Jurassic World: Dominion – 4K Blu-ray Review
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Universal Studios | 2022
PG13 | 2 hrs 27 min | 2 hrs 41 min-extended | Sci-Fi | Action | Fantasy | Adventure
HD | 1080P |DTS-X | DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Native 4K | 2160P | Dolby Vision | HDR10 | DTS-X | DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Aspect Ratio 2.00:1
Staring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise
Directed by: Colin Trevorrow
Ratings & Reviews
Please see here for my comments on reviewing movies.
My ratings are simple being marked out of a maximum of 5+. My reviews are biased towards the technical production aspects of the film with brief comments about the story line. Extras, sorry, that’s just not my ‘bag’.
So what did the HDR10 video look like? Reference quality in most respects, and the 7.1 soundtrack? Also reference.
Entertainment: 4+
Video: 5-
Audio: 5
Technical Review – Native 4K UHD HDR10 (The Extended Cut)
Jurassic World: Dominion was shot by cinematographer John Schwartzman on both 35 mm and 65 mm chemical film and also digitally in the 8K Redcode RAW format using a variety of Arriflex, VistaVision, and Panavision cameras and lenses. It was finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate at the 2.00:1 aspect ratio and graded for HDR for this 4K release in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. Its large format cinematography mixed with digital sources produces a uniform light to medium organic grain with no signs of swarming, clumping or grain management, creating an attractive filmic quality that videophiles are sure to appreciate. This triple-layer BD100 disc has been well authored and shows no excessive use of noise reduction or edge sharpening and no obvious compression artifacts. The package also contains the HD version with DTS-X and a redeemable digital code.
Image brightness is good varying between the bright sunlit town of Veleta and the labs corridors to the dark recesses of the caves, tunnels and forests at night. Image sharpness is generally excellent but varies between very sharp and clear, from the wide and tight shots of Valetta, Malta showing the cities stone architecture, the bright Biosyn lab corridors and its sanctuaries surrounding foliage, to the slightly softer shots in the forests and jungle due to the various digital atmospherics effects like haze, dust, humidity and fog.
Clothing, threads and facial close-ups reveal excellent detail and definition with natural skin tones and accurate rendition of pores, eyelashes, hair strands, freckles, beads of sweat, blood and features, all without any undue exaggerations. With good supporting textures from stone and brick walls, cracks, crevices and street imperfections, to the foliage, wheat fields, locust swarms and CGI detail. The extensive CGI, green screen and special effects integration are generally good throughout, blending well with the live action elements, rarely looking unduly soft and going unnoticed for much of the time, despite their obvious implausibility.
While the movie presented with a slightly restrained contrast balance it still maintained deep inky blacks throughout that were noise and crush free. Showing excellent low level and shadow detail as found in the forests, caves, tunnels, the black market and night scenes. Peak whites and specular highlights, which occasionally border on being eye reactive, provided clean detail with no significant clipping, from the street lights, brilliant lit lab corridors, small particles of debris, the suns glow as it bounces of ice, snow and buildings to the light sheen of various metallic surfaces. All providing a good dynamic contrast range and enhancing visibility of objects in both interior and exterior shots.
Although the color palette is a little subdued on occasions resulting in a ‘grayish’ feel to the action, colors show good fidelity, with well saturated primaries and secondaries with hues that are pleasingly accurate favoring warmer tones. From Owens red jacket squares, the red, blue and white Biosyn lab corridors, the brilliant colors of the Dilophosaurus and Pyroraptor dinosaurs, the lush creams, browns, and grays of the city of Valetta stonework, the greens of the forests and jungle foliage to the deep golden yellows, amber hues and fiery oranges that accompany the action.
Overall this is a very good image from Universal just making it to reference quality.
Audio – DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (The Extended Cut)
Universal brings Jurassic World: Dominion to 4K Blu-ray with a DTS:X lossless soundtrack that defaults to a roaring reference DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 in my system. I found the soundtrack highly engaging with an overall sound presentation that is very dynamic, with excellent sub involvement and action from all surrounds. The soundstage is solid and wide, and surrounds are constantly active with ambience, directional cues and movement, from the swarming giant locusts to the gentle rustling of leaves.
Effects placement are accurate and natural, with lots of movement in both the rear and side surrounds together with the various acoustic effects consistently pulling you into cavernous locals and indoor and outside environments. There is excellent movement from the rain, insect calls, rumble and chatter of dinosaurs and flying debris. From the quiet of Owens cabin and Biosyn’s lush habitat, chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves in trees, insect calls and cargo plane interior noises, to the zipping bullets, shouts, screams and roars all bringing the surrounds to life helping to pull the listener further into the scene and keeping you engaged at all times.
Sub action is excellent, providing a solid bottom end with plenty of slam, punch and depth. Certainly making itself felt during all of the action sequences providing an impressive, robust, authoritative low-end delivering a tremendously palpable, wall-rattling weight to the action with every dino step, stomp or bellow, occasionally digging into the infra depths below 10Hz. All having good punch and muscle from the street attack and chase in Valetta, to the later climatic Biosyn sanctuary and lab engagements. Imaging continuously feels broad and expansive as action moves on and off-screen. Dialogue is always crystal clear and well detailed with solid front-center imaging and prioritization, even during the very intense sonic moments with the mid-range continually providing excellent clarity and detail no matter how loud and aggressive the action.
Complementing the movie throughout its entire length, the films score composed by Michael Giacchino really flushes out the soundscape, drawing extensively on several iconic themes by John Williams. Hitting a good balance between the dialogue and effects the soundtrack envelopes the whole listening environment with occasional light spill into the surrounds and effortless integration within the soundstage.
A truly thrilling sonic ride, creating a reference audio experience.
Story Overview
Four years on and after surviving the destruction of Isla Nubar, the release of its rescued dinosaurs in North America from Lockwood’s black market auction and the conspiracy at the Lockwood estate. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Deering (Bryce Dallas Howard) are now living in Northern California trying to keep their cloned daughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) hidden from those wishing to exploit her cloning. As luck would have it Blue, the raptor that Owen trained, turns up with her offspring – later named Beta, at Owens cabin. Maisie and Beta are kidnapped by poachers, so Owen and Claire, seeking help from old friends set out to find them. Meanwhile the worlds crops are being eaten by a plague of genetically-altered locusts, which are suspected to have been released by Biosyn, the world-leading genomics corporation that is owned by Lewis Dodgson (Campbell Scott) and where their old friend Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) now works as a consultant. Owen and Claire are invited to the Dodgson dinosaur sanctuary and Biosyn Lab where they meet up with Maisie and Blue and try to escape. After discovering that Dodgson is trying to cause world chaos and allowing dinosaurs to run rampant, all parties must now join forces to save humanity and not become a meal.
My 2 cents
Even though this is a long movie, especially if you watch the extended version, which you should, I found Jurassic World: Dominion entertaining throughout. It is supposed to serve as the finale to the Jurassic series bringing all the characters together, which it eventually manages to do, leaving little time for any character interaction. That being said the movie provides plenty of franchise callbacks, great looking dinosaurs and the extended version adds an expansive opening sequence from 65 million years ago together with various others snippets that provide a little more insight into the various characters.
Despite the lack of character development and interaction and the movies slightly restrained contrast and palette, the visual spectacle takes precedence over the storytelling, managing to just hit reference and being thoroughly bolstered by stellar reference audio. If this really is the Jurassic series finale it was quite a fitting end and despite it being a lot of nostalgic popcorn escapism and CGI it should be thoroughly enjoyed by all.
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