Jurassic World Rebirth
Good news, bad news. The good news is that Jurassic World Rebirth is better than the last couple Jurassic World movies where the franchise offered us the disappointing Dominion and dreadful Fallen Kingdom. The bad news is it's not all that much better. A far cry from the franchise's best, Jurassic World Rebirth struggles with what to keep and what to throw out in a formulaic adventure that is smart enough to make fun of the lagging interest in dinosaurs decades after the original Jurassic Park but not smart enough to offer anything new other than shoehorning in Black Widow. Still, for a summer popcorn movie with dinosaurs, you could do worse (as the franchise has proven).
The film most reminds the the mixed success of Jurassic Park III. We get a short scene with a T-Rex and an even shorter appearance from Velociraptors (blink and you will literally miss it) before moving on to other dinos, old and new. We get the obligatory dinosaur expert whose better in the field than he admits, the muscle, and the scummy businessman as you always need someone you are rooting for the dinosaurs to eat. And the film finds a way to get a kid on the island, although this time not one that shares an obsession with dinos (meaning we don't get the running commentary identifying and explaining the different dinosaurs).
Leaning into the horror vibe and embracing more water-based and flying dinosaurs than the other films, the film follows a boat of people to one of the lost InGen island facilities to get genetic samples not to sell on the black market, or to rebuild the franchise as dinosaurs seem to be dying out except in regions near the equator, but for the medical advancements that can be gleamed through their DNA. The latest in the franchise makes use of jump scares and weirdly mutated creatures which come off more like monsters than dinosaurs, but, in all but perhaps a single scene, anything resembling the wonder and majesty of the original film is notably missing.
The cast this time around includes Jonathan Bailey as our Alan Grant stand-in dino expert, Rupert Friend as the corporate stooge who who is putting up the money for the expedition, and Scarlett Johansson as the covert operative who puts together the team including Mahershala Ali, Bechir Sylvain, and Niamh Finlay. We also get a family (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, and Audrina Miranda) and the older daughter's idiot boyfriend (David Iacono) who the crew rescue on the way to the island facility who, like our other characters, spend most of the time running for their lives. There's plenty of running and screaming that is mildly diverting but Jurassic World Rebirth doesn't have much to say about dinosaurs or the franchise other than remarking how much better things were once upon a time.
Watch the trailer- Title: Jurassic World Rebirth
- IMDb: link
