Another boring weekend with not much to do; I decided to check which recent-ish movie is now available to stream. After looking at various options, I settled on Jurassic World Dominion. Hence, another movie review.

The original Jurassic Park trilogy was revolutionary for its time, renowned for its animatronics. I saw them when I was a child growing up in the 90s. I was never a huge fan of the second trilogy, but saw the movies over the years as time pass, nothing more. Somehow Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard couldn’t recreate the same magic for me, as the original cast did. I didn’t have high hopes from Jurassic World Dominion to begin with but I found it surprisingly average.

The movie is set in a world where Dinosaurs now roam free. But otherwise the movie brings nothing new. A greedy corporation builds a Dinosaur preserve and tries to use the dinosaurs for personal greed. Things go wrong, a bunch of people (including the villain) get eaten by dinosaurs but our heroes save the day. In the end there’s a fight between 2 Apex dinosaurs. Same old.

The new villain in the movie is Tim Cook who uses Android devices. I wonder why they specifically chose him as he is not a particularly interesting or charismatic character in real life.

The return of the original stars

I will be frank; the return of the original cast carries the movie. Paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) still have amazing chemistry between them and it shows. There are many references to the original movies including a car-dinosaur scene and a reference to Jeff Goldblum’s bare chest. These throwback scenes make the otherwise average Jurassic World Dominion fun to watch.

Chris Pratt’s acting is just average and Bryce Dallas Howard has her perpetually terrified face down pat. If not for the original cast, the movie might not even be worth a one time watch.

I can recommend Jurassic World Dominion as a one time watch, for old times sake.