How Did We Make Dinosaur Carnage So Boring?

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It’s surprising that movies centered around dinosaurs consistently portray people as uninterested in them, given their captivating appeal. This theme has been persistent since the 2015 Jurassic World film, which reimagined the T-rex goat-eating scene from the original Jurassic Park, a scene as thrilling as the one in Jaws, but this time through the eyes of a nonchalant teenager. By the second installment, Fallen Kingdom, the Indominus Rex, a hybrid designed to satisfy the public’s craving for novelty, had evolved into an indoraptor, aiming to attract a more stable audience: the military. In the latest film, Jurassic World Dominion, people have become so desensitized to dinosaurs that a dying sauropod on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway primarily sparks annoyance at the traffic jam it caused. The irony lies in the fact that despite these movies having varying levels of quality, particularly the third one with its unnecessary focus on genetically engineered locust swarms, they’ve all consistently earned over a billion dollars, showcasing the enduring fascination of the real world with prehistoric danger.

As a movie reviewer, I find myself grappling with a lingering sense of fatigue in the latest installment of the Jurassic franchise, “Jurassic World Dominion.” Directed by Gareth Edwards and penned by David Koepp, this film seems to be laboring under the weight of its own obligation to deliver fresh reasons for mankind’s encounters with dinosaurs. The narrative feels akin to a gas station on a long road trip, emanating creative exhaust fumes.

The plot revolves around a shady pharmaceutical entrepreneur, Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who ropes in mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) for an illicit journey into dinosaur territory. The premise of this adventure is amusingly contrived to accommodate requisite action sequences. In a bid to develop drugs that could potentially reduce coronary disease, Krebs requires blood samples from the largest land, air, and sea dinosaurs – the titanosaur (making its Jurassic series debut), the quetzalcoatlus, and the ever-faithful mosasaur. The humor lies in the fact that these colossal creatures are sought out due to their supposedly large hearts or some such reason. What’s important is that Zora, her team (including boat captain Duncan Kincaid, played by Mahershala Ali, and others who are essentially marked for extinction), must get within striking distance of these giants to extract blood samples using a specialized cartridge.

one follows Zora (the protagonist) and her team, who explore the island filled with both regular and mutant dinosaurs, and the other follows the Delgado family, who become stranded on the island after an encounter with dinosaurs. The storylines of the Delgados feel like filler and lack depth, serving only to place children in peril, a common trope in Jurassic Park-inspired films. The characters in “Dominion” are not well-developed, with Zora showing little emotion during dangerous situations despite her past trauma, and the Delgados embroiled in uninteresting family dramas.

From a digital special effects expert-turned-filmmaker like Edwards, the journey spans from his breakout hit Monsters to Godzilla and Rogue One. A consistent theme in his work is a lack of genuine empathy towards people (with the exception of The Creator, his surprisingly impactful last film, which used familiar themes more effectively). The Jurassic World series often allows us to adopt the same attitude, captivating us not by the suspense of whether characters will survive a scene but by the anticipation that they won’t. However, Dominion, despite referencing and reimagining elements from the original Spielberg film, such as a chase reminiscent of the velociraptor kitchen scene and a reinterpretation of the first T-rex attack, fails to generate excitement with its dinosaur interactions. Even the main antagonist, the Distortus rex, a colossal mutated dinosaur with additional limbs and a bulbous forehead more fitting for an alien creature, falls short of expectations. The D. rex is initially shown in a flashback opening scene and saved for the final act, but when it emerges from the darkness, shrouded in smoke and red light, it merely feels familiar rather than innovative. It’s not an original creation, simply a blend of the xenomorph and the Godzilla from Edwards’ own 2014 monster film. While audiences may still be intrigued by what the Jurassic World series offers, it seems that those responsible for creating it are running out of fresh ideas. In a sense, Dominion, embodying its franchise’s own prediction, truly becomes monotonous.

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2025-06-30 19:54