Let’s be honest, there hasn’t been a great “Jurassic” movie since 1997. Once Steven Spielberg vacated the director’s chair after “The Lost World,” the quality began to dip almost immediately. Sure, other filmmakers like Joe Johnston and Colin Trevorrow have managed to wring some remaining magic out of the franchise, but we can all admit the words “new Jurassic movie” aren’t exactly synonymous with “cinematic masterpiece.”
And yet, we love these movies. Audiences continue to show up in droves to see them, and there’s no denying the thrill of watching a giant CGI dinosaur projected on the big screen. The bar is low. The upside is high. Enter: “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
From director Gareth Edwards (best known for making visually gorgeous but narratively jumbled sci-fi epics that come in impressively under budget), “Jurassic World Rebirth” is the franchise’s second major revival. With a star-studded cast and the promise of mutant dinosaurs, there’s the potential for greatness. And while “Rebirth” offers an exciting premise and some epic dino action, it’s also dragged down by an unnecessary side plot and some underwhelming special effects.
“Jurassic World Rebirth” begins five years after the previous film. Don’t worry, it’s fine if you can’t remember what happened in “Dominion,” as the events of that film are quickly swept aside. Dinosaurs had briefly roamed the Earth in a “Neo Jurassic” era, but they’re now confined to a few islands along the equator (we’re told that’s the only part of the planet still hospitable to these prehistoric creatures). Meanwhile, public interest in dinosaurs has dwindled. An aging brontosaurus that breaks loose from a New York zoo is seen as more of a nuisance than a spectacle, and ticket sales for museum exhibits are plummeting.
There’s an interesting parallel between the state of dinosaurs within this movie and the state of the “Jurassic” franchise in real life. Both are seemingly diminished, but still powerful. Both have potential, but the path forward is unclear. These are all smart ideas worth chewing on — “Jurassic World Rebirth” swiftly bypasses them in favor of dinosaur action.
Instead, the plot hinges on a pharmaceutical company that wants to harvest dinosaur blood to develop a lifesaving new heart medication (and make billions of dollars). To do so, a shady company representative (Rupert Friend) hires a mercenary (Scarlett Johansson) and a paleontologist (Jonathan Bailey) to lead the operation. Once they arrive at the equator, the team expands to include a ship captain (Mahershala Ali) and his extremely disposable crew. On their way to dinosaur island (it has a name, but you won’t remember it), the group also makes an unplanned pit stop to save a shipwrecked family, providing “Jurassic World Rebirth” with its requisite child actors (a tradition dating back to the original film).
A scene from “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
Of course, the mission quickly goes sideways. The ship crashes during a battle with some aquatic dinosaurs, and the surviving characters make their way to the island to complete the mission and rendezvous with a helicopter scheduled to save them the next evening. The family also gets separated from the rest of the crew, clumsily setting up a B-plot to break up the main dino-hunting action.
That B-plot drags the movie down in ways that make me wonder why nobody thought to cut it entirely. It’s as if “Jurassic World Rebirth” needed to satisfy a checklist (kids, cute baby dinosaur, T-rex scene, annoying boyfriend who becomes a hero, etc.) and decided the best option was to cram them all into a secondary plotline. None of it serves any purpose to the main story, and while it’s always entertaining to watch a Tyrannosaurus rex chase after puny humans, that’s not enough to validate the half-dozen other scenes we’re forced to sit through in an already bloated 2-hour-plus movie.
Thankfully, the main plotline is straightforward and thoroughly enjoyable. Our heroes charge across the island in search of the biggest dinosaurs they can find. This, unsurprisingly, leads to some dramatic set pieces, including one where they rappel down the side of a cliff to surprise a flying monster. These moments are dumb and fun in the best way possible, with the only drawback being some rough CGI that probably needed a bit more work. (Edwards notably made “Rebirth” for half the budget of the previous “Jurassic” movie, but perhaps he could have spent a bit more on those dinosaur effects.)
This also, unfortunately, applies to the movie’s final showdown between the reunited cast and a mutant dinosaur that was teased in the opening scene (and many of the trailers). The creature is all flailing arms and has an oversized, bulbous forehead, giving it an alien look that somewhat detracts from the original premise of “Jurassic Park.” Dinosaurs are scary enough on their own. Why do we need to turn them into body horror monsters?
“Jurassic World Rebirth” doesn’t offer a convincing answer, although its final fight for survival is still plenty entertaining.
Perhaps, like the dwindling interest for dinosaurs established in the movie’s opening scene, Hollywood is worried that audiences will eventually grow tired of the “Jurassic” franchise if they don’t introduce some new sci-fi twist.
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But if the last few movies are any indication, our real-world fascination with these creatures is as strong as ever. All the movies need to do is provide a big, dumb, blockbuster experience. The dinosaurs will do the rest.
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MoviesScarlett Johanssonjurassic parkjurassic worldjonathan bailey
