‘Jurassic World Dominion’ toes line between nostalgia, dystopia

By Guillermo Azabal

Los Angeles, Jun 10 (EFE).- Almost 30 years after the premiere of Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” the final installment of the franchise’s second trilogy sees cloned dinosaurs having expanded their reach globally and come to pose a far greater threat to human beings than ever before.

“Jurassic World Dominion,” theatrically released on Friday in the United States, marks the culmination of the Jurassic World trilogy that began in 2015 with “Jurassic World” and was continued in 2018 with “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” which ends with dinosaurs roaming freely in the wilderness and suburban areas.

In this sixth installment in the franchise, director Colin Trevorrow crafts a film that will hold nostalgic appeal for older film-goers thanks to the return of Laura Dern (Dr. Ellie Sattler) and Sam Neill (Dr. Alan Grant), who reprise their roles in the first (“Jurassic Park”) and third (“Jurassic Park III”) films.

Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm), who played a mathematician in chaos theory in films one, two and five, also is back for another turn in this latest installment.

Near-death escapes from menacing dinosaurs are once again around virtually every corner throughout the film’s 146-minute duration, although on this occasion the dystopian element is even more pronounced due to the global spread of those prehistoric predators.

In an interview with Efe prior to the movie’s US premiere, lead actress Bryce Dallas Howard (former Jurassic World park manager Claire Dearing) said “Jurassic World Dominion” depicts a “very dangerous world and a world that is nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

“Genetic power is being unleashed upon the population,” said Howard, whose involvement in the franchise also extends to voice roles in three video games. “What happens when these discoveries and these innovations fall into the wrong hands?”

In that regard, she said a key theme of the film is the limit of human control over the technology wielded by companies such as the fictional InGen, which initially cloned the dinosaurs, and Biosyn Genetics, which first appears in “Jurassic World Dominion.”

“Through this evolution of the last 30 years, we’ve seen … human beings (initially were) exploiting the dinosaurs. That went on for quite a while,” Howard recalled. “In the process of that, a lot of dinosaurs ate a lot of people, and then ultimately where we are now is in this place of needing to find a way to survive together.”

No longer confined to the fictional tropical island of Isla Nublar as they were in the first movie, the dinosaurs of this latest film pose a threat in cities, small towns and rural areas across the planet.

“So it truly is not a theme park called ‘Jurassic World’ but Jurassic World, a world that is affected by dinosaurs,” lead actor Chris Pratt (ethologist Owen Grady) told Efe.

That new reality also provides for an expanded range of exotic locales, he added.

“It feels almost like a James Bond movie. In one moment you’re in a high mountain desert covered in snow. And then you’re in Malta. We’re all over various continents and stuff, so it opens the world up.”

“Jurassic World Dominion” is scheduled to be released on NBCUniversal’s Peacock digital streaming platform on Oct. 10, although it remains unclear whether it will be available across all the countries where that video-on-demand service is present. EFE

gac/mc