Jurassic World Dominion 4k Blu Ray Review

[Stella Kreuter]

Ihaven't seen Dominion yet, I see it in....seven hours and nine minutes, but a line in the Hustle review actually gives me a structure to explain why I'm still looking forward to it despite the reviews being, uh, abysmal.

Well, I anticipate Dominion still being in large part a paleo nerd's delight, rife with new species I've never seen portrayed, new takes on ones that I have, and fruit for debates that will be novel for about thirty seconds and then admittedly exhausting in pretty short order.

Now, do I anticipate it being a good movie? Not necessarily. Out of the four sequels in the franchise, I think there's a sum of maybe two good movies worth of parts in the mix. As I said on Filmspotting when I admitted that this was my most anticipated movie of the summer over Nope, I just know my brand, and I'm the dinosaur man even moreso than the movie guy.

If anyone wonders whether there are any career prospects after your run on E/R, Top Gun, and Revenge of the Nerds, look no further than Anthony Edwards who went on to become a #1 basketball draft pick. (Yes, I know but had to look that up. Isn't this the kind of thing SAG is supposed to prevent?)

One of the most memorable shots in Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jurassic Park features no special effects. Just before we get our first really good look at the dinosaurs, the camera lingers on Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), a paleontologist who\u2019s dumbstruck at the sight of brachiosauruses grazing peacefully in the field. Her look of astonishment is a promise that the next shot must fulfill, and, amazingly, it does. Wow! Dinosaurs!

In one of the many homages to Jurassic Park in Jurassic World Dominion, the sixth film in the series, Dern repeats the look of surprise only this time she's beholding a field of grain that\u2019s been devastated by locusts with dino-infused DNA while a neighbor\u2019s crop, grown from seed created by the multinational science conglomerate Biosyn, lies unmolested. It\u2019s, to put it mildly, a little less awe-inspiring. Wow! Evidence of a corporate conspiracy to control the world\u2019s grain market! But the wonder gap between those two shots pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Jurassic past and Jurassic present.

To be fair, the franchise has struggled for a reason to exist since the first outing. The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III were largely enjoyable retreads of the first movie. 2015\u2019s Jurassic World at least had the novel (if implausible even by the standards of a third sequel) idea of exploring what would happen if a dinosaur theme park actually were to open. The answer: nothing good. Also not good: the Trevorrow-directed movie itself, a mean-spirited, wonder-free mess with two deeply unlikeable leads: ex-military raptor trainer Owen and career-minded park manager Claire. Played, respectively, by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, they returned in slightly less obnoxious form in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, a considerably better effort, directed by J.A. Bayona with welcome visual flair, whose final act turned into a haunted house movie but with dinosaurs instead of ghosts.

Trevorrow returns to the director\u2019s chair for Dominion, an attempt at a similar bit of genre gene-splicing, this time dropping dinosaurs into a globe-hopping trail of international intrigue. The graft doesn\u2019t take nearly as well. Dominion is set in the aftermath of Fallen Kingdom\u2019s final scene, which concluded with dinosaurs reentering the wild. That\u2019s a promising hook and, at least for the length of the exposition-filled newsbreak that opens this sequel, it seems like Dominion will run with it. But no. Instead, Dominion finds the Jurassic World leads teaming up with the original cast of Jurassic Park (Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum) to thwart the scheme of a charismatic-but-amoral tech leader Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott). It plays like an extremely familiar espionage movie in which dinosaurs have been hurriedly stuffed into every corner. Let\u2019s escape using the underground mine shaft (filled with dinosaurs). We have to save our daughter from kidnappers (who have also kidnapped dinosaurs). Etc.

Oh right: there\u2019s also a kid (Isabella Sermon), returning from Fallen Kingdom, who\u2019s the first human clone. That ultimately doesn\u2019t factor into the plot as much as you might imagine. It\u2019s just another element in an overstuffed, overlong mess that can most kindly be called \u201Cfunctional.\u201D Goldblum and Scott bring some wry touches to their performances, and the dinosaur effects (still) look good. But it\u2019s hard to agree when Ellie, brought face-to-face with a baby triceratops, coos about how such encounters never get old. It got old a long time ago. What\u2019s left is just kind of shambling along. \u2014Keith Phipps

Hustle is about a seasoned professional who gets fired from his job at a major sports organization and stakes his comeback around the talent of one volatile athlete. It\u2019s about the tutelage of a cocky hustler who cons other players in underground pick-up games. It\u2019s about an underdog made good whose grizzled mentor trains him on the streets and staircases of Philadelphia. In summary, it\u2019s Jerry Maguire meets The Color of Money meets Rocky. Been there, done that, right?

