Popcorn blockbuster Jurassic World Dominion has been released on 4k Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and in digital formats from Universal Pictures with an extended edition that includes an additional 14 minutes of unseen footage.
It’s sort of a rare occasion to see a digital release on the same day as physical media. In this case, the theatrical version of Jurassic World Dominion was already available to rent or purchase digitally, but today that digital purchase gives you the option of watching the extended edition. The extended edition brings the film to 2 hours and 40 minutes (the theatrical is 2 hours and 26 minutes).
Directed by Colin Trevorrow and co-written by Trevorrow with Emily Carmichael, Jurassic World Dominion is the sequel to Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. The film is the third in the Jurassic World series, and the sixth in the Jurassic park franchise based on the novel by Michael Creighton.
How does the story hold up? ‘Dominion’ looks great on the big screen while munching on some snacks but delivers a lackluster and almost laughable script that makes you wonder how this boat can hold any water.
But it does, especially for long-time fans of the franchise, by inserting characters from Jurassic World’s past including Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum. This strategy has worked for other franchises including Ghostbusters and Star Wars, and the way the characters were inserted into Dominion works fairly well (although, you have to wonder how Golblum’s character Dr. Ian Malcolm started working for an obviously evil company such as Biosyn — come on, the name has the word “sin” in it!).
What’s more, or less, the story jumps to different locations and parts of the world seemingly just to introduce new characters and action scenes. For example, the underground market scene where key characters all somehow end up at the same time just seems unrealistic. In another storyline, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) who parachute-crashes into the jungle without a map or GPS somehow escapes certain death-by-dinosaur and ends up at a Jurassic Park control center the same time as the rest of the main cast.
Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), whose role in the story just starts to become defined, suddenly disappears from the scenes but reappears after the climax. The main villain Dr. Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) just seems ridiculously relentless and is even more annoying watching the second time around at home.
Nevertheless, Jurassic World Dominion is a fun film and if past Jurassic World and Jurassic Park movies serve as indicators ‘Dominion’ should be a great home theater experience. Let’s get right to the video, audio, And extended footage which is certainly a value add.
Video
Jurassic World Dominion on 4k Blu-ray is presented in 2160p at 2.00:1 aspect ratio with Dolby Vision and HDR10 High Dynamic Range. The aspect ratio is quite a bit more square than other fantasy films, but this is no doubt to allow more vertical space for the height of the dinosaurs.
The video really jumped around in terms of bitrates. At times the bits measured in the 30s (especially in darker scenes) but in other scenes (notably during daylight), we saw peaks at around 80Mbps. But on average in daytime scenes, the video stayed in the high 40s and lower 50s.
Without doing any screen adjustments the video is sort of flat out of the can without much contrast, although the mid-tone range appeared to have a good amount of color depth. This is what we experienced viewing the film in cinema mode with Dolby Vision HDR turned on.
The imagery is sharp for the most part. Dinosaurs look realistic as digital creations but man, some shots where the T-Rex head is actual size and filmed live-action look really dated.
The one thing we should note is the movie is stored on a 100GB UHD BD. That means with the two versions (theatrical + extended) being presented on the same 4k Blu-ray Disc, Jurassic World Dominion (an already long movie) was compressed down to fit 306 minutes in under 100GBs. That’s quite a bit of compression for 4k material and it really shows in the lower bitrates and flat imagery.
Audio
The English audio for Jurassic World Dominion is provided in DTS-X along with French and Spanish in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 Subtitles are provided in English SDH, French, and Spanish.
The sound could be the best technical aspect of the 4k Blu-ray and Blu-ray presentations. The sound production designers have almost perfected the dinosaur thing at this point. Your subwoofers will roar starting at about 2 minutes and 30 seconds when two T-Rexs interrupt the seemingly “peaceful” moment in dinosaur land.
There is some good sound effect audio at 1 hour and 30 minutes when Claire parachutes into the jungle and a Therizinosaurus passes by her. The audio effects really make use of multiple speakers to create an immersive experience.
The scene at about 1 hour and 8 minutes when Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are being chased through the city has got some fun surround-sound audio.
One of the best audio moments is on the frozen lake where the Mosasaurus is hunting Owen and Kayla. Cracking ice always sounds good with surround speakers.
Bonus Features
Bonus features include Battle at Big Rock – A Jurassic World Short Film, A New Breed of VFX, Dinosaurs Among Us: Inside Jurassic World Dominion – an in-depth 45+ minute look at the making of the film.
Extended Edition
We first thought the extended edition would be accessible as an extra (as where you find it with the digital version) but it’s accessible when you click Play Movie on the main Home screen of the disc. The version adds 14 minutes to make the movie a total of 160 minutes long.
Summary
Where this film wins: It’s fun to see the old characters brought back to the Jurassic franchise, it’s got giant flaming grasshoppers, very good sound design, immersive effects including some overhead, and some really deep low frequencies that hit your subwoofers. Where this film loses: Rehashed action sequences that we have seen so many times before (it seems like dinosaurs are thrown in wherever the writers needed some energy in the script – which is not unlike other Jurassic films), 306 minutes (two versions of the film) compressed onto a 100GB can have some consequences in quality, and, a video image that at times looks very flat.
Scores
Movie
3/5
Video
4/5
Audio
5/5
Bonus Features
5/5 (you get 14 more minutes!)
