Skip to main content

"Jurassic World: Dominion" dir. by Colin Trevorrow



"Jurassic World: Dominion"

Where I watched it: On the plane (Westjet In-Flight entertainment app)

In this latest entry into a franchise that should have died out like the dinosaurs years ago, we have what might be the most incomprehensible film ever made.

That being said... it wasn't as bad as everyone's making it out to be. At least not to me, gosh darn it.

This movie franchise clearly went off the rails some time ago so I don't know why people expect it to not be sucky. "The Lost World" was a huge departure from what the first Jurassic Park movie accomplished and looking back I think I can say without a doubt that it's the best sequel in the series. In the 3rd Jurassic Park it was far fetched to see Alan Grant communicating with the Raptors by blowing into a replicated voice box... but Owen Grady took this ridiculousness to a whole new level in the Jurassic World series. Not only do Raptors not attack this man but he can control them with a simple raise of his hand. He's even best friends with one named Blue.

I remember walking out of the theatre when the first Jurassic World came out and being utterly disappointed. When I walked out of the theatre after seeing "Fallen Kingdom" my sides hurt from all the laughing. It kinda clicked at that point that my favorite childhood film was becoming more and more the anomaly in this dino franchise. And with that acceptance came peace.

With this new mindset, I found "Jurassic World: Dominion" to be pretty entertaining. Maybe it was because it took my mind off the otherwise painfully boring flight. Maybe it was because I drank 2 beers before boarding the plane. In any event, I found myself getting nostalgic during all the fan service scenes that I would usually roll my eyes at. The original cast are without a doubt shoe-horned in but it is nice to see them all together again. Jeff Goldblum has some real zingers and one scene in particular actually had me laughing out loud (muffled of course through my plague mask).

"Why are you skulking... just run right over to it?"

There are 6 or 7 different plots happening simultaneously and all of them are uninteresting. Owen Grady played by Crisp Rat does the hand thing again and again and at one point he rides a motorcycle. There's a pilot whose choices make absolutely no sense. Claire could have been played by Kermit the Frog and it wouldn't have made her role any more memorable. There's BD Wong's character who everyone hates but should have listened to because they just go with his plan anyway in the end. The climate in a 5km radius goes from tropical to arctic tundra. People show up all of the sudden despite being nowhere near in the previous scene. Raptors assassinate people when signaled by a laser pointer you'd use on your pet cat. Owen puts everyone's life in jeopardy for a promise he made to a dinosaur. The list goes on and on.

And still... I found it relatively enjoyable.

So would I recommend this movie? Well shit, I think you have to be in a certain headspace but if you want to reminisce about the good ol' days of the first Jurassic Park and you don't necessarily care that the movie makes no sense... then sure, check it out.

It was also a nice precursor to my trip to the Jurassic Park section at Islands of Adventure.

UNRATEABLE

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

"The Cursed" dir. by Sean Ellis

"The Cursed" Random pick from Amazon Prime, this actually turned out to be a pretty amazing film. "The Cursed" is a gothic horror set in the late 1800s. After slaughtering and stealing land from a Roma clan, a curse is unleashed on the family and village responsible for the aforementioned atrocities. This film is another one that I'd recommend knowing as little about as possible. It's no secret that this film taps into the werewolf lore that most are familiar with, however it takes some completely new approaches and pushes some serious boundaries in terms of violence and gore. Outside of Boyd Holbrook's awful British accent there wasn't much to not like about this film. It's shot gorgeously and the pacing is somewhere between slow and medium at first but ramps up quite a bit in the last third. 8/10

"Mutant" dir. by John "Bud" Cardos

"Mutant" Forget every vibe you get from the title and poster, this is a zombie movie. "Mutant" is the story of two city bois who go to a small country town to relax and party hard. Nearing the small town they are driven off the road by the local yokels and are forced to hitchhike the rest of the journey with a weird man named Mel who claims that there are aliens visiting the town. Mel is straight up lying to the two city slickers as he damn well knows that he's the root of the problem as he's been experimenting on the townsfolk by slathering them in toxic waste. The end result of Mel's sloppy experimentations is that the town turns into zombies and yep the city bois gotta stay alive long enough for the movie to end. For some reason this movie has a cult following and I'm not sure why. It's got horrible production value, the acting is along the lines of those Italian cannibal movies I just watched and the story is weak even for a zombie movie. Wha...

"The River Wild" dir. by Curtis Hanson

"The River Wild" Where I streamed it: "The Hollywood Suite" via Prime. "The River Wild" is about a family that gets stuck on a raft with a couple of bank robbers. Not only is this movie made by the director of 8 Mile but it also has an all-star cast of 90s Meryl Streep, 90s Kevin Bacon, 90s John C. Reilly, the kid from Jurassic Park and the most forgettable face in cinema, David Starthairn. The film takes a while to get going but once it does... IT'S PURE TENSION AND EXHILARATING WHITE WATER RAFTING UNDER EXTREME DURESS. However, it is not without flaws. There's some pretty stupid stuff going on here. For example (mild spoilers... doesn't really matter): David Strathairn's character is able to sprint non-stop over 2 mountains, then make his way down the river to get ahead of the boat that initially left him behind in the river and still have time to set up the most elaborately underwhelming booby trap ever. Not only is this unhumanly possib...