Four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom humans and dinosaurs are struggling to coexist. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are trying to keep under the radar, even as they help dinosaurs in need, to keep their adoptive clone daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) safe but when velociraptor Blue’s baby is taken by poachers they set out to save it. Meanwhile Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) are reunited as they investigate the shady goings on at genetics company Biosyn.

Considering the premise of dinosaurs living with humans in the modern world is an interesting one and not one we’ve seen before in the Jurassic Park/World franchise, it’s kind of a shame that Jurassic World Dominion mostly glosses over that. Sure, there’s scenes towards the beginning of the film of dinosaurs clashing with humans and the bad side of humanity as of course humans would set up a black market for dinosaur sales and illegal breeding facilities, but people are for the most part just living with dinosaurs and all the chaos and danger that might cause. Almost feels like an allegory for how people/governments have dealt with and are living with a pandemic.

Like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Jurassic World Dominion kind of feels like two genres of films in one. There’s the kidnapped child plot that the Jurassic World characters are in and the corporate espionage plot that the Jurassic Park characters are in. Eventually all the characters end up crossing paths and it at least ends more cohesively than Fallen Kingdom did.

The action sequences with dinosaurs are generally good. Some are well shot and exciting, others are poorly edited and are hard to follow. The last act of the film when characters are reuniting and teaming up against the dinosaurs and the evil corporation is the best as that’s when there’s a lot of good dino action happening almost continuously.

Having the original trilogy heroes back and seeing Dern, Neill, and Jeff Goldblum (because Dr Ian Malcolm is here too) all together on screen again is a delight. Sattler and Grant are still both fond of and exasperated by Malcolm’s whole persona and his swagger adds some much-needed levity to a film that at times can verge on being a bit dull. Having these three actors back, who all have great chemistry, playing three characters that still feel familiar even if they’ve evolved since the last time we’ve seen them, does make Pratt’s and Dallas Howard’s characters feel even more one-note than before. They are so generic that it’s a running joke on the internet that people can’t remember their characters names but in Jurassic World Dominion they both feel really flat. The fact that Dallas Howard and Pratt have negative chemistry is also abundantly clear when you have Dern and Neill’s characters just oozing longing and quick glances and you realise you’ve been waiting for almost thirty years for them to kiss.

Jurassic World Dominion is perhaps a bit overlong and disjointed to begin with but chase scenes with dinosaurs almost never get old and having Drs Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm back is what elevates this film. The other newer characters from the Jurassic World franchise are mostly forgettable – except DeWanda Wise’s Kayla Watts, she’s also a great source of energy and charm in this film. 3/5.