Dinosaurs now live — and hunt — alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures.

With promising groundwork to set up what could’ve been an exciting conclusion to the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World Dominion instead does little with the potential its given and messes up almost every chance it gets to deliver. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are solid action stars but their characters get no development besides looking cool and facing off against dinosaurs. Speaking of the dinosaurs, they themselves barely feel like characters in the story anymore, and the two leads are no longer seen exercising their heroic compassion towards the creatures which felt out of character for them. The conflicts with the dinosaurs feel so rushed and hard to be invested in because the proper explanation and stakes simply aren’t there. A genetic engineering storyline takes up a lot of the film’s screen time, as well as Campbell Scott’s lackluster performance, which is a bummer considering the ideas about whether humans and dinosaurs can coexist go undeveloped as a result. The film spends a lot of time with uninteresting supporting characters, whether bad actors like Scott Haze and Justice Smith or good actors like Omar Sy who simply don’t contribute anything. DeWanda Wise and Mamoudou Athie are great as far as the newcomers go, but the original trio from Jurassic Park add a lot to the movie. Laura Dern gives the movie lots of grace and empathy, and Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum are charismatic, with Goldblum bringing his lovable and hilarious chops as always.

Because there’s no proper motives or conflict in the storytelling, the journey and stakes are too boring and confusing to feel invested in. The writer and director don’t trust enough in the audience and put in a 2-minute exposition sequence at the beginning instead of bringing in ideas through visual storytelling. There’s also loads of plot armor that results in predictability because characters can get away from any danger depending on their importance to the story. Despite the franchise being beloved, the concepts being wondrous and the action being gigantic, this movie doesn’t feel thrilling or even sensical. Although I was looking forward to seeing how the trilogy would resolve and conclude, I felt no excitement during this movie unless it was seeing the two generations of the franchise’s stars interact with each other. Not to mention the CGI dinosaurs help expand the scale but no longer feel consequential or visually stunning the way the practical dinosaurs first did all the way back in 1993.