Jurassic World: Rebirth's script is too unfocused and buried in the franchise's earlier successes to give the franchise new life.
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At this point the Jurassic Park movies are starting to feel like the Jaws franchise. Rapidly diminishing returns from a groundbreaking blockbuster movie directed by Steven Spielberg. At the same time, familiar ideas are still making big bucks, actors like Scarjo and Mahershala Ali aren't making Marvel paychecks and will happily jump to another blockbuster franchise, and we'll bring in a guy whose made some monster movies in the past (Gareth Edwards) to see if we can bring these dinos back to box office life. Sadly the movie they made isn't a bold new step for the franchise, it's a shallow rehash of all the franchise's best moments.
The Setup
Set years after Jurassic World: Dominion, the freed dinosaurs from Jurassic World have started to die off due to an inhospitable climate, with the lion's share of living dinos living around the equator. Which is why pharma company ParkerGenix wants to task Zora Bennett (ScarJo) and paleontologist Henry Loomis to get samples from living dinosaurs to develop new, ground-breaking treatments for life-threatening diseases. But the simple snatch and grab job quickly goes off the rails as the expedition discovers that the dinos they're tracking aren't the same dinosaurs that used to walk the earth. They're brand new genetically modified monstrosities.
I'll describe Jurassic World: Rebirth as a bad movie that's a good time. I'll get into the bad in a bit, but the good time elements are the cast and a number of fun ideas and scenes. Scarlett Johansson is a great place to start. Johansson has been unfairly maligned as either the token woman, sex appeal or even a non-factor in her blockbuster projects (i.e. even in her solo Black Widow movie most of the discussion was around Florence Pugh).
None of that is really a reflection of Johansson's actual talents as indicated by honestly one of her most complete performances in a big budget movie to date. Zora Bennett is one of the few characters in the franchise that comes with baggage where she's clearly reeling from a number of personal tragedies and been hoping to use money and work to escape (she more or less says as much). She's also slyly funny, hyper-competent in a way that's appropriate and operates as the group leader without anyone questioning it.
Mahershala Ali also gives plenty of pathos to his captain and ScarJo's closest contact, Rupert Friend is a perfect business ghoul and Jonathan Bailey (in spite of an American accent that doesn't have the cadance down) gets a number of highlight reel lines.
Mahershala Ali also gives plenty of pathos to his captain and ScarJo's closest contact, Rupert Friend is a perfect business ghoul and Jonathan Bailey (in spite of an American accent that doesn't have the cadance down) gets a number of highlight reel lines.
There's also a number of excellent scenes including an excellent extraction attempt on open water with some great ideas about science being for everyone peppered in. So now we have to get to the trash.
Can We Come Up With New Things To Do Please?
One of the reasons the extraction on open water stands out so much, is that it is one of the few unique setups and scenes Rebirth has to offer. Because everything else is a retread of not just other movies, but Jurassic Park/World movies. Genetically-altered dinos? That's something we did in Jurassic World and promptly abandoned. A moving scene involving one of the nice herbivore dinosaurs? I think we've done that three times now. Even the use/reuse of red light to highlight the danger of the new big bad dino the (sigh) D-Rex, is a callback to Ian Malcolm that was already called back slightly differently in Dominion.
One of the biggest frustrations I have with modern blockbusters like this is so many of them are just recreating old scenes from better movies as a reference or nod to the original material because they know people will recognize it and like it.
But this is how art and creativity stagnates. If you insist on having a T. Rex or something like it chase our heroes, we won't be thinking about your movie or what it means for these characters. We'll be thinking about the original movie and probably start remembering why we like it so much more. The best ideas in this franchise have always involved expanding its world or using the premise to explore new ideas without this added meta-textual weight.
As an example. The starting premise for this movie feels like a regression to the accepted norm. Instead of being integrated into our wildlife and society, dinos can't survive anywhere except...basically where Jurassic World was before. Screw all of that "Dinos and humans having to learn to coexist because we brought them back" ideas or even using this to truly say something about the state of our climate and world. We gotta go back. Just like Alan Grant did in Jurassic Park III. Just throwing out new ideas to reintroduce ideas that have already been explored. Which also leaves a burning question
What's This Story About?
A big reason why Jurassic Park is so successful is that almost everything that happens on screen reinforces themes and character growth. We learn that life does indeed find a way, that humanity's hubris at controlling nature will always leave us vulnerable and Alan Grant softens on kids by protecting John Hammond's niece and nephew and using his dinosaur knowledge to bond with them.
Rebirth introduces a lot of ideas it seems to pick them up an abandon them whenever it's convenient.
Rebirth introduces a lot of ideas it seems to pick them up an abandon them whenever it's convenient.
A great example is a little girl that befriends a baby triceratops. Now by movie logic the triceratops should either be integral to the plot (i.e. this friendship will prove helpful in some way) or one of the story's themes.
It does neither. This is just a cute little dino that's here so we can have a cute little dino and probably sell toys to kids. It doesn't prove anything about dinosaurs or humans. There's no callback where this kindness is rewarded. It's just there. And the girl is only here because her family are constantly fending off dino attacks while our famous actors are bonding over having PTSD.
The entire script really feels stitched together from a bunch of other scripts without a cohesive tone. So there's a lot of good individual moments (i.e. ScarJo and Mahershala Ali acting their asses off and they talk about their traumas) that immediately transition to a chase that doesn't contribute anything but an action beat to the story.
And without a strong central idea or story (the idea here is a premise not a theme) all of the other cracks become more obvious.
For instance, Jonathan Bailey's accent. Bailey is a talented actor, accents are hard, Americans often suck at British ones, and I genuinely love aspects of his character. He's one of the few men in movies like this that simply acts impressed by a hyper-competent woman and seems bemused by ScarJo lightly taking him to task for casual sexism. He demonstrates a lot of bravery without feeling a need to be violent, is unapologetically nerdy and does a great job as the movie's moral compass.
So why would you ask Bailey, a British man who's playing your academic, to put on an American accent? You know, the accent Americans all associate with stuffy, haven't ever been in the world academics?
Honestly, I think he has that accent because of a throwaway line where he says he was taught by Alan Grant, so we need to make him an American. Just like non-white family who all look and sound Latino start off in a boat bearing the American flag. In the middle of the ocean near Costa Rica presumably? It's getting more messed up the more I think about it.
The beauty of a fun blockbuster movie is that the flaws are far less obvious as you're watching the movie. You get caught up in the fun so the logical inconsistencies or problematic elements fall away until you rewatch it and it can become part of the fun.
So why would you ask Bailey, a British man who's playing your academic, to put on an American accent? You know, the accent Americans all associate with stuffy, haven't ever been in the world academics?
Honestly, I think he has that accent because of a throwaway line where he says he was taught by Alan Grant, so we need to make him an American. Just like non-white family who all look and sound Latino start off in a boat bearing the American flag. In the middle of the ocean near Costa Rica presumably? It's getting more messed up the more I think about it.
The beauty of a fun blockbuster movie is that the flaws are far less obvious as you're watching the movie. You get caught up in the fun so the logical inconsistencies or problematic elements fall away until you rewatch it and it can become part of the fun.
But with a bad blockbuster like Rebirth the lack of a cohesive experience means the flaws are obvious as you're watching the movie.
The Verdict: An Unwelcome Mutation
While the talented cast give their all, Jurassic World: Rebirth''s script is too unfocused and buried in the franchise's earlier successes to give the franchise new life. 4/10
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