Title: Jurassic World Rebirth
Describe This Movie Using One Simpsons Quote:
LISA: He said it was just a name!
PRISONER: What he meant is that Monster Island is actually a peninsula!
Brief Plot Synopsis: Mahershala, Jon, and Scarlett, on a routine expedition.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 2 Social Distortions out of 5.
Tagline: “A new era is born.”
Better Tagline: “As long as these things keep making a billion dollars, we’ll keep churning ’em out.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: There’s gold in them thar dinosaurs! Okay, not gold, but something called “paleodioxin,” a compound that could spell the end of heart disease in humans (just go with it). Problem is, it can only be obtained by extracting hemoglobin from the largest dinosaurs. The good news is, 21st century Earth is mostly inhospitable to the recently cloned dinos, and they’re largely retreated to equatorial climes. The bad? The hemoglobin has to come from the biggest dinosaurs, all of which can be found on Ile Saint-Hubert, an InGen research facility abandoned after an experiment when amok 17 years ago. Enter pharma rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who recruits mercenaries Zora (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan (Mahershala Ali) and paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to lead the expedition.
“Critical” Analysis: There’s a moment near the beginning of Jurassic World Rebirth when Dr. Loomis, packing up the dinosaur exhibit at his museum, laments the dwindling public interest in terrible lizards to Zora and Martin. I thought how great it would be to tie that line to *actual* related to these movies, except … that’s not accurate. The first three JWs each grossed $1 billion globally, and there’s no reason to think Rebirth won’t as well.
The tagline to 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion deceptively called it “the epic conclusion of the Jurassic Era.” Deceptive in that Dominion was neither “epic” nor really the conclusion. Was it the final film in the second trilogy in the Jurassic Park franchise? Sure, but if you thought that meant Universal was going to stop making “dinosaurs gone wild” movies that are still grossing ten figures worldwide, I’ve got a Barbasol can full of embryos to sell you.
Rebirth’s tagline is, “A new era is born.” In which case, this should really be called Cretaceous World Rebirth, or something. Whatever, man. Consistency in titles is the least of this franchise’s problems.
For starters, we’re seven deep into the Jurassic-verse and they’re still sending the characters to an isolated, dinosaur-packed location, along with a requisite bigger and badder D-Boss (ladies and gentlemen, DISTORTUS REX). It’s especially disappointing, since — as I said in my review of Dominion — the end of Fallen Kingdom teased what we got a glimpse of in Lost World: dinosaurs and humans forced into co-existence. And then? Right back to another single location.
And part of the charm in the first trilogy was that your run-of-the-mill T. rex and velociraptors were scary enough on their own. The World trilogy kept trying to up the ante with unnecessary new monsters. It went beyond laughable when BD Wong’s Dr. Wu (who doesn’t make an appearance here), the closest thing the movies had to a consistent villain, did a reverse heel turn to save humanity at the end of Dominion.
New director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla) knows his way around big reptiles, and builds suspense well enough, but even he and screenwriter David Koepp can’t avoid going back to the well. Someone at the screening I attended remarked how many “homages” there were to the original JP. That’s a nice way of putting it. Flares figure significantly in the climax, and there’s a scene near the end that could have been Silly Putty’d from the kitchen encounter in the first movie.
The family angle is explored again as well, thanks to Diego (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) unwisely attempting to cross the Atlantic with his two daughters (and the oldest’s boyfriend) and swinging too close to Ile Saint-Hubert. Please stop trying to convince us children are in any danger in these movies. Even that kid at the beginning of The Lost World survived.
Does calling something “formulaic” pack any punch if that formula grosses stupid money with every release? Probably not, but after spinning its wheels yet again, another extinction level event is what this franchise needs.
Jurassic World Rebirth is in theaters today.
