The first reviews for Jurassic World Dominion are in and they're pretty bad considering the expectations for the close of the new trilogy. Jurassic World: Dominion is directed by Colin Trevorrow, who helmed the first Jurassic World, and once again stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, as well as Jurassic Park alums Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Additional cast includes DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie, Campbell Scott, BD Wong, Omar Sy, Isabella Sermon, and Justice Smith. The newest entry is said to be the final film in the franchise, although that will surely be dictated by box office returns and fan demand over the long haul.
The first Jurassic Park, released in 1993, was a massive success and is still the best-reviewed of the franchise to date. The sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III fared worse and worse, both critically and financially, which stalled the franchise after the third entry grossed only a third of the original at the box office. Jurassic World relaunched the franchise in 2015, garnering mostly positive reviews, becoming the second-best reviewed of the Jurassic series next to the original. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, however, took a massive dip in critical favor, but still managed to pull in similar box office numbers, with both Jurassic World films pulling in over $1 billion globally. Now, the true test will come with Jurassic World Dominion, but reviews are already looking bad for the latest sequel.
Thus far, Jurassic World Dominion is clocking in at 42% on Rotten Tomatoes and sinking fast, now taking the unfortunate crown of the worst-rated film in the Jurassic franchise. While some critics are able to sidestep the narrative and character issues in order to enjoy the big-budget spectacle, it appears that most are finding the proceedings to have lost the magic and luster that made the series great to begin with. Despite reuniting the old and new casts, while supplanting more and more dinosaurs into the mix, it appears that the final entry in the series may have lost its impact and, more importantly, the fun. Here's a roundup of reviews for Jurassic World Dominion:
Ben Kendrick, Screen Rant
Trevorrow's final chapter is packed with thrills and laughs, rewarding nostalgia, solid character drama, and effective thematic through-lines (even if select aspects don't hold up to heavy scrutiny), making it very easy to recommend to filmgoers who are excited for another trip into the world of Jurassic Park
Alonso Duralde, TheWrap
It’s damning with faint praise to call this the best Jurassic movie since the original, but that doesn’t mean this one’s not, much like its predecessors, a hot mess. It’s just a hot mess with some effectively scary bits, a cool car chase and Laura Dern.
Eric Eisenberg, Cinemablend
Orchestrating two bland, wholly disconnected plotlines, Jurassic World Dominion reduces all of its legacy characters into blank sheets of paper walking through plot developments, resulting in a slog of a film with only a light scattering of memorable moments in its bloated two-and-a-half hour runtime.
Ross Bonaime, Collider
Dominion wants audiences to remember what they loved about the first film, yet without harnessing any of the joy or spectacle that made this series such a standout when it launched in 1993. Instead, Jurassic World Dominion is an exhausting slog, a legacyquel that doesn’t seem to recognize where the power of that legacy comes from, and overarching idiocy that permeates every scene in the film.
David Rooney, THR
There was an artfulness to all this when Spielberg did it, with far less advanced technology. Now it all just looks like digital paint-by-numbers. There’s no magic. Even the abrupt swerve into classic monster horror that director J.A. Bayona attempted in Fallen Kingdom showed more invention than anything happening here.
Germain Lussier, io9
But ultimately, in a Jurassic movie, you’re looking for awe, excitement, and fun, and Jurassic World Dominion provides very little of that. If any. There are moments very obviously designed to elicit those emotions, such as the motorcycle ride through Malta or the underground cave sequence, but without a story you’re invested in, it’s all for naught. Instead by the end you can’t help but feel like you’ve been bludgeoned for two and a half hours with random asides and action scenes all hoping to cover up the fact the story and character arcs are non-existent.
Justin Chang, L.A. Times
It’s astonishing how little tension or even momentary menace Trevorrow is able to mine from individual action sequences, how tame even T. rex now seems in its late-franchise dotage. The mix of practical and computer-generated effects used to bring these behemoths to life has evolved by leaps and bounds, but their ability to stir and scare us — much less provoke even a moment’s thought — is a thing of the ancient past.
David Fear, Rolling Stone
It’s not so much a movie as an extinction-level event for the franchise, one in which the last remaining bits of good will and investment in this particular intellectual property are snuffed out like so many unlucky Stegosaurses.
JimmyO, JoBlo.com
Unfortunately, the movie as a whole feels so obvious and familiar. Even still, you’ll find moments that work thanks to the nostalgia factor from the original cast. And even the worst sequels in JP and JW have a moment or two that shine. Yet Dominion avoids going anywhere new or inventive and just becomes a greatest hits of what’s come before.
Trevorrow was originally slated to direct the final chapter of the new Star Wars trilogy, but bowed out before getting underway due to creative differences, leaving JJ Abrams to finish what would become The Rise of Skywalker. The director has said that working on the Star Wars sequel early on prepared him greatly for returning to the Jurassic franchise and showed him how to bring the Jurassic World trilogy to "a satisfying conclusion." With Trevorrow's shift back to the trilogy complete, the director has called Jurassic World Dominion "a celebration of the whole franchise" while star Chris Pratt has said that it's the "end of the franchise," both supporting the idea that the latest entry will be the last for a good while.
While it may seem like Jurassic World Dominion is a total disaster, it's important to note that the last chapter had similarly not-great reviews, yet still managed to pull in great box office returns, meaning that fans were satisfied at least to a certain degree. The same could be said of the Jurassic Park sequels, although they diminished in box office returns, rather than holding steady. Ultimately, Jurassic World Dominion's real fate will be decided by audiences and die-hard fans who are eagerly anticipating some dinosaur action and a return of the new and classic Jurassic characters, even if the whole thing is a big, fun, nonsensical mess.
