If anyone has the power to get me to watch a dinosaur movie also featuring Chris Pratt (Hollywood’s least likable Chris), it’s Laura Dern. In the first trailer for Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion, Dern reprises her iconic role of Dr. Ellie Sattler from the original series of films.
Dominion is the third and final chapter of the Pratt-led Jurassic World trilogy, as well as the sixth film in the overall Jurassic Park franchise. It begins four years after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, at the end of which Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm ushers in a neo-Jurassic age marked by the coexistence of humans and genetically engineered dinosaurs. Based on the new trailer, that coexistence does not seem to be going very smoothly.
The three-minute preview shows the fearsome monsters running free through the snowy wilderness, scaling buildings in a European town square, and terrorizing patrons at a drive-in movie. In one scene, Pratt’s Owen Grady appears to challenge a dinosaur to a knife fight. “We’ve created an ecological disaster,” says Bryce Dallas Howard (playing dinosaur rights activist Claire Dearing) as a gigantic, scaled beast emerges from the ocean to snatch a fishing boat in its jaws.
The highlight of the trailer, however, is the sweet reunion between Jurassic Park stars Dern and Sam Neill, who plays paleontologist Alan Grant. “You didn’t come out all this way just to catch up, now, did you?” Neill’s Grant asks. Dern, who, by the way, is sporting a phenomenal spray tan, mysteriously replies, “You coming or what?”
It’s up to these former partners to help the Jurassic World crew wrangle the dinosaurs and save the world, and according to Dr. Malcolm, the stakes have never been higher. “We’re racing toward the extinction of our species,” he warns in the trailer.
In addition to Pratt, Goldblum, and Howard, series cast members Daniella Pineda, Justice Smith, and Omar Sy are back for the final installment. BD Wong, who played Dr. Henry Wu in the Jurassic Park trilogy, is also joining his former co-stars. New to the adventure is DeWanda Wise, appearing in a lead role opposite Pratt.
After filming during the pandemic and suffering delays, Jurassic World Dominion is finally set to hit theaters on June 10.
