Jurassic World: Dominion

It's hard to understand how such an experienced creative team can produce such a dud from a substance as undoubtedly juicy as Jurassic World. Not even the old guard can help. Typically stodgy Neill and know-it-all Goldblum in the roles we ate up in the glorious first film, which incidentally is WAY better or at least the same as the xth sequel. Even the good old mechanic effects, of which there are plenty, were managed by Spielberg at least at the same level, but with better camera work and editing. The current CGI mess isn't even worth mentioning, and when Bryce Dallas is jumping from barrack to barrack like Bourne in Tangier it's clear that this attempt at frenetic live action, but with dinosaurs, isn't really going to be anything innovative. If that was all, it would still be bearable, at least to eat some popcorn, but the script was written by someone apparently on drugs and the fact that the whole confused, disjointed, incoherent dinosaur inferno lasts 150 minutes sends this megalomaniacal colossus down the drain. (2022-07-18)

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 % (2022-07-19)

The return of the main characters from the first Jurassic Park was pleasing, as they are still likeable, enthusiastic scientists who love dinosaurs. Drawing the viewer into a world that dinosaurs are a living part of is cool. The movie gets off to a good start with the trafficker’s den in Malta and the long action scene that takes place there. Chases on rooftops and on a motorcycle in the streets, as we know them from Bourne and Bond movies, upgraded with velociraptors...why not?! But the rest of the film, in which we are only transported to a different reservation than in the first film, is a lumbering retread of what we have already seen, and it’s not very exciting, for that matter, with a lame Tim Cook-esque villain, logical crutches and nonsense unworthy of this film franchise. And only one fantastically shot scene that recalls Spielberg (the dive into the lake). And sadly, it is a short scene. Dominion is the weakest instalment of the whole franchise. (2022-06-08)

A totally unworkable plot of repetitive action scenes that jumps like a flea only to finally retell what has been told several times before, but in a much more clumsy and emotionless way. The screenplay is a disaster, the direction of the action scenes follows the Bourne Bond axis, but it is not very skilled at that either. In the end, it's a mix of cluttered dinosaur MMA and Sir Attenborough having a severe stroke. (2022-06-08)

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. (2022-06-10)