The raptor chase in Jurassic World: Dominion is a creative high point in a bad movie.
Listen at the podcast providers of your choice.
Of the Chris Pratt, Jurassic World movies, Dominion is definitely the weakest. It lacks the same level of spectacle as the original Jurassic World, the stronger thematic focus of Fallen Kingdom, and also commits a cardinal sin by bringing back Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neil and Laura Dern and wasting their charms on a script that feels like both a retread of Jurassic Park yet again and also two completely different movies slamming awkward into each other.
I say all of that to say that when I tell you that the raptor chase sequence through Malta is one of the best things the franchise has ever put together, it's not because I have affection for the movie. It's because this is the kind of genre hybrids they should've been doing the whole time. So today I'm going to dig into this scene and explain how/why it works so well.
The Scene
Looking to save their adopted daughter Maisie, Chris Pratt's Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Dearing travel to Malta where the black market dinosaur trade is thriving. But just as a multi-tier intelligence takedown is set to arrest the woman who trafficked Maisie, Sonya Santos, Santos sics a collection of velociraptors trained as assassins to kill them. Thus begins a feverish chase through the streets of Malta as Owen and Claire try to evade the raptors and get the information they need about Maisie.
One of the most frustrating things about the Jurassic Park sequels is the apparent fear of doing something different. There's still a lot of fun elements in these movies, but almost all of the movies boil down to the plot of "humans in their great hubris create or try to exploit dinos, dinos make them pay for said hubris."
Which brings me to this scene because this. This is different. This isn't a dinosaur stomping through a park or taking out rich people trying to exploit them. It's dinosaurs being weaponized against our heroes. And not only that, it's also a re-integration and payoff to something the franchise has been priming for the last two movies.
Which brings me to this scene because this. This is different. This isn't a dinosaur stomping through a park or taking out rich people trying to exploit them. It's dinosaurs being weaponized against our heroes. And not only that, it's also a re-integration and payoff to something the franchise has been priming for the last two movies.
So let's talk about that first.
How We Got Here
There's something darkly ironic about Owen and Claire being on the wrong end of these attack raptors. For Claire, this is yet another example of her work on Jurassic World threatening her life. The company she worked and made handsome profits for, not only made this possible, a man who later owned the company sold these raptors off in the last movie and even had to fend one off with Owen and Blue.
For Owen it's even worse. Because while Claire may not have been told about an attack raptor program, Owen was told specifically that his work was a proof of concept for raptors that could carry out targeted assassinations. And even killing one of them and freeing the dinosaurs in the last movie, didn't change that outcome. These animals that he has immense respect for (both in feature and as living creatures) are now being exploited to try and kill him and the woman he loves. But that's a small layer of thematic resonance that gives the scene extra heft. Let's get to the good stuff.
The Pre-Chase
Chase scenes are a bit different than your standard action scenes. Because while many of the best fight scenes feature a ton of build-up that brings the tension to a boil before giving us the violent catharsis, chase scenes can inhabit a survival or desperate mentality that's reinforced by the action on screen. This is why so many of the best chase scenes feel reactive and improvisational whether it's Mad Max and company fending off molotov cocktail wielding spike bike guys or Jason Bourne running down a fellow assassin (more on this later).
In Dominion the raptor chase is an inversion of the ongoing action beat. Owen and Claire have been working with Owen's old friend Barry to track down dino poachers who kidnapped Maisie with Owen successfully chasing down a James Bond henchman reject named Rainn Delacourt (who gets et by dinos) while Claire has targeted Santos demanding answers about Maisie. Only for both Owen and Claire to start running for their lives when Santos hits "fuck it" territory and targets everyone one chasing her for raptor death.
Raptors that we know have been here due to some not so casual exposition dumps and insert shorts of their carrying cages falling over.
So now Claire and Owen have to sync back up and escape Malta before these unleashed raptors kill them both.
It's a great switch-up.
