Jurassic World: Rebirth Review

Jurassic World: Rebirth

Universal Pictures

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Written by David Koepp

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Ed Skrein and Adam Loxley

Rated PG-13

Five years post-Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.

In 1990 I cracked open my hard cover edition of Michael Crichton’ Jurassic Park and fell in love with the world of that story, the characters he created and the ethical and moral conundrums presented in the plot. When Spielberg brought the story to the big screen, he added the final element that I needed to help me fall in love with Crichton’s story, a sense of wonder.

Sadly, the recent expansion of that world in the movies has diminished that wonder and the latest entry into the Jurassic World series has all but snuffed it out like a candle.

Regarding the story, there isn’t one. Dinosaurs are conveniently dying in populated areas and the only places they continue to thrive are in the waters and islands they were originally created at. The public has become numb to their presence (like the audience) and interest in them has waned. Martin Krebs (Friend) needs the blood of three specific large dinosaurs in order to create lifesaving medications because apparently none of the scientists who created these creatures have copies of their research stored anywhere else on the planet.

Krebs hires mercenary Zora Bennett (Johansson) to lead a team including (momentarily) reluctant scientist Dr. Loomis (Bailey) to infiltrate the research island to take samples from the animals there because reasons. At the same time, Reuben Delgado (Garcia-Rulfo) is sailing with his kids and his oldest daughter’s boyfriend in the waters dangerously close to where the dinosaurs live and hunt (because of course he is) when his ship is attacked and they are rescued by the mercenaries and forced to accompany them to the island.

He mercenaries and their passengers get trapped on the island and there are now mutant dinosaurs everywhere and while the special effects are clean, there is no awe, presence or sense of wonder with any of the creatures on the scene. Every moment where they tried to force that emotion on the audience fell flat and I felt as bored as the fictional public in the film who stopped caring about the reality of these creatures.

The movie devolves into predictable and eye rolling chase scenes with dubious logic and poor execution. Something I didn’t expect from Edwards who has wowed me with films like Godzilla and Rogue One in the past. Every character death was exhaustingly predictable and you never got a sense of the characters enough to miss them when they are gone. To make matters worse, the final creature in the film looked like a cross between the Rancor from Star Wars and the Cloverfield monster and not in a good way.

Jurassic World: Rebirth is a movie with no ideas, no charm, spark or ultimate purpose. It’s a wholly forgettable experience that puts the final nail in the coffin of a franchise that is as extinct as the creatures it features.