Disclaimer: This post contains spoilers for Jurassic World: Dominion. If you do not wish to be spoiled, please feel free to leave the page. This post will still be here once you've seen the film, patiently awaiting your return (if you so choose to do, which, of course, I hope you will).
Did someone say 'dinosaurs'? Fuck, yeah!
So, I went to see Jurassic World: Dominion this past Tuesday. Not gonna lie, it's been a while since I've seen anything in the franchise. I don't even remember the last time I watched Jurassic Park, I think I've seen The Lost World once(?), and I'm not sure I ever saw Jurassic Park III... I've seen all three Jurassic World films, now, though, but I think the last time I saw either of the first two was when they released in theatres (which is 2015 for Jurassic World and 2018 for Fallen Kingdom, so...). Definitely having the urge to have a dino marathon, though.
Also, as a note, it does not take long at all for the word 'Jurassic' to stop looking like a real word...
The film starts with a Now This video (huzzah, blatant product placement), used to give us an update on how the dinosaurs escaping at the end of Fallen Kingdom and spreading across the world has changed the way people live their lives (or, you know, don't live their lives... I mean, dinosaurs). It also is kind enough to give us a bit of backstory on how Biosyn Genetics is relating to the story (paleo-DNA will save the world, duh!) and the fact that there is a thriving black market for dinosaurs and dinosaur bits (leave it to humans to see a 'new' animal and go, 'I wonder what that tastes like. Let's find out!').
Speaking of the black market dino trade, we next get to see what Claire has been up to: trying to fight the exploitation of dinosaurs. She and a friend, Dr Rodriguez, are in the process of checking out (breaking into) a cattle farm that has apparently been illegally raising several different -ceratops breeds rather than, you know, cattle... assumingly for the meat. While there they find a rather sick Nasutoceratops, so Claire decides they'll rescue that one while they're there, because the Dinosaur Protection Group, the organisation she'd be reporting the abuse to, would take days to actually do anything (she said). And so they do, much to Franklin's chagrin, as he's their get away driver.
After their action packed getaway, as they of course got caught stealing the wee dinosaur (and afterwards Franklin quits, 'cause he's found a slightly more normal job that probably won't result in him having several fingers in a splint), we get to go see what Owen has been up to. He and a couple of cowboys are after a small heard of Parasaurolophus in the Sierra Nevada. A little into their chase, one of the herd breaks off and Owen goes after in, gets a lasso around its neck, and is promptly yoinked from his horse and dragged a little way before he can recover and get the Parasarolophus stopped. We find out that he's catching them so they can be transported somewhere safer for them to live.
We also find out around this time (I really need to start taking notes or something for these reviews so I'll remember things better...) that he and Claire have been raising Maisie in secret, as her being a human clone opens her up to unscrupulous people wanting to get their hands on her for study. She's not really supposed to go into town, as her adoptive parents don't want people seeing her and figuring out who she is, but she's fourteen and feels trapped by the restrictions placed on her, so... she does it anyway.
It turns out that Blue has also taken up residence nearby, staying somewhat close to Owen (which is sweet). She shows up one night with a surprise in tow: a little Blue! This little raptor was born asexually, seeing as there aren't any handsome stud raptors for Blue to mate with. Maisie named Blue's daughter Beta (but I'm not exactly sure when, as I didn't catch a name until later in the film).
Meanwhile, over in Texas, there's been a bit of an insect problem plaguing farmers. Locusts are destroying their crops. A locust swarm, of course, can be devastating to a farm in general, but these locusts are about the size of a small housecat. That is absolutely no bueno, yeah? One family whose crop was destroyed by the monster locusts call in an expert, none other than Dr Ellie Sattler.
While speaking with Ms Peréz, the farmer, about the locusts causing havoc all over the Midwest, she notices that there is an area of crops that are untouched. Peréz tells her that those fields belong to her neighbours. Ellie asks if they use the same seed, and the farmer tells her no. She goes on to say that that farm uses Biosyn seed, and Ellie, for her part, finds that highly suspicious.
