Control Review: Jurassic Park 6…

I saw Jurassic World: Dominion recently— without many expectations. This movie is supposed to suck. It’s at 30% on rotten tomatoes. Top Gun: Maverick, by contrast, has been at 97% for a month. Then I checked Top Gun: Maverick’s audience score: 99%. People love it. Jurassic World, the most hated by critics? 79%. Not bad. Audiences like the movie that critics hate. Irony.

Initial response: I liked the film. It’s pretty good. There’s lots of dinosaurs and characters that I cared for in violent situations. There are heroes who are wonderful and heroic and villains who are terrible and villainous. It has everything a popcorn movie could need.

The movie starts with a series of faux-news broadcasts summarizing the events of the first five movies for those who have not kept up with the lore of the Jurassic Park universe. Dinosaurs are stalking the world unchecked, messing with human society and eating people, and someone wants to move them to a nice habitat in Italy or somewhere. The company, BioSyn, claims to want to use dinosaurs and their DNA to save the world from medical maladies.

The story then moves between two sets of characters: Claire and Owen want to rescue a human clone that they are raising as their daughter — and also want to save a baby dinosaur. They are a cute couple because they got rid of some of the masculinity of the previous films and found a better balance between the two characters. She isn’t a helpless victim or anything. There’s a neat flying dinosaur attack in the movie in which the dinosaurs can easily take down a plane.

The second set of characters are the people from the first trilogy of movies: Ian the mathematician, Ellie the biology expert, and Alan, the dinosaur bone expert. They are investigating a threat that will cause a major calamity. Also, insects. What do the insects symbolize? They mean that the ecosystem is broken at a fundamental level, and nature is fighting back.

This leads to a chase across continents. A number of side characters arrive and do various things for various sides. A pilot regrets her actions and helps the heroes out of a sense of guilt. The focus of the good is on two things: characters and dinosaur action. The characters are all interesting and well-portrayed by the actors. They are all very sympathetic and believable and interesting, and the audience wants them to survive.

The dinosaurs are perfectly created by CGI. Effects have become flawless in their beauty by now — we expect amazing effects and take them for granted. The only problem with the effects — the dinosaurs come close to eating the characters many times and fail to do so many times. This doesn’t feel very realistic to me. That’s a minor thing in a fun family action adventure story. Overall the action was exciting and well-developed.

There’s a neat segment where dinosaurs are trained to hunt Owen because a laser has been shot at him, and he has to ride a motorcycle through a large and beautiful exotic city. It’s a fun set piece that lets the characters be in danger and try to extract themselves from said trouble. It’s the sort of popcorn fun that this movie has. I enjoy that. If you want something that’s fun and interesting and with likeable protagonists fighting to save countless lives, well, then, this movie might be for you.

Thanks, and take care, friends.