Movie Review – Jurassic World: Rebirth
Principal Cast : Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Ruffo, Ed Skrein, David Iacono, Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda, Bechir Sylvain, Phillippine Velge.
Synopsis: Five years post-Jurassic World: Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.
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Proving that some things should be left buried, the latest instalment of the perennially unearthed Jurassic franchise is, sadly, one of the stupidest films I’ve seen in a very long time. Inexplicably laboured plotting from a usually reliable screenwriter in David Koepp, Jurassic World: Rebirth is bereft of intelligence or heart, but chock full of fingernail-shredding action setpieces that don’t just plagiarise Spielberg himself but the entire subgenre. Largely to blame are the character motivations and often risible acting, notably from the younger cast, despite the best efforts of A-listers like ScarJo and Mahershala Ali, the latter of whom is arguably the most compelling reason to watch this drivel, while Gareth Edwards’ direction is uneven and mired in genuinely horrifying creative decisions.
Plot synopsis courtesy Wikipedia: Set five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the film follows covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) as she leads a mission to an isolated equatorial region where the last surviving dinosaurs live, with the aim of extracting prehistoric DNA from the three most colossal creatures to aid in a potential medical breakthrough. Accompanying her are her trusted second-in-command Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and palaeontologist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), alongside corporate representative Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) and others, when their expedition becomes entwined with a civilian family — Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters (Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda), and his eldest daughter’s dickhead boyfriend (David Iacono) — stranded on the dinosaur-infested island after a boating accident. As they traverse the perilous terrain populated by diverse and dangerous prehistoric species, their efforts to secure the genetic material are complicated by survival challenges and unexpected discoveries about the island’s hidden past.
If there was ever proof that humanity is doomed, the fact that Rebirth snagged nearly a billion dollars at the box office while being one of the most egregious affronts to cinema in living memory is testament to just where we are as a species. Rebirth is woeful, a hodgepodge of dumb ideas, stupid characters and very poor decision-making both behind the camera and within the film itself, lacking the sense of awe and majesty of Spielberg’s original, or the crazy adventurous fun of Joe Johnston’s second sequel, or even the half-baked remixing done in the first Jurassic World. Filled with fatuous dialogue, inane character development and narrative wheel-spinning, even the occasionally thrilling action sequences can’t muster the innate cinematic magic of the franchise’s storied past; instead, the most asinine final-boss dinosaur ever committed to the screen — a “D-Rex”, a hybrid creature that looks like a rejected H R Giger Alien knock-off — brings this cumbersomely overplotted waste of money and time to an obnoxious climax.
No, I didn’t “have fun” with this one. From its dereliction of duty in making dinosaurs enjoyable, or scary, or even awe-inspiring, Rebirth is perhaps the franchise’s equivalent of afterbirth. Koepp’s screenplay has Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey fail to connect as central leads, romantic or otherwise, and wastes Mahershala Ali as a salty mercenary boat captain with a heart of gold. None of the characters here are unique or even interesting, although there’s plenty of them to loathe as they squirm, scream and slither through various dino-related dangers with the total brainpower of a fart in an elevator. Nobody — but nobody — makes a good decision anywhere within this movie, and the child characters especially are dreadfully written and directed. Poor Audrina Miranda has the acting chops of a ham sandwich, and Edwards can’t seem to coax a realistic or believable performance from her, while Luna Blaise’s role as single-minded sister Teresa is arguably the worst-written thing here. It would be one thing if these characters were predictable — they are — but they’re generally all characterised as awful people, or at least people you’d happily throw to the dinosaurs if it meant surviving. Exactly why we’re meant to care about any of these people isn’t clear, save for some barely coherent idea about stopping half the planet dying of heart disease — a noble ideal, perhaps, but a very thin motivator to propel this narrative.
Even the franchise’s long-time narrative subtext is lost. Whereas Jurassic Park functioned as an analogy for hubris and scientific control, a cautionary tale of greed and profit at the expense of ethics, Rebirth jettisons any relationship with underpinning ideas and shoehorns in endless action sequences where, in typical Hollywood fashion, if it can go wrong, it absolutely does. Not to mention the laws of physics are bent beyond recognition, with on-screen characters either unable to hear the monsters around them or possessing the worst peripheral vision imaginable. Again, the human characters here are seemingly oblivious to the many dangers around them, walking headlong into dino-danger after dino-danger and still managing to look shocked every time. Gareth Edwards tries to elevate suspense with some key audio cues, but fumbles how to make these creatures — most of which are mutated through scientific meddling, treated more as backdrop than subtext — scary at all. And the reveal of the D-Rex is astoundingly bad; I actually guffawed, as this vaguely misshapen tripod-esque figure comes into view, intended as terrifying but landing as laughably inept nonsense. I mean… just… why. An actual T-Rex shows up for one slow-motion river-escape sequence, propelled by a character’s absurdly risky attempt to salvage an inflatable raft, and when the dinosaur makes its first appearance I whooped — until Edwards turns the Spielbergian moment into an overly complex series of contrivances rather than character-based decisions.
A lot of what transpires in Jurassic World: Rebirth is driven by poor character decision-making, horrible luck and planning so shoddy it borders on parody. There’s almost no agency afforded to anyone to push back against the film’s strident insistence on peril at every moment, and Edwards’ failure to ensure any of the people we’re watching are worth the time investment represents a fundamental abandonment of blockbuster storytelling basics. It’s fine to make cool-looking dinosaurs with no basis in reality thanks “to science”, but if the last twenty-six years have taught us anything it’s that people don’t like watching digital pixels in place of human characters they can connect with. The dinosaur designs range from beautiful to enraging — maybe that’s the point — but they’re all violent scavengers, scraps of Michael Crichton’s original ideas stripped of the haunting beauty of the brachiosaur, the majestic heft of the diplodocus, or the cow-like grace of the stegosaurs in The Lost World. It’s as if Jurassic Park is slowly mutating into some bizarre Alien vs Resident Evil knock-off, such is the profound lack of care taken with this abysmal project.
Watching Jurassic World: Rebirth is like having a limb hacked off by a bear: painful, frenzied, and during which you kind of wish you could slip into blissful unconsciousness. There are few redeeming features, from its cluttered and useless ensemble cast (watch for Ed Skrein’s quick exit — at least he got out with some dignity intact) to the utter charmlessness of the dinosaurs themselves, not to mention the flimsy heart-disease catalyst that kicks the whole thing off. Scarlett Johansson looks bewildered by the character she’s asked to play, Jonathan Bailey is handsome but bland as butter, and Mahershala Ali almost deserves to have his Oscar taken away in disgrace, such is the malignancy of creative bankruptcy on display. I’d suggest you avoid it, but the near-billion-dollar global box office suggests I’m in the minority, more’s the pity. Rebirth is generic slop, and it’s hard not to wonder if the producers of this franchise might one day relearn Jurassic Park’s most valuable lesson — stopping to ask if they should.
Who wrote this?
