Five years after “Jurassic World: Dominion,” an expedition ventures into isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures in pursuit of a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.
If someone asked you to bring them up to speed on the last 35 years of cinematic accomplishment, your sizzle reel would undoubtedly feature the scene from the original “Jurassic Park” where paleontologists Sam Neill and Laura Dern lay eyes on living Brachiosaurs for the first time, set to the iconic John Williams score.
And now here we are, on the franchise’s seventh installment: a middling adventure movie that feels like a mutated clone of its cinematic ancestor. This movie should have been called “Jurassic World Recycled” instead of “Rebirth.”
Thirty-two years after the original park opened, humans now live in the “Neo-Cretaceous” era, with dinosaur species that once dominated the world now surviving solely in distinct areas around the equator, where the climate and high oxygen levels most closely resemble those of prehistoric Earth. Human travel within these regions is strictly forbidden.
Scarlett Johansson stars as Zora Bennett, a covert operative hired by pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to collaborate with paleontologist Henry Loomis to procure tissue samples from three living specimens: the aquatic Mosasaurus, the land-based Titanosaur, and the avian pterosaur. These species had dino-sized hearts, so these samples could lead to a breakthrough in fighting heart disease. Bennett brings along her partner, Duncan Kincaid, played by Mahershala Ali. The crew is later joined by a shipwrecked family of four.
The characters are all very one-note, make questionable choices throughout, and suffer predictable outcomes. Krebs, who other characters refer to as “creepy,” places the projected pharmaceutical revenue above everyone else’s lives, and in the end, suffers a horrible fate anyone could see coming from miles away.
Director Gareth Edwards, responsible for arguably the best modern Star Wars film, “Rogue One,” who also has an American Kaiju movie under his belt with 2014’s “Godzilla,” lends a technical prowess to “Rebirth’s” escape scenes. But they just aren’t anything we haven’t seen before. And these sequences would be more exhilarating if the characters were more memorable or relatable.
There is one scene reminiscent of the brachiosaur reveal from the original film, where Jonathan Bailey’s character, Dr. Loomis, gets to touch a dinosaur for the very first time. You can tell he has worked his entire academic life to reach that moment, and you can sense the emotion it evokes for him as his dream comes true. For a movie that otherwise suffers from a profound lack of creativity, this scene was heartwarming.
The Distortus Rex, the abominable mutation created in a secret lab, which stars in all the trailers and the movie posters, appears only twice: in the opening sequence and at the very end. It looks like a Beluga whale mated with a T Rex.
Despite some well-directed and exciting sequences, “Jurassic World Rebirth” falls short of living up to the potential of its cast or its prehistoric stars. This film series needs to either evolve or go extinct.
In Theaters Wednesday, July 2nd
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Totally agree with you on this review!