The Malta sequence in Jurassic World Dominion, in which Owen Grady pursues a dinosaur trafficker through a crowded market while a pterosaur circles overhead, is the film's one passage of genuine kinetic invention. That it arrives forty minutes in and is never matched again tells you most of what you need to know about Colin Trevorrow's 2022 conclusion to the Jurassic World trilogy.
At a Glance
Director: Colin Trevorrow
Runtime: 146 minutes
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum
Release: 2022
Critics Rating: ★★ (2/5 stars, bloated, unfocused, and a waste of its own premise)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, the original trio reunion delivers, the rest less so)
Plot
Four years after the events of Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs now coexist with humans across the globe. The film follows two parallel threads: Owen and Claire protecting Maisie Lockwood from those who want to exploit her genetic heritage, while Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm investigate Biosyn, a genetics corporation whose engineered locusts are threatening the world's food supply. The locust subplot is the film's most significant structural problem, a science fiction premise with almost nothing to do with dinosaurs that occupies a disproportionate share of the narrative. The two threads converge at Biosyn's research facility in the Dolomites, but the convergence feels mechanical rather than inevitable, and the climax resolves its various threads with a haste that suggests a production aware of its own overextension.
Characters
The reunion of Neill, Dern, and Goldblum is the primary draw, and the three performers bring a chemistry to their scenes together that the Jurassic World trilogy's own characters have never achieved. Dern's Sattler is given the most active role, her determination to expose Biosyn providing the clearest through-line in an otherwise diffuse narrative. Goldblum's Malcolm is deployed primarily for comic relief and philosophical observation, which is entertaining but represents a waste of the character's capacity for dramatic function. Neill's Grant is the most underserved of the three, present but peripheral in ways that suggest the screenplay was uncertain what to do with him. Pratt and Howard remain likeable but constrained, their storyline consistently less engaging than the one running alongside it. DeWanda Wise's Kayla Watts is the strongest new addition, a pilot of considerable charisma whose pragmatic competence gives the more crowded sequences a useful anchor. Campbell Scott's Lewis Dodgson is a villain of such limited menace that his presence as the primary antagonist undermines the dramatic stakes throughout.
Meaning / Themes
The central argument, that humanity must learn to live with the consequences of its own technological overreach, is a logical development of the premise Fallen Kingdom established. But the locust subplot is so disconnected from the dinosaur material that the thematic link feels asserted rather than demonstrated, and the resolution sidesteps the harder questions that a more searching treatment of the premise would have required. The franchise's foundational concerns about scientific hubris are present in outline but absent in substance.
Direction
The film attempts to operate simultaneously as a globe-trotting action thriller, a legacy sequel, a science fiction film about ecological collapse, and a family adventure. None of these modes is sustained long enough to establish a coherent identity, and the transitions between them are handled with a bluntness that prevents any single one from generating momentum. The Malta sequence aside, Trevorrow demonstrates a capacity for large-scale choreography that the rest of the film's diffuse structure consistently undermines.
Trevorrow handles large-scale sequences with assurance but without the visual imagination Bayona brought to Fallen Kingdom. The Biosyn valley is the film's most visually distinctive setting, a contained environment that briefly recalls the first film's island geography. Michael Giacchino's score is the trilogy's most emotionally assured, with the sequences involving the returning cast benefiting from a more resonant integration of Williams' original themes than either preceding entry managed.
Jurassic World Dominion received poor reviews on release but was a solid commercial success. Critics condemned the locust subplot, the sprawling screenplay, and the squandering of the cast reunion, and it is now regarded as the trilogy's most significant creative failure. The box office performance represented a sharp decline from Jurassic World's heights and confirmed that franchise goodwill has limits when creative quality falls sufficiently far. The decision to end the trilogy here rather than pursue the more interesting premise Fallen Kingdom had established is widely regarded as a missed opportunity.
Final Verdict: Jurassic World Dominion is a 146-minute argument for editorial discipline. The Malta sequence, DeWanda Wise, and the warmth of the returning trio are genuine pleasures. Everything else is a reminder that spectacle without purpose is just noise, and that reuniting beloved characters in a film that does not know what to do with them is its own kind of waste.