Jurassic World Dominion
In only thirty years the world has changed, the recreation of dinosaurs on Isla Nublar an ambitious experiment which could not be controlled, the long-extinct animals now free to make their own way in the world, fishing vessels capsized by Mosasaurs, illegal farms breeding dinosaurs for black market trade across the world, pterosaurs snatching birds from the skies, the human death toll rising every year from encounters with the dangerous and unpredictable animals.
InGen collapsed and its founders long gone, that legacy of pioneering but irresponsible experimentation is continued by Biosyn under the guidance of Doctor Lewis Dodgson, presenting to his investors the promise of utopia where answers to key questions will be given by unravelling the genetics of the prehistoric creatures and how they have adapted to the present day, but in real terms the cost is higher than risk-averse shareholders will accept.
Doctor Ellie Sattler investigating the destruction of crops by apparently mutated locusts which conspicuously avoid fields growing modified proprietary Biosyn seed, she enlists the aid of her old friend palaeontologist Doctor Alan Grant and with him pays a visit to Biosyn headquarters in the Dolomite mountains, ostensibly to visit resident philosopher Doctor Ian Malcolm but also to see if a connection can be established before the global food supply is imperiled.
The sixth and apparently final film in the sequence begun by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel by Michael Crichton, Jurassic World Dominion follows Fallen Kingdom to finally arrive at the place where it was always headed, with dinosaurs part of the fabric of life in every part of the world, a chaotic element of change breaking food chains and crashing into ecosystems which have evolved over hundreds of years, unpredicted consequences occurring in real time as humanity is displaced as the apex predator of the world.
“Science is about the truth,” but business is about money and where the undoubted genius of Doctor John Hammond was hampered by tragic naivete Dodgson (Campbell Scott) is ruthless in his certainty that the outcome will justify whatever bodies he steps over to reach it, intellectual property more valuable than individuals, stealing dinosaurs and kidnapping teenage clone Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon), hidden in the forests of Sierra Nevada and watched over by Owen Grady and Claire Dearing (Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard).
Grady and Dearing assigned the action part of the narrative double helix, a strand of James Bond spliced into the coding with motorbike chases and gunplay, returning to the series are original stars Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum as Grant, Sattler and Malcolm, one digging in the dirt for ancient bones, another involved in field work of immediate concern and the third considering how the present will shape the future, the combined ensemble and the supporting cast valid in their contribution to a plot which never strays far from the fossilised footprints of its predecessors.
The dinosaurs always the selling point of the series, Jurassic World Dominion presents them with abundant tooth, claws and feathers, species familiar and new, director Colin Trevorrow using them to conveniently eliminate antagonists without the heroes ever having to get their hands dirty, and in keeping with the family friendly ethos of the series, unlike the source material the killings are swift and devoid of any potentially upsetting blood or innards, though it does become suspicious that only villains and non-speaking extras are tasty enough to feature on the menu.
Offering a steady pace of escalation rather than the often tiresome cavalcade of digital destruction which too often defines the modern blockbuster, Jurassic World Dominion has perhaps one too many rings in its circus, squeezing in as much as possible to a theme park already at capacity and obliged to provide an optimistic ending at which the cynical realist Ian Malcolm would scoff, but in bringing together two casts from different eras it is less clumsy than Star Trek Generations and in concluding a saga it flies high above the contrivances and disappointments of The Rise of Skywalker.
Jurassic World Dominion is currently on general release and also screening in IMAX
