Warning: Spoilers ahead for Jurassic World Dominion.
Although it’s been raking in cash left and right at the global box office, Jurassic World Dominion has received mixed reviews from critics. The performances and action sequences have been praised, but a common thread through the various responses to the movie is that the Jurassic Park franchise has finally run its course and needs to end. If Dominion ends up being the final Jurassic movie (although the commercial figures suggest otherwise), at least it brought everybody back for one last ride.
Like many recent “legacy sequels,” Dominion includes the return of several familiar faces from the classic movies that fans grew up with. Some of these returning characters make a bigger impact than others. Jurassic fans were delighted to see Drs. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm again, but Dodgson’s reappearance elicited fewer cheers from the crowd.
Dr. Lewis Dodgson
Dr. Lewis Dodgson, a bit part from the original Jurassic Park who now runs Biosyn Genetics, is easily the least exciting character to return in Jurassic World Dominion. The survivors of the original film have been stretched so thin across five sequels that the only familiar face left to reveal as the big bad is Dodgson. And that face isn’t actually familiar, because Dodgson is played by a different actor in Dominion. Cameron Thor from the original movie is replaced by Campbell Scott in the Jurassic World threequel.
Audiences only remember this character because of Dennis Nedry’s prescient line, “Dodgson, Dodgson, we’ve got Dodgson here! See, nobody cares.” That quote applies perfectly to the character’s role as the main villain of Dominion. In Dominion, he’s just a generic corporate baddie with a god complex.
Dr. Henry Wu
Played brilliantly as always by BD Wong, Dr. Henry Wu is one of the most consistently recurring characters in the franchise. As the lead geneticist behind the dinosaur cloning programs at both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, he’s a pretty integral character in the Jurassic universe. Wu was absent from the initial sequels, but he’s been in every entry in the Jurassic World trilogy.
In Dominion, Wu finally achieves redemption after years and years of doing the bidding of dino-obsessed megalomaniacs. At the end of the movie, he concocts a magical cure for the swarms of locusts. As he unleashes this cure into a field of crops, he effectively saves the world’s ecosystems. The character responsible for all the dino carnage ended up emerging as the true hero of the Jurassic saga. Wu didn’t die a villain; he lived long enough to see himself become a hero.
Dr. Ian Malcolm
Jeff Goldblum returns to the Jurassic fold in Dominion in the iconic role of Dr. Ian Malcolm – and it’s more than just a cameo this time. After playing major roles in the first and second movies and skipping out on the third and fourth movies, Malcolm’s return was touted in all the trailers for the fifth movie. Ultimately, his role in that movie was a cameo, so it’s great to see him with a larger supporting role in Dominion. A mathematician with a focus on chaos theory, Malcolm is now an employee at Biosyn who teaches the next generation of scientists.
Goldblum brings plenty of his signature Goldblum-isms to the table. The majority of his dialogue in Dominion feels improvised. In the latest Jurassic adventure, Malcolm waxes poetic about everything from making promises to dinosaurs to how far a button is from the top or bottom of a control panel.
Dr. Ellie Sattler
Laura Dern makes her long-awaited return to the role of Dr. Ellie Sattler in Jurassic World Dominion. Decades after the incident at the original Jurassic Park, Sattler is now a paleobotanist with a couple of trusty interns following mutant insects around the country. As Dominion progresses into its second and third acts, Ellie is mostly relegated to meeting the new characters one by one.
But Dern is always a joy to watch, and her reunion with Grant didn’t disappoint. Ellie and Alan’s dynamic – complete with the undeniable sparks of a still-fizzling romance – made their scenes one of the Jurassic World threequel’s few highlights. Their recoupling proved to be just as moving as fans had hoped (especially after Dern literally phoned in her performance in Jurassic Park III).
Dr. Alan Grant
Sam Neill is back as Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic World Dominion. After surviving the events of the first and third movies, Grant is more grizzled and reluctant to spring into action than ever. Neill works the same wonders in Dominion that he worked in Jurassic Park III. The actor manages to spin gold out of less-than-stellar material. He’s just as engaging in Dominion as he was in the first movie, even if the film itself is nowhere near as strong.
After Jurassic Park III turned Grant into Indiana Jones Lite, Dominion gets his unique personality spot-on. He’s still hilariously grumpy, but he has the warmth that he gained from looking after Lex and Tim. He does get one Indy-esque moment as he snatches his fallen hat out of the jaws of a dinosaur (and an exasperated Ellie tells him to just forget about the hat).