“Jurassic World: Dominion” was co-written & directed by Colin Trevorrow, is the sequel to 2018’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”, is the 3rd under the “Jurassic World” series but the 6th overall film in the “Jurassic Park” franchise. The film sees Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Isabella Sermon & Omar Sy all return from the “World” films but are joined by Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern & BD Wong reprise their roles from the “Park” series. Wong was the only actor to have been in the original film as well as the new trilogy while Goldblum made a cameo in “Fallen Kingdom”. DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie and Campell Scott join the cast new characters. Justice Smith & Daniella Pineda also return from “Fallen Kingdom” but serve in smaller roles than before.

4 years after the events of “Fallen Kingdom”, the world is still adjusting to life with dinosaurs in the modern world. While Owen Grady (Pratt) works as wrangler, helping stray dinosaurs, Claire (Howard) works with her team of Zia & Franklin, (Pineda & Smith) to stop illegal breeding and or poaching of dinosaurs, all the while they raise 14-year-old, Maisie Lockwood (Sermon). Meanwhile, an environmental threat arises in the mid-west part of the U.S. in which massive swarms of giant locusts are wiping out the farmlands and crops. Dr. Ellie Sadler (Dern) is bought in to make sense of the situation. She enlists the help Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) and discover that a new pharmaceutical company, Biosyn, may have an answer. Their only contact in Biosyn, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) who has his theory about the locust. As the original trio investigate Biosyn and the locust, Maisie is kidnapped along with a baby velociraptor from Claire & Owen’s home the Sierra Mountains. With the help of a former Air Force pilot, Kayla Watts (Wise), Claire and Owen follow Maisie to remote location which, to their surprise, is the home base of Biosyn. With everyone coming Biosyn, the secrets are uncovered and the truth about Maisie’s genetics and the locust may have some similarities. Time is running out before the locust wipeout all crops throughout the world leave both dinosaur and humans without a proper food source.

This is reportedly the final film in the franchise, but who knows at this point. The film was a great theater experience but had way too much going on storyline wise. Having 2 different story arches that don’t really come together in the end does a discombobulated execution. In my opinion, because “Fallen Kingdom” was such as disappointment as a film, “Dominion” had to do some damage control and get to the audience to forget the previous film. “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” had the same problem. When previous film fails or doesn’t maintain the same flow to it, the next film has its work cut out for it by not only acknowledging the previous film but fixing the issues it bought to the overall story. Seeing the old cast come together with the new cast was great but not this way. Visually, this was a great film but it’s the storyline makes the film hard to keep up with.

Overall, this was great seeing the old & new cast together on screen but unfortunately it didn’t have that blockbuster storytelling script. If this is the final film in this franchise, it was a good send off for the characters. The idea of the franchise ending is sad, but the thought of a reboot cold be interesting given the right circumstances, writer, director, actors, etc. Hopefully, we can get a darker interpretation of Michael Crichton’s novels in the future.