"Humans and dinosaurs can't co-exist. We created an ecological disastor."
Dominion is the conclusion of the Jurassic saga (for now at least) and sees Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas-Howard) from the Jurassic World films team up with Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) from the original Jurassic Park.
Dinosaurs have now been unleashed on the world and are constantly coming into conflict with humans. Ellie is investigating a dangerous swarm of over-sized locusts that have the potential to cause famine and with the help of Alan attempts to prove Biosyn are behind it. Meanwhile Owen and Claire are hiding out with Masie but she is captured by Biosyn and they attempt to track her down.
The film has received mixed reviews but on the whole I really enjoyed it. The first half feels quite different to what we've seen before, almost an espionage film in a world where dinosaurs are everywhere. It becomes more familiar by the finale with the character brought together into an isolated place full of dinosaurs. There's several superb sequences including a fantastic chase through old streets in Malta and a new dinosaur that looks unlike anything else the franchise has given us before.
I thought the plot was actually really interesting because it's more about this world where people have the ability to manipulate genetics than about the dinosaurs themselves. In that sense it felt like a good balance in that this was a new story but still with plenty of dinosaur mayhem too. Of course there's a tonne of CGI here but I thought most of it looked pretty good and it was also nice to see a large amount of practical models used for smaller dinosaurs.
The film's biggest issue is it's lack of characterisation. Chris Pratt's Owen Grady is supposed to be the biggest star but he's given very little to do and rarely shows any signs of having a personality. It's great to see the original trio back but they work mainly because all three are superb actors rather than being given any great character development here. For me the best performance of the film comes from Bryce Dallas-Howard and whilst Claire is never especially well characterised here Dallas-Howard is great as the action lead mother trying to save her 'daughter'. DeWanda Wise is a welcome addition as a former Air Force pilot Kayla and she was really the only character I wanted to see more of.
Presumably the franchise will continue in some form at some point in the future and I expect them to lean more into the dinosaurs across the world angle which is not really tapped into a great deal here. It feels like it would need fresh characters and they've still never really comes up with a plot as good as the original dinosaurs in a theme park idea.
I thought this was a decent if not outstanding action film with dinosaurs in. Perhaps not the epic finale to the series it could have been but still a really watchable film.
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