Jurassic World: Dominion is supposedly the final of the Jurassic Park franchise, as this movie brought together characters and actors from across the franchise in the finale. Directed by Colin Trevorrow, Dominion started with the dinosaurs found across the country, free and wild.

I had heard plenty of negative comments about the movie online, so I had entered the theater with low expectations. As it normally happened, low expectations makes it easier to enjoy what I am watching. There is no doubt that Jurassic World: Dominion was not a good movie, but I have seen way worse. Heck, I found this much better than 2018 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

While the dinosaurs roamed the earth, a mysterious group of large locusts began destroying the food supply of the country. The company Biosyn has been creating these locusts and working with the dinosaurs as well. Agents of Biosyn kidnapped Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) away from Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who had been raising her as their own. The raptor Blue had also given birth to a little raptor and that raptor was taken by Biosyn’s hired henchmen.

Owen and Claire pursued the Biosyn henchmen in an attempt to recover Maisie and the raptor. Meanwhile, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) went to recruit Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to help her infiltrate Biosyn and get evidence about the company being behind the locusts. She was invited in by Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) who was inside the company already.

Seeing the mixing of these characters from Jurassic Park/World was the best part of the movie. Jeff Goldblum is always great and there is still wonderful chemistry with Laura Dern and Sam Neill. This is all nostalgia and it was great. I enjoyed the addition of two new characters too: Head of Communications of Biosyn Ramsay Cole (Mamoudou Athie) and pilot Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise).

The CGI/special effects were good, but there were a few times when it was not up to the standards set prior to this film.

Part of the issue I had with the film was there were several times, in particular during chase scenes, it was difficult to see what was going on. The shaky camera work here is meant to cover up some of the CGI that was just not good. This was a huge chunk of the first hour to an hour and a half of the film.

Which, by the way, Jurassic World: Dominion was two and a half hours and it felt like it. Many big action films with long run times seem to fly by but this one felt its length.

I thought the last hour or so was better, once the group came together and arrived in the base of Biosyn. However, there were also plenty of dumb choices and moves that make little sense. Things that are done simply because the plot needs it to be done.

While there are sections of Jurassic World: Dominion that I liked, it does not pull together in a sensible thriller and it has apparently lost the wonder of the first film.

2.6 stars