Ellie pays a visit to an old friend, Dr Alan Grant, who was out on a dig (in Utah, I think it was). They chat about random shit for a couple of minutes before Alan calls her out, pointing out that she didn't come to the middle of nowhere for a social call. She then pulls out a box containing one of the giant locusts, a gift from Ms Peréz (well, her children who caught it, really). She tells him that she thinks that the locusts were made by Biosyn and that she has a way to get into their labs to obtain proof via a contact on the inside, but she needs a witness. She wants Alan to be that witness.
Against his better judgement, I'm sure, he agrees. Love does strange things to people, I guess.
Back in the Sierra Nevada, one of those unscrupulous people Owen and Claire are trying to avoid finds their little cabin and catches sight of both Maisie and Beta. They call in some back up and then proceed to go after Beta. Owen, Claire, and Maisie all hear the commotion, and Owen goes to investigate. Maisie tries to follow, but Claire tells her to go inside instead. Maisie begrudgingly does... then goes straight out a back door before Claire can catch her.
Owen finds the poachers, but not before they've captured Beta. They shoot at him a bit while making their getaway, but he goes after them. He ends up on a ridge overlooking the bridge into town just in time to see a guy throwing Maisie's bicycle into the river. She'd been cornered there and taken by the same poachers who took the baby raptor.
He goes back for Claire, and as they're leaving to go see about getting their daughter back, a distraught Blue shows up. Owen promises her that he'll get her daughter back, too.
Claire calls Franklin, as it turns out that his new gig is working for the CIA. After being filled in on what's happened, he tells Claire and Owen about this guy, Delacourt, who is under investigation for smuggling dinosaurs. So the pair of them head off to Malta to meet up with Franklin's contact, Barry Sembène, who is planning an operation to catch the smugglers, in hopes that they'll find Maisie and Beta.
Things, of course, don't go as planned. Sembène takes Owen and Claire into a dinosaur black market. It's got everything a cliché underground animal market in a film would have: a dino fighting ring, smaller dinosaurs in cages for sale, open rotisseries roasting whole and portions of various dinosaurs, an Allosaurus and a Carnotaurus in cages just for good measure...
Those two, of course, get loose by the end of this. Of course.
So, they catch sight of Delacourt and Owen goes after him. I can't remember exactly how it all came about, but in the course of the chase, things get knocked over, one guy catches fire, a few of the dinosaurs (see above) are freed from their confinement... Delacourt is finally caught, in the dino fighting ring, with one hand in the mouth of one of the Baryonyx used for fighting and the other in the mouth of a much smaller, much cuter dinosaur that was either bait or a mascot (not sure what she is, sorry). Owen demands to know where Maisie was taken, and then the other Baryonyx used for fighting eats Delacourt's... face, probably. Probably started with the face, given their position and the length of the dino's chain.
Anywho, turns out the ringleader of the smuggling operation was actually a woman named Soyona Santos. She has neither Maisie nor Beta with her in Malta. Instead she has several Atrociraptors that are trained to hunt and kill via a laser pointer. She proceeds to use her laser to mark Sembène and his team, as well as Claire. Chaos ensues as the raptors go after their prey. Owen is able to save Sembène and get one of the raptors back in it's cage.
Claire is saved by a woman she met in the market's loo, Kayla Watts. She'd shown Kayla Maisie's photo, but at the time Kayla wanted nothing to do with anything that might cause trouble. She happened upon Claire running from the raptor, though, and had a change of heart. Claire fell into the back of a small truck, and Kayla hopped in and began driving said truck away as fast as it would go (why do people always leave keys in their vehicles in television and movies?). She's a pilot (the one who delivered Beta to her captors, in fact, but...), and she offers to take Claire wherever she needs to go.