It's a great switch-up.
The Chase
One of the most frustrating parts about the Jurassic World movies is how they've been rehashing ideas from the original films over and over again. Dominion isn't an exception either. We have Ian Malcolm distracting a T. Rex like monster with a torch again. And our business villain is killed by a pack of the same acid spitting dinos that killed Wayne Knight in the first one.
So how did they create something so fun in the midst of all of this? They recreated another movie's chase with dinosaurs. And I mean that as a compliment.
So how did they create something so fun in the midst of all of this? They recreated another movie's chase with dinosaurs. And I mean that as a compliment.
The inspiration for this scene, in terms of setup, look and feel is the Tangier chase from The Bourne Ultimatum. For a quick refresher, the progression of that scene is that Bourne is tracking an assassin tasked with killing an important contact, the assassin tricks Bourne and kills the target, and then Bourne has to rush to meet up with his ally Nicky Parsons before the assassin can reach and kill her. Which takes Bourne, Nicky and the assassin named Desh over the roofs, through the streets, in between the close-quarters residences of Tangiers.
And Dominion took that and made Desh a velociraptor. Which is exactly the kind of delicious hybrid I want to see from a movie where dinos are real. The opening segment with Claire running for her life with a raptor right behind her works really well, not just because of the life or death drama but because she's just a touch more agile and much slower than the raptors pursuing her. She can stop and start a lot easier because she's not going as fast, whereas the raptor constantly hits things like walls or barriers.
Also recreating one of Ultimatum's best shots, Bourne jumping off a ledge and through a window, not once, by twice in a row with Claire slightly missing the jump and the raptor over-shooting it, is the same kind of influence blending you'd see critics give Tarantino all the roses for.
And that's only the first segment.
After Claire's initial foot race with the raptor, the chase turns into a two tier affair with Owen and Claire doing their best to escape the raptors in vehicles, with Claire finding a new ally, a pilot named Kayla Watts and Owen doing an inverse of the original Jurassic World poster image riding a motorcycle through the streets with two raptors chasing him.
The name of the game here is desperation since neither Claire or Owen have big weapons at their disposal and have to rely on quick-thinking, maneuverability and the environment to their advantage.
The name of the game here is desperation since neither Claire or Owen have big weapons at their disposal and have to rely on quick-thinking, maneuverability and the environment to their advantage.
This is also where the close quarters of the city works so well because none of our heroes can get that much distance between themselves and the attack raptors. And there's more than one, so even if they're able to shake one, another one is primed and ready to come charging in.
Every dodge feels like a surprise and every countermove against these raptors feels like a last second save whether it's Owen spotting a raptor attack from above at just the right moment or Claire making a makeshift clothesline with a pipe to take one out. This is also...exactly how Jason Bourne escapes multiple government agents throughout that franchise and it works just as well here because raptors.
And finally...we have a solid emotional reason for all of this.
Survive to Save
An underrated aspect of chase scenes or "survival scenes" like this is when the people trying to survive have a secondary goal. In Mission Impossible: Fallout for instance, Ethan Hunt isn't just trying to catch up to Henry Cavill's helicopter to stop him personally, he also needs the bomb switch Cavill has on board.
In this case, the underlying motivation isn't surviving the raptors, it's getting to Maisie, who was kidnapped by these poachers and black market dealers.
That added emotional heft means every attack on Claire and Owen is a threat to Maisie's safety as well, especially because our couple need to get information about Maisie's whereabouts, from the woman who just sent raptors to kill them.
Conclusion: A Bright Spot
There's a lot of reasons this scene stands out, whether it's the inherent tension, the surprising setup or the emotional motivation. But the biggest reason this scene shines so brightly is because it's something different. Something new and exciting to do with dinosaurs on screen that both makes great use of the technology available and fits incredibly well into the movie's plot, themes and characters. Shame the rest of the movie can't live up to it.
No comments:
Post a Comment