12A (147mins)
I CAN still recall being 12-years-old and staring in wonder as the brachiosaurus stomped onto the big screen in 1993’s Jurassic Park – the first time us humans had ‘seen’ a dinosaur.
What followed was years of obsession with the prehistoric beasts.
I was the teenager poring over my monthly subscription to Dinosaur magazine and fossil hunting on the weekends.
Yup, I was really cool.
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So being a long time super fan of the Jurassic franchise, it pains me a great deal to say that Jurassic Kingdom Dominion is not a good film.
In fact, it is very bad.
The convoluted and confused story catches up with the World crew – Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) – who now live in a weird snow-covered hut with the young girl, Maisie (Isabella Sermon) they rescued from many sharp jaws and claws in The Fallen Kingdom.
Four years have gone by and they now exist in a land where dinosaurs roam free.
But Maisie, who is a genetic clone like the dinosaurs, is the apple of the smugglers eye.
Big money will change hands for her genetic make-up and Owen and Claire struggle to protect her.
Snap to a farm in Texas where thousands of giant locusts are eating loads of crops.
Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) is called on to investigate – and quickly taps up her former lover Alan Grant (Sam Neill).
The pair suspect it is the work of a dodgy biotech firm, where Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) does lectures.
This clunkily gets the old Park crew back together.
There starts a bizarre, and often incomprehensible, chase around the world, trying to break into science labs and enduring near-death accidents without even getting a scratch.
The much loved two leads disappear completely in this over-stretched, over-written film, directed by Colin Trevorrow.
Pratt, who was the funny, loveable dare devil in the two previous films, becomes mute muscles on a motorbike.
And the formerly sassy and strong headed Howard is now just tearful and mumsy.
Also, the stupid locusts being the object of the film’s disaster over, umm, DINOSAURS is beyond baffling.
I give an extra star for the nods to the original film littered throughout and, after decades of trying, the three OG cast members finally being pushed back together.
There’s no magic. There’s no heart. There’s no suspense.
It captures none of the awe-inspiring moments of the other films and even some of the CGI is ropey.
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I’m sure many Jurassic devotees, like me, will wish that Dominion simply didn’t exist as it drags the franchise down.
As a Star Wars fan said: “Now you know how we felt when The Phantom Menace came out.”
