[imagesource: Universal]

Jurassic World Dominion may score the top spot in terms of movie anticipation, but lacklustre reviews and bad word of mouth haven’t been doing the blockbuster sequel any favours.

As the long-awaited third instalment of the Jurassic World trilogy gets ready to entertain fans in theatres, critics have been tearing the film to shreds.

The adventure features Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) teaming up with the original Jurassic Park trio – Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).

As promising as that sounds, the ‘legacyquel’ has fallen flat in its attempt to make the two Jurassic trilogies collide, per Cinema Blend, which has collected all the scathing reviews.

The publications themselves rated the films a sad one and a half stars out of five:

The blockbuster model for Jurassic World Dominion is very clearly Avengers: Endgame – a capstone project that is intended to reflect cohesiveness in the continuity – but it fails in so many ways where the Marvel film succeeds. Rather than constructing a story that effectively captures the full scope of the franchise and takes advantage of the principal characters’ beloved qualities, we instead get two high-concept ideas that are mashed together in a structure-less mess with bad pacing and boring action.

The Wrap says something along similar lines:

The screenplay by director Colin Trevorrow and Emily Carmichael (Pacific Rim: Uprising) spends so much time moving its cast from place to place that it can barely be bothered to provide twists or sleuthing; characters like Mamoudou Athie’s PR flack or Dichen Lachman’s sleek assassin show up, tell the heroes what they need to know, and then sink into the background. There’s certainly no room for any big ideas about science or technology besides, ‘Whelp, the dinos are here now; guess we gotta coexist.’

Nightmarish Conjurings notes that the fanfic-like movie loses focus too fast:

There’s a lot going on in JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION. It’s as if Colin Trevorrow (who also directs albeit poorly considering performances) and screenwriter Emily Carmichael decided to throw things at a wall to see what would stick. A lot must have stuck to produce this convoluted, bloated final product viewers get to witness. You’ve got kidnappings. Genetically engineered locusts. Baby Raptors. Underground dino trafficking rings. There’s a lot going on, which results in a film that feels long and loses its focus from its main point – the livelihood of both dinosaurs and the human race.

ScreenCrush rated the movie a measly three out of ten:

Alas, Dominion is just more of the same. More banal platitudes about the dangers of science run amok. More breathless chases involving dinosaurs who can keep pace with a jeep and yet never manage to catch the humans when they’re running on foot. More scenes where an idyllic and flawless dino sanctuary completely collapses in a matter of minutes. More scenes where Chris Pratt’s unflappable and impervious action dude gets a dinosaur to stop attacking him simply by sticking his hand in front of its face. (Later, he teaches the other characters this trick and then they’re all controlling raptors by shoving their hands in their faces.)

More of the same then, and not enough explaining how humans and dinosaurs could even co-exist in the first place.

A break for the official trailer:

The only review that was relatively kind was Deadline, which reckons fun is to be found, but only if you buy into the premise:

Audiences who will flock to it will not be disappointed, plus the filmmakers really do have something to say about the way our earth is moving out of our control if we don’t find a way to contain the damage, so much of it man-made. Jurassic is the perfect allegory for what we actually are doing to ourselves.

Fair enough.

Anyway, criticisms aside, Jurassic World Dominion could still be a box office hit when folks start flocking into theatres to see it for themselves.

The movie is available from today.

[source:cinemablend]