Jurassic World: Rebirth

4 outta 5

Jurassic World: Rebirth is the 7^th installment of the Jurassic Park franchise with its big idea of mutant freak dinosaurs, which has already been done in the last three Jurassic World films. There’s the freaky hybrid monster Indominus Rex in Jurassic World, the freaky hybrid monster in Fallen Kingdom, and giant bugs on fire in Dominion (like many things in Dominion, that was a bit of a whiff). Rebirth ditches all characters from the previous six films and adds yet another abandoned remote island research facility (there must have been dozens). There’s a dino hunting plot with the series’ standard “hapless family running from dinosaurs” plot, and the usual greedy corporate guys. Director Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla, The Creator) totally knows scale so he can make the dino encounters big.  And the script from original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp may crib from a few installments but he delivers fun characters and quips. Rebirth certainly is more entertaining than the last two ones. It’s a back-to-basics approach involving characters running for their lives on dino island, that pays off with fun and freaky moments of dinosaur carnage. Tasty!

Dinosaurs have returned to Earth, but humanity’s world was toxic and most died or retreated to tropical areas (this is a quick and dirty retcon that undoes the “dinosaurs escape in our world” stuff that happened in the last two Jurassic World movies). Mercenary Zora (Scarlett Johansson) is approached by the money loving pharmaceutical businessman Krebs (Rupert Friend) to go to one of the abandoned research islands of InGen that made dinosaurs and retrieve DNA samples so they can patent and sell new (and very expensive) medicines. They bring paleontologist Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and jump on the boat of soldier Kinkaid (Mahershala Ali) to dinosaur island. Along the way they find father Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his family that were shipwrecked by passing water swimming dinosaurs. Now on the island and with various creatures wanting to eat them, and promptly separated from the family, Zora and her crew must retrieve the samples from some very large dinosaurs. But there are bigger and deformed mutated hybrid dinosaurs roaming the island, and Krebs wants to escape with the samples and make all the money, and he doesn’t care about leaving Zora and the family behind.

The movie is refreshingly free from series lore callbacks that sometimes overstuffed Dominion, the most is at one point Loomis references interning under Doctor Alan Grant. While the best thing about Dominion was bringing back the original three, starting with new characters is the best idea. Also, the concept of dinosaurs in the real world went as far as it could go in those last two movies so the Genie is stuffed back in the bottle, showing a dying dinosaur that cannot survive in man’s world and exhibits shutting down due to disinterest. It is a little depressing that this and Jurassic World have “people don’t care about resurrected dinosaurs” as a plot point. Corporate greed for DNA samples is what Nedry did in the first film. They extract the dino DNA by shooting the dinos with a syringe which then shoots it into the air, leading to funny visuals of the sample floating down. Another really great new/old scene in Rebirth is the family on a raft being chased by a swimming T-Rex, a moment that was in the original novel but wasn’t technologically possible in the first film.

There is a real sense of menace to the stalk and chase scenes, something that was missing from the last few, with a nasty, bulbous headed mega mutant dino as the main antagonist. The opening flashback features one of the dumber moments when a candy wrapper is sucked up into a vent which causes the whole system to collapse but this series is built on dumb coincidental twists. There’s tense moments escaping giant water swimming dinosaurs and there’s a messy scene where they steal DNA from a nest of flying dinosaurs. There’s the standard “look at the non-violent dino in awe” scene that has been a part of the series since the start. And the cute kid ends up with an even cuter baby herbivore dino as a pet.

Johansson as the lead is amusingly incongruously chipper and quippy about the potentially deadly dinosaur stakes which makes her fun, but like many movie mercenaries, she has a tragic backstory. Bailey as the paleontologist has a altruistic goal for the medicine, which contrasts nicely with Friend’s corporate man who is so despicable at one point he is even willing to let a teen fall overboard to protect his corporate secrets. Mahershala Ali is the grizzled veteran who wants to escape alive, which is a problem as his crew keeps getting eaten. Garcia-Rulfo as the dad has a dopey moment when it looks like his leg is fractured but then he just uses a stick as a cane for the rest of the time. The family members are amusing, especially the boyfriend of the teenage daughter, who initially comes off as a tool but gets more likable as the film goes on.

Jurassic World: Rebirth is a solid entry into the long running dino franchise that smooths out some of the more perplexing problems from the previous two films. With decent dinosaur chaos, this makes for an epic entry in the series with bite.