‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ repeats a mistake in the saga

Like its predecessors, ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ has had its detractors, especially when it comes to comparing it to ‘Jurassic Park’.

This is a bit harsh considering that none of the Jurassic movies have really lived up to Steven Spielberg’s iconic original. After all, it’s considered one of the best movies of all time, so the bar is set very high.

The frustrating thing about the ‘Jurassic World’ trilogy is that it never seems to learn from its mistakes. Each installment has augmented the spectacle in the hope that you’ll have enough fun to ignore the fact that it has the same flaws as ‘Jurassic World’ (and even ‘Dominion’ re-copies scenes and situations from ‘Jurassic Park’). )

The dramatic ending of ‘the fallen kingdom -attention to its 7 things in which it surpassed its predecessor-, set the stage for a totally different Jurassic movie than we’d seen before. The dinosaurs were in the world and no longer confined to a facility of some sort, however, as we pointed out in our review of ‘Dominion’, the film ends again in an installation and repeating the same known defects.

And one of the main problems can be traced back to the decision made in the first ‘Jurassic World’ movie when it was revealed that Owen (performed by Chris Pratt, our June cover) he could train raptors.

Whether you were a child or an adult when you first saw ‘Jurassic Park’, the kidnappers terrified you. Aside from the T-Rex sequence, the scene with Tim and Lex trapped in a kitchen is still chilling.

Raptors are relentless and just a couple of quick-witted shots and a dash of good luck save Tim and Lex. While the sequel wasn’t very good overall, the raptor sequence in the grass lives up to its reputation as one of the scariest dinos to stay on an island with.

In ‘Jurassic World’ we have a scene where Owen rides a motorcycle with the raptors, as well as a sequence where Zach and Gray easily fend off a raptor after he corners them in a truck. If a couple of kids don’t freak out at them, why should we?

With a stroke of the pen, the series eliminated one of its most terrifying threats and, by extension, much of the threat posed by dinosaurs, be they raptors or otherwise.

From here, spoilers for ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’.

The kidnappers’ mistake continues in ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ during its sequence in Malta which introduces a new raptor, the Atrociraptor (well, technically it’s an old breed of raptor that has been revived, since the new movie focuses on the dinosaurs that existed before, rather than the genetically modified ones).

Dinosaur smuggler Soyona Santos (Dichen Lachman) tells us that These Atrociraptors are relentless and have been trained so that once they have a target, they won’t stop until that target is dead. They are controlled with a laser and a sound like the one we saw in ‘The Fallen Kingdom’ (JA Bayona) with the Indoraptor.

When things go wrong for Santos in Malta, after Owen and Claire back out of their deal with the smugglers who took Maisie, Santos sets these Atrociraptors on the hunt for Owen and Claire. However, it won’t surprise you that neither of them are killed by the respective Atrociraptor that is chasing them.

Yes, we know that when it comes to Jurassic movies you have to suspend the viewer’s disbelief. That’s fine, but for tension and suspense to work, a movie – even a stupid one – has to follow its own internal logic.

‘Dominion’ does not. One of these Atrociraptors is unable to catch up with Claire on foot, yet they are able to keep up with a speeding Jeep and motorcycle. The foot chase takes place in a relatively tight space at times, but there are also straight stretches across rooftops and the raptor barely makes it.

If we never really think that a raptor can reach any of the human characters (the ones with names, at least), then there is no tension. The main cast of ‘Dominion’ never feels in danger.

And when one of them faces a raptor, he just does Owen’s patented hand gesture and the dino stops in its tracks. Simple. Why didn’t Lex and Tim think of doing that?

We may be being too harsh and, if movies are to be given the benefit of the doubt, maybe it’s all really just a meta commentary on blockbusters these days. CEvery ‘Jurassic World’ movie has promised new and improved dinosaurs scarier than ever, yet they never seem to measure up.

Whether it’s the Atrociraptors, which never catch up to their prey, or the Giganotosaurus, which loses to the T-Rex at the end of ‘Dominion’, the new dinosaurs are never as good as the originals.

bigger is not betterand the ‘Jurassic World’ trilogy could simply have been a subversive display of why it’s reckless to try to live up to its legacy. Perhaps the goal of the trilogy was to be the cinematographic equivalent of a trained raptor: full of teeth, but without any bite.

(In case it needs to be said, this was not the intention of the trilogy at all, but if you’re nice, it could be used as an excuse.)