Posts Tagged ‘Isabella Sermon’

Jurassic World: Dominion

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Campbell Scott, Omar Sy, Isabella Sermon, DeWanda Wise, Dichen Lachman, Mamoudou Athie, Cokey Falkow

Running Time: 2 hours 26 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

To round off the reboot trilogy of Jurassic World which started in 2015, director Colin Trevorrow returns to the director’s chair for the third and final instalment Jurassic World: Dominion reuniting the new cast Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard with the cast of the original 1993 Jurassic Park film consisting of Oscar winner Laura Dern (Marriage Story) as Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill as Alan Grant and the ever quirky Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm.

In the 2022 version, Dinosaurs mix freely with humans in a bizarre social world however something is amiss when giant locusts start attacking the food supply in West Texas.

Campbell Scott (The Sheltering Sky) plays a peevish version of a Steve Jobs type character, Lewis Dodgson who runs an extremely shady Biosyn Tech company in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy and is involved in all sorts of weird genetic engineering, playing God with creatures which just become more lethal and uncontrollable as the story unfolds.

Dodgson and his gang of thieves kidnap Maisie Lockwood from the guardianship of Owen Grady and Claire Dearing played respectively by Chris Pratt and by Bryce Dallas Howard.

In the meantime Sattler and Grant investigate the splurge of these giant locusts at the highly sophisticated Biosyn Tech company headquarters, where literally everything goes wrong including letting loose some Apex predators.

Dodgson’s greedy fascination with genetic engineering and dinosaurs sees him become a pathetic villain. Unfortunately, Campbell Scott is not a strong enough actor to play a convincing villain. For Jurassic World: Dominion, the producers needed a really charismatic actor to play the evil villain who is akin to Hugo Drax in Moonraker.

Before the entire world’s food supply gets threatened, Sattler realises that the mutation of the locusts need to be stopped before the general population is three meals away from anarchy.

The first half of Jurassic World: Dominion is really action packed particularly the chase sequence on Malta however the second half in the Dolomite Mountains is nothing original and is really the same group of characters being threatened by scary dinosaurs. The kids will love it!

DeWanda Wise is fantastic as the kickass aeroplane pilot for hire Kayla Watts and Mamoudou Athie is equally good as the only honest employee left at BioSyn. Audiences should look out for Dichen Lachman from the Animal Kingdom TV series as the ruthless henchwoman Santos.

Judging by how packed the cinema was, Jurassic World: Dominion is not a bad summer blockbuster film and gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

If audiences enjoyed the first two films, then they will love this one. The third installment has all the ingredients of an action packed exotic film filled with dinosaurs, fascinating side characters and sweeping shots of unbelievable locations from Malta to Texas to the Italian alps.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Director: J. A. Bayona

Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pratt, Rafe Spall, Jeff Goldblum, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Geraldine Chaplin, Ted Levine, BD Wong, Isabella Sermon, Justice Smith

Spanish director J. A. Bayona brings an impressive sense of Gothic Horror to the sequel to 2015’s Jurassic World, in the his latest film Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom which is both riveting and tantalizingly watchable without reverting completely into blockbuster CGI overload. Although that said, the volcanic sequence on Isla Nuba off the coast of Costa Rica is brilliantly staged.

Familiar cast members return including Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dering who teams up with macho dinosaur wrangler Owen Grady wonderfully played by Chris Pratt whose phenomenal career path as rocketed since his casting as Peter Quill aka Star-Lord in Marvel’s The Guardians of the Galaxy.

Rafe Spall (Life of Pi) plays the villainous Eli Mills assistant to the immensely wealthy Benjamin Lockwood, played by James Cromwell (The Queen). Audiences should look out for a stand out performance by Isabella Sermon as Lockwood’s tenacious granddaughter Maisie who has to eventually contend with some monsters in her own childhood bedroom.

Watching over young Maisie is her guardian Iris played by the daughter of silent screen star Charlie Chaplin, Geraldine Chaplin (The Impossible, The Wolfman, The Age of Innocence) whom it is so refreshing to see on the big screen again.

As the dinosaurs of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom are consequently rescued just as the volcano at Isla Nuba threatens to make these ancient creatures extinct, a new threat develops on the massive Lockwood country estate in Northern California whereby director J. A. Bayona skillfully uses all the traits of Gothic Horror to add a fascinating twist to a blockbuster sequel with enough suspense to keep audiences entertained while also emphasizing the perennial issue of endangered species, something which endangered wildlife are constantly at risk of becoming in the increasingly technological 21^st century.

Audiences that enjoyed the 2015 Jurassic World, will undoubtedly love this authentic and imaginative sequel.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and recommended for audiences that harbour an abiding fascination for dinosaurs.