit silly really…
As for the cast, they all look terribly tired. Chris Pratt was a fabulous replacement for Sam Neill in the first Jurassic World. I loved his raptor whispering scene in the enclosure. That was some seriously silent movie-style acting in a big-budget blockbuster motion picture. But this raptor whisperer has now passed his sell-by date. Pratt’s only real purpose here is to turn his head to the right and look seductively at the camera. What a waste of a talent as charismatic and charming as Chris Pratt! He was so great in Guardians of the Galaxy…
Bryce Dallas-Howard, I really liked her in the first film of this rebooted franchise. She was not only quite literally redheaded hot, but sassy as too and got to kick butt every bit as much as the boys. Now, she’s just there for the sex appeal. She even gets out her tighty whitie knickers and there’s a whole segment at the start where she’s basically just a submissive housewife. Jurassic era indeed…
Sam Neill and Laura Dern admittedly have nice chemistry as they always did and do. Jeff Goldblum has a real way with the droll and deadpan. But that doesn’t answer the question of why they’re in this movie in the first place? They all look like wrinkly, grey, aged contestants on Race Across the World dragged into the Bond-style villainy for the sake of stupid nostalgia. It’s as though Trevorrow has realized quite how dead dino this franchise has become and thinks nostalgia will cure the prehistoric lurgy. Well, guess what? It won’t!
It’s become such a critical cliche to say “I wanted to like this”. It was my patriotic duty to like this. Jurassic Park was responsible for my love affair with cinema and one of my favourite films of all time. There’s nothing I like more than seeing dinos on the big screen and, boy, can I remember the first time I saw Spielberg’s classic…
But Jurassic World Dominion I was baffled and disappointed by and really turned off by. It’s a film that ties itself up in Bond-style knots and disappears up its own fundaments. It adds unnecessary complications to a refreshingly simple and stripped-down set-up and thinks nostalgia will save the day from the ineptitude of its storytelling.
I really think Jurassic Park should never have been a franchise. This final installment goes out with a whimper and not a bang. It’s the worst in the series by a long mile. One step short of sending this franchise n’ formula back into extinction, I think it’s time to put these dinosaurs to bed…
Rating: 1/5