Sembène and Owen managed to corner Santos who becomes very talkative. I don't remember if she is the one who tells Owen that Maisie and Beta are at Biosyn or if it was Delacourt, but they do get that information. Claire contacts Owen to say they have a ride, but as he's heading out, Santos tags him with the laser pointer (out of spite, I felt like).
Kayla and Claire manage to lose their raptors by the time they get to the airstrip, but Owen wasn't as lucky. Kayla is in a bit of a hurry to leave, so she begins takeoff, and there comes Owen on a motorbike with two Atrociraptors hot on his arse. We get a very dramatic sequence of Owen making the run to catch a plane trying to take off with two very determined dinosaurs chasing him. He, of course, manages to basically crash into the cargo hold of the plane, getting thrown from the bike in the process. One of the raptors made the jump, too, but the motorbike slid due to the incline from takeoff, knocking the raptor back out of the plane (it landed in water... hoping it didn't die).
So off to Italy they go.
Ellie and Alan, meanwhile, are already there, and they have met up with Ellie's contact. Dr Ian Malcolm has been lecturing at the facility about the dangers of human hubris (which he's been doing the whole damn time, at the very least since Jurassic Park was set to open, and no one listens to him still...). (Also, why does Ian have his own damn Wikipedia entry while everyone else has to share one or aren't even included in one?) He'd gotten in touch with Ellie after another Biosyn employee, Ramsay Cole, had brought the locust issue to his attention. Ramsay, for his part, is apparently the Biosyn CEO, Lewis Dodgson's, prodigy and is the one assigned to show Ellie and Alan around the facility.
Which he does for a bit, but then suddenly decides to let them do a bit of exploring on their own. He points out where the elevators are and tells them very pointedly not to worry about the other elevators in the other direction that happen to lead down to the sublevels they need to get to to investigate the locusts (that he was blatantly giving them very useful information totally wooshed over their heads), then arranges a time to meet back up and heads off. So they sneak over to the elevators they need, use the electronic access bracelet Ian had slipped Ellie, and go down to the lab to get their sample.
Also down in the lab is Masie and Beta. Dr Wu, who apparently has finally realised that science for science's sake might not always be the best thing and is wanting to find a way to destroy the locusts before they cause a world wide famine that kills probably everyone and everything, is talking to Maisie about her mother, Charlotte. He explains to her that Charlotte had a genetic disease, but that she'd decided to have Maisie before she knew. Once she found out, she found a way to correct the issue in her daughter, even though it was too late for herself.
(He looks so worn and sort of broken in this film, and I just want to pat him and tell him it will be okay, even though I know he's basically been behind every fuck up with Jurassic Park/World since the beginning...)
Wu is wanting to run tests on Maisie and on Beta, as Maisie is a clone that was altered to correct an issue and Beta is a straight clone of her mother because of how Blue reproduced. He believes that studying them will aid him in finding a way to eradicate the locusts within a single generation.
Dodgson is down in the lab, too, and he pulls Wu aside to talk to him while Maisie is watching a video log Charlotte had left. He chides Wu on letting Maisie have this information, questioning what good would come from it. He has a slight point, I suppose, because while the two of them are talking, Maisie grabs one of the access bracelets and releases Beta from her cage, then uses the distraction to attempt to escape.
Ellie and Alan had found the lab with the locusts and were very carefully, very quietly in the process of getting a DNA sample from one of them. This went reasonably well, but when Maisie made a run for it an alarm was set off, and the noise... well, wouldn't ya know, the locusts didn't like it. They freak out and start swarming, which is problematic for our two doctors as there are a whole lot of really big bugs in a rather small area. They make a run for it, but end up getting trapped in the little decontamination area between the hall and the lab... unfortunately with a handful of very upset giant locusts.
Lucky for them Maisie happens upon them and lets them out. After a slightly awkward set of introductions, the three of them head off to the hyperloop that connects the various areas of the facility to escape the lab. They meet Ramsay there, and he has to spell out for them that he is on their side, but everything gets sorted without too much fuss before they get in the car.
... Y'all, there's a lot that goes on in this film, I'm just sayin'.
