Jurassic World Rebirth | review by Rafe McGregor

Jurassic World Rebirth, by Gareth Edwards (Universal Pictures)

 

Three times three?

Jurassic World Rebirth is the seventh instalment in the Jurassic Park/World franchise that was launched by Steven Spielberg twenty-two years ago (excluding animated and short films). The previous instalments can be divided into two trilogies, with the second being a continuation of the first and the fictional chronology following the years in which each film was released (as far as I can tell). I shall recap the events of the franchise so far as Jurassic World Rebirth plunges us directly into them and may well be the first of a third trilogy that is a further continuation (rather than remake, reboot, or retcon), though it is (of course) advertised as a ‘standalone’ story.

The premise of Jurassic Park (1993) is that dinosaurs have been de-extincted by means of cloning and a theme park (‘safari park’ would be more accurate for UK readers) established on a fictional island called Isla Nublar, off the coast of Costa Rica. What could possibly go wrong? Lots…and everything that could go wrong does, in consequence of which the island is abandoned by its human visitors. In The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) dinosaurs are discovered on the neighbouring island of Isla Sorna, which was where the original cloning was done before it was abandoned following a hurricane. (We now have two abandoned islands full of dinosaurs). An ill-considered plan to transport a Tyrannosaurus rex to a zoo in San Diego goes wrong (who would’ve guessed) and after rampaging around the city it is returned to the island, which is declared a protected nature reserve. Jurassic Park III (2001) is essentially a rescue mission: ignoring national and international law (as they do), some rich folk undertake an illegal air safari of Isla Sorna, crash, and get bailed out by mum, dad, and some hired hands.

Jurassic World (2015) has exactly the same plot as Jurassic Park: a new multinational corporation acquires the rights to build a safari park on Isla Nublar, but have ‘improved’ on the original by creating a new and very nasty dinosaur called an Indominus rex by means of transgenesis. What could possibly go wrong? Everything that did in the first film and this one ends in the same way, with humanity abandoning the same island for the second time. In between Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), a mercenary unit arrives on the island and succeeds in collecting an Indominus rex DNA sample (I wonder where this is going). The fifth film begins with the island about to be destroyed by a volcanic eruption and the protagonists are hired by the antagonist to launch a private rescue attempt, not realising that the relocated dinosaurs are going to be sold at an auction (those rich folk don’t get that rich by being nice). The rescued dinosaurs escape from their cages, enter the Northern California wilderness, and usher in a new era in which humans, animals, and dinosaurs are all going to have to coexist. Jurassic World Dominion (2022) has a broadly similar plot to Jurassic Park III, being in essence a rescue mission, this time rescuing the first and only cloned human child from another multinational corporation and the dinosaurs it keeps in the Dolomite Mountains. As far as the fictional world of the franchise goes, little has changed as dinosaurs are still roaming, swimming, and flying around the place like any other animal, fish, or bird.

I didn’t come to Jurassic World Rebirth with any great expectations. As I mentioned in my birthday wishes to Jaws’ (1975) Bruce, the sheer number of animals slaughtered onscreen in my lifetime is wearing me down and Scarlett Johanssen’s offscreen persona hasn’t exactly endeared itself to me (as Hollywood’s highest-grossing star my news feed is unfortunately full of her). I was also surprised to see that none of the previous casts were reappearing. The protagonists of the first trilogy were palaeontologist Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum), who appeared in five of the first six films between them. The second trilogy introduced the on-and-off couple Owen Grady (played by Chris Pratt), an ethologist (AKA Velociraptor-wrangler), and Claire Dearing (played by Bryce Dallas Howard), a corporate slavedriver turned dinosaur activist. The protagonists of Jurassic World Rebirth are Zora Bennett (played by Johansson), a mercenary action hero, and…well, just Zora Bennett (because you don’t get to be Hollywood’s best-paid star by sharing the limelight).

Following a prelude where another mutated dinosaur (Distortus rex) wreaks havoc on another fictional island (Île Saint-Hubert, in the Atlantic Ocean) that (also) has to be abandoned, the narrative opens with the Earth’s climate threatening to return the dinosaurs to extinction, in consequence of which they have all migrated to the equatorial regions of the globe. For once, somebody has done something sensible and designated these no-travel areas. The antagonist, Martin Krebs (played by Rupert Friend) hires Bennett and her team to take DNA samples from the three largest living dinosaurs – Mosasaurus (sea), Titanosaurus (land), and Quetzalcoatlus (air) – for the purposes of making trillions of dollars from a cure for heart disease. The first indication that the film might be a pleasant surprise was that the DNA has to be retrieved from live dinosaurs and, indeed, the mercenary team very quickly loses all of its weapons, making most of the blood spilled in the story human. At the same time as Bennett, Krebs, and their entourage begin their mission, an idiotic father of two, Reuben Delgado (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), is sailing his daughters and one of their boyfriends across the Atlantic in his yacht (an Atlantic swarming with literal sea monsters, I should add)…and everyone ends up on Île Saint-Hubert.

In addition to limiting the lizard slaughter, the three-part mission to acquire DNA over sea, land, and air works very well, providing the narrative with a neat structure, broad scope, and organic signposting. The story also pays homage to the original Jurassic Park in at least two scenes, a Tyrannosaurus rex river chase and the final climatic battle at the abandoned laboratory complex, one of which works well and the other of which doesn’t. Segue to my only two criticisms, the opening and that climactic battle. In the former, the entire complex’s security system is destroyed by an empty Snickers wrapper. A complex that is not only containing dinosaurs, but creating nastier ones for human entertainment…I hope somebody somewhere got sued. The other let down is the Distortus rex itself. It inspires pity rather than fear and is so stupid and so slow that its survival on the island before the arrival of Bennett, Delgado, and the rest seems highly unlikely. Having said that, while Jurassic Park Rebirth may not reach the heights of the original film – perhaps even the first two films – it’s definitely as good or better than the rest. It’s also already well on the way to grossing a billion dollars so I guess we might just see Bennett back for two more instalments.***