Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

“When Dinosaurs Take a Backseat to Bugs” 🦖🦗🤦‍♂️

Trailers

Let’s roll the trailers, shall we? Because those trailers sold the dream: dinosaurs loose across the world, humans forced to live alongside apex predators, chaos, carnage, and a true “end of an era” showdown.

Since this is a Universal film, Y’all know what that means? Cue Universal Logo!

What we got instead? Locusts. Freaking locusts.


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Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

After Maisie Lockwood released the dinosaurs into the wild at the end of Fallen Kingdom, humanity is now coexisting (badly) with them. Sounds cool, right? A world overrun by dinosaurs? Too bad the movie tosses that idea aside after the opening news montage.

Instead, the “plot” pivots to: giant mutated locusts are eating crops, and shady biotech CEO Lewis Dodgson (yes, the random guy with two minutes of screentime in the original Jurassic Park) is behind it. Why? So he can corner the global food supply with his company’s crops.

Meanwhile, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) are hiding in the snowy woods raising Maisie, who spends the whole movie whining about being “locked away.” She gets kidnapped—along with Blue the raptor’s baby—and this kicks off a rescue mission. At the same time, legacy characters Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm reunite to investigate Dodgson’s locust scheme.

Dinosaurs? Still technically in the movie. But sidelined.


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Character Rundown

Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) – Now somehow a cowboy dino-herder. Still doing “the hand thing” at random dinosaurs who magically obey.

Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) – Reduced to running, worrying, and parachuting out of planes.

Maisie Lockwood (Isabella Sermon) – Whiny clone kid, now revealed to be a clone of her mother, not her father’s daughter (massive retcon). Her DNA is the key to fixing the locust plague. Sure.

Alan Grant (Sam Neill) – Back for nostalgia’s sake. Doesn’t actually contribute much to the locust subplot.

Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) – Investigates the bugs. Criminally underused for a character we’ve been waiting decades to see again.

Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) – Gets a few witty lines and a lighter gag, but mostly wasted.

Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) – Cartoonish villain. Punches the air when he’s mad. Meets his end via Dilophosaurus spit. At least that’s poetic.

Henry Wu (BD Wong) – Formerly shady geneticist, now a guilt-ridden hobo scientist who only regrets the bugs, not the dinosaurs. Whiplash much?

Kayla (DeWanda Wise) – Dino-smuggling pilot who just happens to get roped in because she glimpsed Maisie once. Convenient writing at its finest.


Oh, and dinosaurs: Blue, her baby, a Freddy Krueger–clawed Therizinosaurus, and a Giganotosaurus that shows up just in time for a climactic three-way dino battle that means nothing.


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Pacing / Episode Flow

Overstuffed. Instead of focusing on dinosaurs roaming the earth (you know, the franchise’s selling point), we’re ping-ponging between:

Maisie’s kidnapping,

Owen and Claire globe-trotting,

Dodgson’s bug conspiracy,

Alan and Ellie sneaking into labs,

Ian cracking jokes,

and locusts literally catching on fire and falling from the sky.


It’s like five half-baked movies smashed into one.


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Pros ✅

The Malta raptor chase with Owen on a motorcycle is genuinely exciting.

Feathered dinosaurs finally make an appearance, and they look great.

Seeing Grant, Ellie, and Malcolm together again hits the nostalgia bone.

The Therizinosaurus lake scene has solid tension (before continuity logic eats it alive).



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Cons ❌

Locusts. Why is the finale of a dinosaur saga about killer bugs?

Maisie retcon. From clone of a daughter to clone of her mother with magic DNA. Lazy writing.

Dodgson as the villain. A random background character elevated to “Big Bad”? Pathetic.

Henry Wu neutered. Once teased as the franchise’s true mastermind, now reduced to a mop-haired guilt machine.

Overstuffed and contrived. Every character bumping into the exact right people at the exact right time.

Dinosaurs neutered. When Owen can snap a Dilophosaurus’s neck barehanded, you’ve lost the horror.

Missed opportunities. Black market dinos, humanity struggling to coexist—ignored.

Climax is hollow. T-Rex + Freddy Krueger dino vs. Giganotosaurus feels slapped together just to check off the “big fight” box.

But if I had to pinpoint my three main cons, here, they are, in a more written up nuanced way.

❌ Cons

Dinosaurs Loose on Humanity… Psych!
Fallen Kingdom ended on a bold cliffhanger — dinosaurs unleashed across the globe. That should’ve been the core premise of Dominion. Instead, the film sidelines that setup almost immediately and pivots to… giant locusts. Nobody wanted to watch a Jurassic movie about bugs.

Dodgson, the Discount Villain
Lewis Dodgson — yes, that Dodgson from the first film who had all of two lines before becoming a meme (“Dodgson! We got Dodgson here!”). For some reason, Dominion drags him out as the “big bad.” His motivations are paper-thin, his presence is forgettable, and his whole arc feels like a joke that got stretched way too far.

The Hand Thing™
Chris Pratt’s Owen putting his hand up to calm raptors was already pushing it in the first Jurassic World. But in Dominion, it’s treated like some universal Jedi mind trick. Every dinosaur — from raptors to random carnivores — suddenly freezes the second he sticks his palm out. By the black-market arena scene, when multiple dinosaurs stop in unison for the sacred Hand Gesture™, it becomes pure unintentional comedy.



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Final Thoughts

Jurassic World Dominion absolutely baffles me. The concept of dinosaurs roaming free in our world? That’s gold. That’s the natural “endgame” of this franchise. Instead, we get a film more obsessed with locust conspiracies, convenient writing, and retcon nonsense than the actual dinosaurs.

It’s not unwatchable—there are a few thrilling set pieces—but as the supposed finale to the Jurassic saga, it feels like a creative collapse. This isn’t Jurassic World. This is Jurassic Locusts.

Rating: 4/10


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Spoilers 🦖⚠️

The movie opens strong with a montage of humans living among dinosaurs—dinos eating surfers, birds dive-bombing rooftops. And then… forgotten. Enter the locust subplot: giant bugs devouring crops, supposedly engineered by Dodgson’s company.

Ellie brings Alan back to investigate. Ian, working for Dodgson, slips them a keycard. Meanwhile, Maisie is kidnapped, Blue’s baby is taken, and Owen/Claire globe-hop to rescue them. Cue a black-market sequence that’s more interesting than the entire bug storyline but immediately abandoned.

Claire gets parachuted into the woods, stalked by the Freddy Krueger dinosaur (Therizinosaurus). Owen and Kayla crash-land on ice, fight feathered dinos. Maisie bonds with Wu, who reveals she’s her mother’s clone and has DNA that can cure the locusts.

Dodgson, in his infinite villain genius, decides to torch the locusts. Problem: the lab has an open vent. Flaming locusts escape, raining fire across the forest. Because sure, why not?

The legacy trio and the new gang eventually collide thanks to pure plot convenience. Dinosaurs attack, but instead of fearsome threats, they’re manhandled or outwitted. Dodgson dies via Dilophosaurus spit while asking, “What’s your story?” (Seriously.)

The finale? T-Rex and Therizinosaurus team up WWE-style to kill the Giganotosaurus. It’s loud, flashy, and empty. Humanity just shrugs and accepts dinosaurs as part of the ecosystem. Wu releases his serum, locusts die, and we’re treated to “whimsical” shots of dinos coexisting with whales and horses.

Roll credits.


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👉 Bottom line: If you wanted a dino-apocalypse, this ain’t it. This is a bug movie wearing a dinosaur mask.