Jurassic Park Dominion A film review from Joe Viglione COMPLETED 6:05 pm Tuesday June 14, 2022....took me a week to write

 

Jurassic Park Dominion

A film review from Joe Viglione

Dinosaurs! People love dinosaurs.  Those reviewers of Jurassic Park: Dominion can say what they want, but this critic  feels Dominion is a superior dino flick, one that pulls together all six of the Michael Crichton-based films, and gives you more stomp for the buck.  

Way back in 1940 the directors Hal Roach and Hal Roach Jr. (father and son team) oversaw the film One Million B.C. which merged humans with dinosaurs.   As far as we know, humans and dinosaurs never walked the planet together. Its remake, 1966/1967’s One Million Years B.C. featured Raquel Welch with less verbal lines than Arnold Schwarzeneggar in The Terminator.  According to the Three Movie Buffs “Raquel Welch's grunting was dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl,” while we all know (via Screenrant.com) that Arnie-Post-Conan Schwarzeneggar “only has 17 lines in The Terminator, which breaks down to a mere 58 words.”

The plot in Dominion begins like Tom Cruise’s version of Mission Impossible, or any of the assorted Daniel Craig 007 flicks.  The obligatory - always de rigueur- car chase scenes are replaced by …dinosaurs, of course.  Dinos chasing Chris Pratt on a motorbike.  One could editorialize that dino vs. bike is at least …challenging, but writers and directors can’t be more imaginative in 2020, 2021, 2022 than having things chase motor vehicles around on street corners, highways and frozen waterways?  Despite the redundant aspect of the chase (in a sixth movie about re-imagined and resurrected creatures from the alleged dawn of time,) it actually works and entertains.

You will fall in love with the baby dino that gets kidnapped, the CGI creations having and generating more warm feelings than the humans.  For those of us who have lived through the previous five episodes over the years, bringing Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard together with Oscar®-winner Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill is very smart, straight out of Spider-Man No Way Home’s uniting Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland.  Audiences love this, and the technique has yet to be overused so good going to both motion pictures.

Filmmakers and their Easter eggs are very aware of tying in iconic themes into these new essays, Dominion's poster including Dinosaurs Rule the Earth (which IS the plot,) pay homage to 1970's third of four Hammer films, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, just as the second of the six films, The Lost World, copped the title from the 1925 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creation, The Lost World" (with Conan Doyle making a brief appearance in the intro!) 

Dr. Henry Wu, played by B.D. Wong, sports a bizarre Star Trek Pavel Chekov / The Monkees Davy Jones hairdo.  Kind of odd, and it is a distraction from Wong’s usual Law and Order: SVU look but, whatever. The five billion dollar franchise owes much to the ground that Ray Harryhausen despite what CGI can do.   Harryhausen’s Mighty Joe Young (1949,) The Animal World (1956,) the aforementioned Raquel Welch movie One Million Years B.C. and others helped establish him as the true successor of Willis H. O’Brien who worked on 1925’s The Lost World, 1933’s King Kong and, of course, Mighty Joe Young with Harryhausen.  For those moviegoers who have supported the Michael Crichton / Steven Spielberg dinosaur epics, keep in mind that those pioneers dating back to almost 100 years ago (1925’s The Lost World) helped the Crichton/Spielberg team to launch 1993’s Jurassic Park (with BD Wong as Dr. Henry Ru in their very first film in these almost three-decades old series) and follow that original up with its sequel, The Lost World – same title as the 1925 film.

Dominion is already generating millions of dollars worldwide and, as stated at the outset, it’s everything a fan of dinosaur fans could want.  Indeed, it goes from its initial 007/Mission Impossible leanings into some kind of horror film fun house with tunnels and wild large locusts who burn up the night sky.   The Colin Trevorrow directed epic delivers on all fronts.

One final note: 1.806 million years B.P. (Before Presdent, June 1, 1950) was, purportedly, the “Ice Age,” so where previous works on this subject of dinosaurs and humans together were not based in reality, the reconstruction and resurrection of these creatures during the human era by these six pictures initiated by the Spielberg/Crichton team, make science-fiction sense.