So! Kayla, Owen, and Claire are headed in on Kayla's plane. She requests permission to land, but she's told she's denied clearance. Apparently someone decided to call ahead and warn Biosyn that she might have some unwelcome guests accompanying her. Kayla, being the badass she is, decides to hell with it, she's going in anyway.
Now, when Ellie and Alan were arriving at the Biosyn facility, we got some information about the dinosaur preserve around it. All the dinosaurs that have been rescued and set to Biosyn live there, including their lovely apex predator, the Giganotosaurus, one of, if not the largest land carnivore ever discovered. The facility also has an aerial defense system set in place to protect incoming aircraft from the various pterosaurs and other flying critters they might have.
So the control tower does the completely logical, obviously moral, and totally legal thing... and turns the ADS off.
Quetzalcoatlus is a really, really big pterosaur... And, of course they have one in the reserve. It took a pretty dim view of there being a big, metal bird in its fly space, so it does what most do when protecting their home: it attacked the invader.
Kayla hadn't been expecting company, so she only had the one parachute, which was attached to an ejectable seat that Claire happened to be sitting in. Owen insists she has to eject and go find Maisie, 'cause she's Maisie's mom, and I guess he's pushing the whole mother/daughter bond thing. (Also, prolly thinks she'll be safer out in the forest with a bunch of wild dinosaurs than in a crashing plane, but... not sure if that logic is all that accurate.)
So Claire makes sure she's strapped in the seat securely and ejects. Her chute opens properly, though some smaller pterosaurs in the area took issue with it and decided that it needed to look less like a parachute and more like lace. There's a lever on the back of the seat which she pulls, and I think it popped a back up chute? I don't remember... But! I do know she ended up dangling from a tree, her chute caught on the branches, so she at least was safe from death by suddenly ground.
This does not, however, protect her from the Therizinosaurus that is out hunting. (I have to say it... That deer would have heard that bird coming. It was not quiet. Why did the deer not run away? Why, fam?!) So poor Claire is dangling by her parachute, securely strapped into her seat, while a ginormous predator dinosaur with some of the most glorious claws I have ever seen is stalking right by her.
She finally manages to unbuckle and get herself free, but this does draw the attention of the Therizinosaurus. Thankfully this isn't Claire's first rodeo, so she manages to not panic. Creeping along, so as to not cause the dinosaur to make any rash decisions that Claire might not like (though she wouldn't like them only very briefly... probably), she manages to get herself submerged in some nearby water. Our lady stalks her prey pretty well, but she ends up losing Claire's scent once she's underwater, and though she does try to pick it back up, eventually she gives it up and wanders off.
By the way, the Therizinosaurus is my new favourite dinosaur. Thank you for asking!
Kayla and Owen, meanwhile, have managed to not die themselves. Kayla crash landed her plane in a frozen pool of sorts. The pair of them manage to get out of the craft via a hatch on the top, and so they start making their way across the ice. Very carefully, of course, because the structural integrity of the ice is already compromised, and a wrong move will have them plunged into freezing cold water.
They do run into a slight problem, though.
A Pyroraptor wants to play with them. And when I say 'play', I mean it wanted to tear out their throats and munch their entrails. As one does.
The Pyroraptor got the same size treatment the Velociraptor did way back in 1993, both of them being about the size of a Utahraptor in the films but about the size of a small dog (or a large chicken) in real life. The Pyroraptor, however, gets the added bonus of apparently being part mermaid, too! When the ice breaks between it and its prey, this gorgeous thing just dove right in and started circling the ice underneath Kayla and Owen (there's no evidence that it could swim, sadly).
Back in the Biosyn facility, it is brought to dear Dodgson's attention that Ellie and Alan weren't really there for a social call. He is also informed that 'twas prolly Ian who aided them in getting down into labs they weren't supposed to be in, and so he calls for Ian and Ramsay to be brought up. Once they are there, he fires Ian and asks Ramsay to escort him out. He also shuts down the hyperloop, stopping the car that Ellie, Alan, and Maisie are in. Rather than taking Ian to the airfield, Ramsay takes him down to the garage to get a vehicle so he can go see about rescuing his friends.
