Jurassic World Rebirth Review

After a three-year break, the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise has rebirthed itself with a soft reboot, with old and new franchise DNA for a standalone adventure.

The dinosaurs are dying out, unable to survive in a modern climate. The few that are alive survive on small islands across the equator, and they have been made into no-travel zones. Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is a mercenary who’s hired by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), on behalf of a pharmaceutical company that believes DNA from the biggest creatures to have ever lived could cure heart disease. Zora forms a small team to go to Île Saint-Hubert in the Atlantic Ocean and collect the samples.

The Jurassic Park franchise has been a lucrative one for Universal. The first film was a colossal hit and considered one of the most important blockbusters of the ‘90s because of its groundbreaking special effects. All the films have been profitable. All three films in the Jurassic World trilogy broke the billion-dollar barrier despite the mixed reputation they all received. Despite Jurassic World Rebirth being set in a world where people were no longer interested in dinosaurs, audiences have proven they’re still interested in prehistoric beasts, as exhibited by the early box office numbers.

Jurassic Park Rebirth acted as a new jumping-off point. The plot developments made in Fallen Kingdom and Dominion were reset, with dinosaurs unable to live amongst humans, and a new cast of characters led this rebirth. The only references to the previous films were that Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) studied under Alan Grant, and the InGen facility on Île Saint-Hubert was used to create dinosaur hybrids, linking to the events of the first Jurassic World movie. The story of Rebirth was a back-to-basics affair since it was about a team of mercenaries on a clandestine mission and a family trying to survive on the island.

There were some attempts to give the film some meaning with Henry being an idealist who wanted to preserve the dinosaurs and believed the potential cure should be open source, whilst Krebs represented a money-hungry conglomerate. There was arguably a bit of Aliens in Rebirth since soldiers and civilians were being used as pawns for corporate interests. For a series that criticised corporate greed, it was funny with the amount of Mars Inc. product placement in Rebirth. A Snickers wrapper played an important role in the prologue.

Universal brought back David Koepp, the screenwriter of the first two Jurassic Park movies, and had Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla (2014), Rogue One) direct. This sounded like a great team-up since Koepp has written many successful Hollywood films, and Edwards has proven he can handle visual effects-heavy films. However, there were warning signs during development since Universal initially approached David Leitch to direct, which seemed like an odd choice because Leitch has made action films that relied on stunt work and fight choreography instead of VFX, and he rejected the offer because of the short development time. Edwards probably agreed to Rebirth as a gun-for-hire director, having a big hit under his belt, and to show he can work with studios, considering the rumours regarding his time with the Star Wars franchise being a negative experience.

Rebirth did have top-tier visual effects and some decent monster action that anyone watching a Jurassic Park film would expect. Technically, it was well done, but it did rely on the same trick where a person didn’t know a deadly creature was behind them until it was too late. The people who were killed were obvious since they barely had any characterisation. Edwards can do spectacle and grandeur well, and one of the best moments in film was when he was replicating Steven Spielberg’s sense of wonder when the characters got close to some peaceful dinosaurs. It was helped by Henry’s excitement since he was a palaeontologist who got to interact with dinosaurs. The opening sequence was intense and felt similar to the nuclear meltdown opening in Edwards’ Godzilla movie.

The characters in the film were bare bones. Rebirth had some talented cast with the likes of Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Friend, but they didn’t have much to work with. They had basic traits, like Zora not being as money-oriented as she appears, and Ali’s Duncan having empathy for civilians. For many of the actors, Rebirth seemed like a pay cheque to them.

Rebirth was a film that felt like it was made as a business decision rather than any creative desire. It was too safe and risk-averse for its own good, resulting in a bland blockbuster offering.