Not necessarily. Though undeniably formulaic, Hustle stands as a compelling argument for how much the world of a film can authenticate the drama within it. Produced by LeBron James and marketing giant Maverick Carter, among others, the film immerses itself in the gyms and front offices of the NBA, and loads the screen with pro talent, starting with the casting of a current NBA power forward, Juancho Hernang\u00F3mez, in a starring role. With Adam Sandler doing understated work as a scout who risks his reputation on a raw, undiscovered 22-year-old from Spain, Hustle is a hoophead\u2019s delight, rife with detail about international scouting and networking, the language of NBA insiders, and even the specific abuses of hotel minibars. Like a quality recruit, it does all the little things it takes to win.

After years of hopscotching the globe as a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, Stanley Sugarman (Sandler) finally gets his dream job as an assistant coach, which will keep him closer to his wife (Queen Latifah) and the daughter whose last nine birthdays he\u2019s missed. But when the team\u2019s owner (Robert Duvall) dies, his egotistical son Vince (Ben Foster) takes over basketball operations and decides that Stanley was better off in his old job. Wearily hitting the road again on a talent search, Stanley stumbles onto a street game in Spain, where Bo Cruz (Hernang\u00F3mez), a wiry young wing in work boots, is taking on all comers. Stanley is thunderstruck by his discovery, who he describes as \u201Clike Scottie Pippen and a wolf had a baby,\u201D but Vince isn\u2019t convinced and denies Bo a contract.

From there, Hustle focuses on Stanley\u2019s personal efforts to bring Bo to the States, which means the young man would have to leave his mother and young daughter, and carve out a circuitous path to the NBA through street games, scrimmages, and Stanley calling in favors to old friends in the league. He also has to coach and condition Bo up to a pro level, so when he gets on the same stage as a hotter draft prospect like Kermit Wilts (Anthony Edwards), he doesn\u2019t fold under pressure. (Edwards, a former #1 draft pick and current phenom for the Minnesota Timberwolves, is perfect casting as Bo\u2019s rival. He plays the heel with a rascally, Bugs Bunny infectiousness.) One bad appearance\u2014one bad possession\u2014could be the difference between a shot at NBA stardom and permanent exile to the Euroleague hinterlands.

Neither Sandler nor Hernang\u00F3mez puts much spin on the ball dramatically, trusting that, to win the audience\u2019s favor, their grind-it-out humility needs no further embellishment. No doubt that Hernang\u00F3mez\u2019s low-key naturalism owes to his own experience as a player who had to work his way up from the Spanish pro league, but his persuasiveness on the court is a big part of what makes Hustle work, too. When Hernang\u00F3mez and Edwards go one-on-one, we\u2019re treated to top-level skill and physicality, and the familiar faces from the league that surround them, including most of the current Sixers roster and a handful of other big-name cameos, adds a crucial verisimilitude to a by-the-numbers plot. Many NBA dreams may follow the same story arc, but the difference is in the telling. \u2014 Scott Tobias

Before I get into the breakdown, I want to quickly address why this film makes me nervous and despite my excitement, I might not end up actually going to see it in the cinema, despite being a HUGE fan of the Jurassic Park franchise!

Whenever I have spoken about the world of Jurassic Park, I have always championed the inclusion of aquatic dinosaurs. So, when then Mosasaurus was introduced in Jurassic World I was over the moon! The opening of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, as mentioned in our film review, was THE greatest opening for any Jurassic movie, and I stand by that! The underwater aspects are such a refreshing change of the usually land-based, dino action that we are used to! Seeing the Mosasaurus in the trailer was great, and while I doubt, she will have much to do in the movie in general, I loved that they have still included her.

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