So, with Kayla and Owen having escaped the Pyroraptor, we now have two rescue attempts in play. Those two have gone off into the forest to find Claire, and Ian is off to find an access to the tunnels to try and get Alan, Ellie, and Maisie out of danger... Because there are, of course, dinosaurs everywhere.
Claire managed to get to an observation site, but has to wait for the ladder to descend before she can take shelter there. This ladder is ridiculously slow, though, and while she's waiting for it, she has some friends want to come and play. There's several Dilophosauruses circling about (this is the most fictionalised dino out of the Jurassic Park franchise, but it's okay, I suppose). One of them actually corners her, as it were, and is about to attack when Owen, having arrived just in the nick of time, grabs it by the neck and Kayla shocks it with a taser. They are thus able to run the rest of them off (I think there were only, like, one or two others, so not too terribly difficult).
The trio in the tunnels, having abandoned the hyperloop car, are trying to find an exit. What they find, however, are frikkin' dinosaurs. (Okay, not actual dinosaurs, but close enough for the film.) There are a couple of Dimetrodons in the tunnels with them, and they are looking for a snack. A human sized snack.
Our heroes manage to find an exit, but it's barred and the Dimetrodons are hot on their tails. Ian shows up only to find a number pad as the method to unlock the gate. He's very put off by this, but he does attempt to figure out the code (a bit more slowly than the other three would have liked), but luckily for everyone involved, Ramsay, back at headquarters, caught sight of the issue on one of the cameras and put in the correct code remotely.
Everyone piles into Ian's vehicle and he drives off. Again, and I'm so sorry, I don't remember what lead up to it (notes... need to take notes!), but they end up not really on the road/path anymore, with one quarter of the SUV pretty much dangling in open air because they're right next to a hill. Maisie suggests leaning away from the hill, which was the only suggestion anyone actually had, but the vehicle ends up rolling down the hill anyway. And it comes to rest right near the observation site where Claire et al are.
Finally, everyone has met up!
Maisie recognises her parents, so everyone is getting out of the vehicle and giving their greetings and whatnot and you remember how I said that there was a fucking Giganotosaurus wandering about?
Yeah, it came to say hi, too!
The franchise does seem to be keeping with the idea that all these huge predators have really shite eyesight (Alan and Owen both said 'Don't move!' at the same time), though I did think that idea had been debunked at some point since the 90's. Then again, we don't go to see Jurassic Park franchise movies for scientific accuracy (though I do love that they put feathered dinos in and explained it away by saying that they were able to breed purer versions of the dinosaurs now).
The group does manage to make it up into the observation tower, though not without the Giganotosaurus scaring the life out of Maisie because it tried to eat her, and she was only saved by a safety cage on the ladder. Ian managed to get the thing's attention with fire so that the rest could climb up, as well, and then Alan helped him get to safety himself.
Okay, so going to skip ahead a little bit, but we now have our heroes over in control needing to get the ADS back up, however Dodgson, in his infinite wisdom, tried to burn all the locusts to destroy the evidence, but the containment was compromised and a fucking swarm of burning locusts managed to escape and set the forest on fire. The dinosaurs, which all have chips that can deliver electric impulses to their brains to get them to go where people want them to, are all brought into the safety(?) of the facility while the Biosyn employees evacuated. All but Ramsay, who has met up with the rest.
So, because there is a fire and things have been switched to emergency mode, the only power is going to the primary systems. They have to get the power switched back so they can get the ADS back online. Ellie and Claire volunteer to go down to the control room to get everything situated. Owen, who still has to find Beta, figures out where she probably is. He and Maisie are going to go down to get her, and Maisie ropes Alan to going with them. Ian and Ramsay stay behind to help give guidance where needed, and Kayla goes to fire up a heli so they can get gone as soon as the ADS is back up.
