Oddly, I liked the world-building and setups in the first half of this film. Seems most people hated that… whereas I was deeply disappointed with the running and the screaming in the second half (where most felt it finally limped to life). Oh well. Mainly I was annoyed this flick is one big ball of bait and switch. So disappointing.

Dominion picks up after the dinos escaped in the previous film. Somehow (somehow?!?) they’ve scattered all across the Earth and multiplied REALLY fast. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard spend half their time managing dinosaurs and the other half keeping Clone Girl safely hidden. Meanwhile, the team from the original film – Dern, Neill, and Goldblum – wander back into the franchise, trying to figure out why giant insects are giant (and in our base shooting our dudes… I mean eating our food).

Yeah, the biggest plot points of this movie aren’t so much the rampaging dinosaurs in our cities but clone children and mutant locusts. Did I sign up for a less impressive remake of The Beginning of the End?

But I actually liked the details they were putting into this new world… dinosaurs being exploited by crappy humans because that’s exactly what we would do. Possibility of profit? Illegal trade, dino fight betting, breeding farms, etc. This all worked for me…

And, really, the movie was working until they actually got into the plot and delivered some really terrible action scenes. I was shocked at how confused and muddled the action got… up until at least a decent chase between a plane, a motorbike, and some raptors. And then most of the set pieces went back to being dull and repetitive.

The biggest crime the flick commits is lying to us. Because the vast majority of this film isn’t dinosaurs in our backyards or in our streets… but in an isolated jungle valley that isn’t actually an island but might as well be. Yeah, after promising our world was gonna change, we stick our hapless heroes in a jungle preserve and let them run around in circles for an hour, sometimes being chased by dinosaurs.

Thanks for recreating the past five movies all over again. Thanks for promising one thing and delivering us the usual.

Now, some of that running around in circles contains some decent moments but mostly its redundant and full of plot or logic holes (like that’s not how hyperloops works… and how did they survive that plane crash now?). The plot seems to be more busy finding things and stuff and stuff for our many many characters to do than anything they do really mattering to the plot. It got tiresome and repetitive and mainly just felt like they were padding the runtime.

I’m afraid most of the action and set pieces are just humdrum and rather boring (though one involving Howard hiding underwater from a predator was pretty good). And we get yet another Big Dinosaur whose bigger and badder than the T-Rex… but really just looks like another T-Rex. And a big final battle that was pointless and inane but was clearly trying to outdo the decent final fight in Jurassic World. Even the characters noted they weren’t involved in this fight. So much wasted opportunity.

I thought about giving it a half-decent rating for some good world-building, good actors, good FX, and occasionally some good set pieces. But I changed my mind for the repetitious, pointless running in circles, the bad action scenes, and the missed opportunities. At least Fallen Kingdom’s tedious running around in circles being chased by dinosaurs felt like it at least had a purpose. And at least The Lost World gave us dinosaurs in the streets.

Score: 68