Jurassic World: Dominion

Well, they’ve killed Jurassic Park. And they've made caricatures of the original iconic characters, much like they did with most of the scenes that Spielberg gave the hallmark of something special, confident and immersive thirty years ago. The filler was at least entertaining, but even then I wondered a few times whether the filmmakers meant it seriously. Boring as hell, dumbly cynical twists and a clumsy environmental messages like from the monster movies of the 1950s. After this, I'm tempted to raise the far tighter and better edited and shot Extinction to 5* and the consciously, straightforwardly "campy" Jurassic Park 3 to 4*. Compared to this travesty, where Sam Neill is the only one who keeps his face, they are masterpieces. 40 % (07/19/2022)

I walked out of the cinema angry after Fallen Kingdom, but after this piece of crap I just left feeling resigned. They basically failed to keep the promise promise of a dinosaur rampage in civilization, because the film, except for a few scenes, again takes place in a closed reservation where something goes wrong, and the dinosaurs practically do not interfere with the plot. The entirety of Jurassic World: Dominion is made up of uninteresting subplots that mostly rely on utter randomness, completely haphazard character motivations, constant disregard for the laws of physics, annoyingly cheesy fanservice, and last but not least, weird editing that gives the characters an artificial edge over the ultra-fast lizards, and most importantly, Chris Pratt's magical hands that can stop any attack at any time. Magic! The actors all look bored and annoyed, so how can I not be bored and annoyed? Objectively it's about 1*, subjectively I was slightly lulled by the return of old friends, of which Jeff Goldblum especially excels at glossing over the idiocies that take place in the film, so maybe I'll grind my way up to 2*. But let's face it, this once magical and majestic dinosaur franchise has hit rock bottom and now is a cheap box office cashgrab. If there was ever going to be a reunion of the original Jurassic Park cast, it should have been in a better film. (06/16/2022)

The conclusion of the dinosaur trilogy will be a commercial success. Disappointment prevails among the critics, but I am satisfied. For my money, it's certainly more entertaining and engaging than the sequel, which as is usual with sequels that are just filler for the finale. The first hour impresses in the form of news, where the dinosaurs get to our civilization and their way of living with us, this entertained me a lot. The plot then moves to Malta, where the film incidentally climaxes with a half hour action dinosaur romp, quite possibly the best dinosaur action sequence ever, though it is all too similar to Bond or MI, but a motherfucking ride nonetheless. The finale is about 40 minutes long and it's properly spectacular, there's a horror atmosphere conjured up in places (the mutant locusts are great), there are plenty of genetically modified dinosaurs which I welcomed, the central little girl isn't annoying, the nostalgia and emotion works, and, most importantly, it reminded me of my favourite PS1 game “Dino Crisis 2” in the locations, the action and the detail, which I ran through about 15 times as a kid and I take it as a tribute. A few things could have been done better, but what the hell, it's the only dinosaur franchise that's quality and there's definitely no competition anytime soon. I enjoyed it. Story 3/5. Action 5/5, Humor 3/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 5/5 Music 4/5, Visuals 5/5, Atmosphere 4/5, Suspense 4/5, Emotion 4/5, Actors 3/5. 8/10. (06/14/2022)

Great individual scenes (the lake!) stuck together with very cheap glue full of cliché, homages to this (politically) hyper-correct time we are living in, frequent illogical behavior by the characters and dumb dialogs. All the same, this is a solid popcorn affair and pure fan service for lovers of the first Jurassic Park, but it’s worth a watch. It’s nice that the main powerhouse is made up of oldsters Sam Neill and Laura Dern and their hinted at love story from part one. Again this is about the classic struggle between evil corporation and mistakes made in the quest for profit by a miserable boss with the face of Tim Cook. This time round again, the story isn’t so much about dinosaurs as their clones, the genes of prehistoric locusts and good old whistleblowing. Dinos keep more to the sidelines, occasionally tripping up the main protagonists while they are trying to save the world from locusts and some sort of strange motivation driving them. A metaphor for wildlife protection (we have to act now, we should have done something...), but nothing else. In the end, it all boils down to quality, inventive action - the sequence on Malta is marvelous (will it be the new attraction in Universal Park?) - and who gets got by the T-Rex + who will help in the duel with the Giganotosaurus. The best thing here is Goldblum’s Malcolm who keeps on coming out with one-liners, going on and on about a dog that humped his leg so hard that he had blisters from it. P.S.: You made a promise to a dinosaur? (06/08/2022)

While it looks promising in the beginning, in the end the third Jurassic World isn't much better than the second. If it weren't for Doctors Grant, Sattler and (especially) Malcolm, I probably wouldn't have cared about a single character, and yet the new heroes were so entertaining and promising in the first film of the trilogy. I guess the problem is that the filmmakers didn't know what to do with them next, they were all about releasing dinosaurs into civilization and didn't bother with the humans. I simply didn't have much fun, from the middle of the film onwards I raised my eyebrows more and more, hoping that at least Colin Trevorrow would entertain me with visual effects and action, but they weren't even that great (how is it possible that Jurassic Park and The Lost World still look fantastic, while here you see digital dinosaurs that don't move completely smoothly, and animatronic dinosaurs that look like better toys?), and the action or suspense scenes didn't exactly take my breath away either (for example, the clash between the humans and the giganotosaurus starts off great, or copying Spielberg, but ends up being utterly ridiculous), and I wasn't worried about anyone. No, not even the pond scene, which was pretty lame. Apart from Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, probably only Michael Giacchino didn't disappoint me... And I'd love to see the likeable DeWanda Wise in something better. (06/10/2022)