Cinemavenger
The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.
Jurassic World Dominion
Most people think that the phrase "one hit wonder" only refers to bands. Those people need to free their fucking minds because movie franchises also suffer from one hit wonder-itis. Case in point, the Jurassic series. Truth.
Jurassic Park lit the film world up back in 1993. It boasted Spielberg at his best and cutting edge special effects. It slathered layer after layer of joyful amazement onto astounded audiences as it told a solid story with relatable characters and the most believable dinosaurs ever to grace a screen. It was a hit in every sense of the word.
It was also the last hit in a franchise now bloated to six feature films. That's not to say that the sequels haven't made money, but it is to say that every one of them has ranged from "meh" to "are you fucking kidding me with this dino disaster?!"
The second movie in the original trilogy had little kids gymkata-ing velociraptors through windows and a pseudo-Godzilla ending that was more tacked on than a bargain basement toupee. The third movie in that trilogy featured a dream sequence talking raptor that's become part of the Pop Culture Hall of Shame.
Of all the sequels, the first of the reboot trilogy, Jurassic World, comes closest to being a watchable flick, but even it suffers from so much shittery that it's kind of hard to believe. From Claire's high heels to Owen's raptor wrangling, to the giant sea dino's pen giving it easy access to chomp on tourists, the lack of fuck-giving is ever on display. And it was Citizen fucking Kane compared to its two sequels, the most recent of which is Jurassic World Dominion.
Claire (Bryce Dallas "Cowboys Suck" Howard) has gone from a selfish, corporate puppet bent on squeezing every last dollar out of the park's dinosaurs to crusader for dino rights to full-on eco-terrorist. She and Owen (Chris "We Miss You Andy" Pratt) have illegally "adopted" the little cloned girl from the second movie, and they share their secluded ranch with the Lassie of raptors, Blue, and Blue's virgin-birthed offspring.
Bringing back the three leads from the original movie does nothing to lower the suck factor of Jurassic World Dominion. I blame writer/director Colin "Blow" Treverrow, who's managed to FUBAR two of cinema's biggest, most-beloved franchises in just a few years. Someone feed him to a T-Rex already!
August 5, 2022