Ellie and Claire find the power/control room and joy of joys, there's a bunch of bloody locusts snoozing on the floor between them and the panel they need to get to. They tip toe over, find the breaker they need to switch, press it, and it almost works. But then the power switches back to primary, so Claire grabs and ax and just busts some shit. Which works, 'cause fiction. It does wake the locusts, so some of them got axed, as well.
Owen, Maisie, and Alan find Beta. Owen tries to tag her with a tranq dart, but she's a wee little raptor and super fast. She's getting agitated at being shot at, which you can't really blame her for. Maisie darts forward and mimics the pose Owen used when training the raptors at Jurassic World, which Beta responds to (though I think it was mainly because she was confused by it). Owen has Alan do it, too, to sort of confuse Beta's attention, and then they fan out a bit and he manages to get a dart in her.
(Images copyright Universal Pictures)
Not gonna lie, I'm putting in the screenshot of Beta tied to Owen's back simply because it's fucking adorable.
They all meet back up and start heading out so they can catch their ride with Kayla. On the way out, they run into Dr Wu, who again pleads his case for needing Maisie to help stop the locusts. She vouches for him, so they take him with them.
Kayla is landing in an open space in the compound, which Ramsay points out is a bad idea because all the dinosaurs are inside now, but it's a bit late to switch. So our guys head out, trying to not get noticed by anything, but, of course that doesn't work. Giganotosaurus apparently wants a second go.
As she is wont to do, however, our old friend, the Tyrannosaurus rex, shows up at the most opportune time, and she also has beef with Giganotosaurus, as the larger predator stole her food earlier (I felt so bad for her... big bitch bit Rexy's snout!), and, you know, is just there in her general vicinity. She decides she's going to settle this score, so while these two huge dinos are sizing each other up, the group make a run for the helicopter.
They get away, though Wu does get injured in the process. The film wraps up pretty nicely. Owen and his family return Beta to Blue. Ellie and her crew go to testify in court against Biosyn (and she gets with Alan). The area around Biosyn is turned into an actual, proper reserve for the dinosaurs. Wu is able to engineer a locust that will end up wiping out all the other giant locusts, thus saving the world from starvation (yay for redemption arcs). The world lives happily ever after... or as happily ever after as it ever will get, I suppose.
Oh! But I cannot forget to mention what happened to our dear CEO of Biosyn, Lewis Dodgson. He tried to pull a Dennis Nedry and make a run for it, complete with the old Barbasol can from the original film. And, as with Nedry, his escape is cut short when he runs afoul of a group of Dilophosauruses who decided he looked pretty tasty. So, in the end, Dodgson got his comeuppance. You'll hear no complaints from me. Engineering giant locusts to eat all crops not grown from your company's seeds is pretty fucking evil, yo.
I do believe this is the longest synopsis I've written so far, even with me leaving a good chunk of stuff out... As I said, there was a lot crammed into this film. Gotta say, though, it didn't feel that way while I was watching it. The film is also 2 hours and 27 minutes long, but it does not seem to run over long at all. It is very well paced, I think. Also, despite the fact that this film brings back the original trio from Jurassic Park and is choc full of little references to older movies in the franchise, it does not come across as a nostalgia grab at all. Everything fit in the story the way it was supposed to rather than coming across as forced because some nostalgic tidbit had to be shoehorned in.
I will say, some of the dinosaur CGI wasn't the greatest. The Apatosaurus in the lumber yard at the start of the film was the worst offender, I think, as she just... doesn't look like a part of the environment much at all. It isn't horrible, though, as far as CGI goes, so not going to knock it too much.
Did love the score. Michael Giacchino has become one of my favourite composers for films and such. He does a wonderful job tying in some of the elements of John Williams' original score for Jurassic Park while giving Dominion its own sound.
I think I'll give it an 8.5/10.
As a note, I used these two lists to identify the dinosaurs in the film: GamesRadar and Looper.
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