It's a slow summer for blockbuster movies, pre covid summers there woUld be one sometimes two, a week.
Due to delays and lots of cancelled projects we are getting a drip drip of big films this summer which has been a blessing, we get little indie features like An Cailin Ciuin getting a wide release and plenty of attention.
So after a great few weeks of inventive and smart indie movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Men we are back to the Hollywood machine as it pumps out another sequel to a once beloved franchise with Jurassic World: Dominion.
There have been five Jurassic Park movies since the first one in 1994 and they basically have one of two plots - "We need to get off this island full of dinosaurs" or "we need to get back onto that island full of dinosaurs”.
Which is fair enough, if an island full if dinosaurs did exist I would want to get onto it, and then I would probably want to get off it. So you can’t fault the logic. However after seeing this plot six times with the law of diminishing returns in full effect I really struggled with this movie.
Interestingly for a movie so big and a sequel to a film that made an absolute fortune in the box office, it looks insanely cheap. I know I keep referring to the original, but it came out so long ago and I really think the dinos looked better in the first movie in 1994 than they do in 2022.
Isn’t that a little depressing? All that money and it looks lousy. The script is also a big weak link. Everyone speaks like they are in a Dan Brown novel, constantly saying out loud their intentions and thoughts.
Once you notice it you can’t stop hearing it. I actually laughed out loud at several non comedic points. They have also brought back the cast from the first film. Laura Dern, Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum are all back. It's great to see them, they have all aged spectacularly and there really is chemistry between the trio.
However they really don't have much to do and by the time they join up with the cast from the last two Jurassic World movies it feels so bloated, there are seven people trying to escape the island and it is just way too many people to keep track of and care about.
Honestly the original film never needed a sequel, now we’ve had five. They have cost millions and grossed billions so I would be surprised if we didn’t see another, but personally I think this is the last one I will watch and if I get the itch again I’ll throw on the masterpiece from 1994 and enjoy that. Wow, I really have become a grumpy old bastard.
