Jurassic Park is one of many film series that really should have stuck to being a single film. The original is a touchstone in popular cinema and still quite entertaining today, but with each following sequel, things just kept getting worse, reaching a nadir with 2015’s Jurassic World. There’s an argument to be made that Fallen Kingdom deserved a better rap than it got, but ultimately, this franchise has been lingering in inexplicable existence for nearly three decades. And the supposed finale of Dominion doesn’t help.

This is a conclusion to the ‘Jurassic Era’ in the shallowest way possible, as that mainly amounts to just having the main casts of Park and World sharing the screen (eventually).

Other than that, it’s more of the same mad scientist, man vs. nature, “life finds a way”, watering-down of what made the first film enjoyable, which populates all of the sequels. Even bringing the two teams together ends up being a bad idea, since it only further reveals how shallow Colin Trevorrow’s characterisation has been over his tenure at the helm of the franchise.

Not that this is all old material, though. Throughout the pseudo-globetrotting scope of the narrative, we get set pieces that look like they were pulled from a D-tier spy flick or a low-rent Indiana Jones rip-off. Much like the Indominus Rex and Indoraptor before it, meddling from on high has resulted in so much extraneous filler added that it barely even resembles the original article anymore. This is not helped by Trevorrow’s directing style; Michael Bay on sleeping pills. Whether it’s action, romance, horror, or just cringe, it’s all shot in the same bland manner.

His and Emily Carmichael’s scripting isn’t any better, as they spend most of their efforts making every scenario and character as dumb as possible. The extended contrivances needed to get the two casts together on-screen are one thing, but when chunks of dialogue exist solely to undermine any drama or tension, it’s even worse. And to add insult to injury, not only is it still repeating the coda of the last few films near-verbatim, but it’s making humans and dinosaurs co-existing sound like the single dullest what-if imaginable.

Even the characters seem bored by the idea, especially Campbell Scott as Reject Shop Tim Cook.

Jurassic World Dominion concludes (we can only hope) an unnecessary film franchise with all the gravitas and gratification of a fart in a crowded elevator. It may not be as bad as the first Jurassic World, but the amount of empty nostalgia-baiting and nothingburger plot found here turn out even more wasteful of the audience’s time and patience. Wait a few months for the Jeff Goldblum compilations to come out, and you’ll have seen all the good parts of this film.

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