The Talking Through The Medias team was allowed access to an advance screening of the upcoming film Jurassic World Dominion. We were later kicked out of the theater for giving our review on location. I want to be clear, movie theaters are private property, you must ask permission to use the premises. That being said, here’s what happened this day. We arrive at the theater, this time we were not invited through a press pass. We waited outside of the theater on a 100-degree day with little to no cloud cover. I made it around 5 pm but there were some people who arrived around noon to get the best location. It was odd to me that during the winter months movie theaters, for these fan screenings, will let us wait inside, and during the summer, outside. I think the opposite should be the practice but that’s just me. Once the rest of my team arrived and we were allowed in an hour later we found some great seats.
Before the film started Daniel Dyer put on a dinosaur mask (The Raptor Blue) and walked around the theater entertaining the crowd for over a minute and thirty seconds. He even received applause. The film started and here is my review of the film.
Everything I loved about it included what made the franchise work from the beginning. People are trapped on an island full of dinosaurs trying to escape. The parts of the film that dealt with bringing the cast and legacy cast together were extremely cheesy and lengthy. The world now dealing with the spread of dinosaurs and life and finding a way to coexist was not the problem, it was the execution of the underground black market scenes that felt completely out of place. The dialogue from all of the antagonists felt out of place. Action scenes, like Chris Prat being chased by raptors on a motorcycle, were a great break from the video game/heist film that was surrounding it. The movie spends too much time establishing the black market world which only hinted toward using dinosaurs for military purposes but never really put that motivation to act as hinted in the last film. It was both rushed and dragged on too long making the subplot a complete eye roll.
Putting the legacy cast on the main island where our main antagonist dwell was better but also dragged for me. I found those moments more interesting than what Owen (Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) were doing with their clone daughter. Being that the world is still looking for Maisie (Isabela Sermon) the new reason why the main antagonist needs to find her was another reason that rolled my eyes. Not only is it bad that a want to be Steve Jobs villain is okay we live in a world with dinosaurs but they introduce a new weapon that threatens all life not just humans that, to me, felt completely unnecessary.
The last thing I could not appreciate but understood for the superfans was the need to introduce a long-awaited love story. Without giving it away, Pratt and Howard's characters were enough but to feel the need to force another couple before the conclusion of the franchise was the definition of unneeded fan service. You can probably guess. You may think I see this as a bad film. I do not. There is enough good to make this a decent fun film. The problem is comparing it with the other films. So where does it rank for me? As of now, I have it at:
1. Jurassic Park
2. Jurassic World
3. Jurassic Park 2
4. Jurassic Park 3
5. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom
6. Jurassic World Dominion
With five and six being interchangeable depending on who you ask or when you ask me. Jurassic World Dominion is just an okay film. Halfway through the black market scenes, I expe
cted Dominic Toretto to show up riding a T-Rex ready to save the day. I would not have been surprised. The plot became that crazy over time. I'm not just talking about the raptors and motorcycles I'm talking about the cheesy dialogue
leading to it. This movie was very "There's nothing more important than family" heavy. Even if that family is made up of clones.