 

PRESS RELEASE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_B.C.

It all comes down to this.

 Watch and share the new trailer for JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION

#JurassicWorldDominion is in theaters June 10. Get tickets now: https://www.jurassicworld.com/tickets/.

 

   Jurassic World Dominion – In Theaters June 10

Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | #JurassicWorldDominion

 

This summer, experience the epic conclusion to the Jurassic era as two generations unite for the first time. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are joined by Oscar®-winner Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill in Jurassic World Dominion, a bold, timely and breathtaking new adventure that spans the globe.

From Jurassic World architect and director Colin Trevorrow, Dominion takes place four years after Isla Nublar has been destroyed. Dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.

Jurassic World Dominion, from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, propels the more than $5 billion franchise into daring, uncharted territory, featuring never-seen dinosaurs, breakneck action and astonishing new visual effects.

The film features new cast members DeWanda Wise (She’s Gotta Have It), Emmy nominee Mamoudou Athie (Archive 81), Dichen Lachman (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Scott Haze (Minari) and Campbell Scott (The Amazing Spider-Man 2). The film’s returning cast includes BD Wong as Dr. Henry Wu, Justice Smith as Franklin Webb, Daniella Pineda as Dr. Zia Rodriguez and Omar Sy as Barry Sembenè. 

Jurassic World Dominion is directed by Colin Trevorrow, who steered 2015’s Jurassic World to a record-shattering $1.7 billion global box office. The screenplay is by Emily Carmichael (Battle at Big Rock) & Colin Trevorrow from a story by Derek Connolly (Jurassic World) & Trevorrow, based on characters created by Michael Crichton. Jurassic World Dominion is produced by acclaimed franchise producers Frank Marshall p.g.a. and Patrick Crowley p.g.a. and is executive produced by legendary, Oscar®-winning franchise creator Steven Spielberg, Alexandra Derbyshire and Colin Trevorrow.  

Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment present, in association with Perfect World Pictures, a Colin Trevorrow film. jurassicworld.com 

 

Notes: The movie opens on a clan of cavemen. There is a power struggle between the leader and his two sons. One son gets banished from his tribe. He wanders through a barren wasteland for a bit, dodging dinosaurs, until he comes across another tribe. Actually, he gets saved from a giant turtle, by a bunch of cave babes out for a swim and some fishing. This tribe is a bit more advanced than his, but less war like. He learns from them and ends up leaving with the clans hottest babe. They journey back to his tribe, avoiding dinosaurs along the way. His new hottie has to fight his old hottie and he has to fight his brother. Eventually a new order is established and mankind takes a step forward in evolution.

http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/review/one-million-years-bc.html 

 

A Dabba Doo Time.  https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2021/02/02/retro-musings-one-million-years-b-c-1966-55-years-later/

When I was a little kid, I was a card-carrying dinosaur nut. As early as I can remember, the names of the dinosaurs would rattle off my tongue; diplodocus, brontosaurus, triceratops, brachiosaurus, tyrannosaurus rex, allosaurus, etc. I had many dinosaur books and toys as well. I often staged mock combat between my toy stegosaur and tyrannosaur. The inspiration for this little mise en scene came directly from a movie I used to watch on TV whenever it appeared (no VCRs, DVDs or DVRs). That movie, of course, was “One Million Years B.C.” (1966). Director Don Chaffey’s audacious remake of Hal Roach’s “One Million B.C” (1940) tells essentially the same story as the original (sans “Years”), jettisoning the framing story of hikers and cave-paintings while jumping right into the dinosaur vs. cavemen action. Hammer Studios’ remade tale of prehistoric times had all the historical accuracy of “The Flintstones.” In addition to impeccable stop-motion effects wizardry from FX maestro Ray Harryhausen, there was, of course, the human story as well. This cave people survival saga unfolded with an odd tone somewhere between a 1950s technicolor Bible epic and a Frankie & Annette beach party flick.

 

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