Jurassic World Rebirth: What It Gets Right and Wrong

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Jurassic World Rebirth is the seventh movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, this time directed by Gareth Edwards and starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Five years after the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, dinosaurs now reside in areas close to the equator due to changes in Earth's climate making it harder for them to live with humans. A pharmaceutical executive has a group of people go to this dinosaur island that InGen once used to create mutated dinosaurs, to obtain biomaterial samples from certain dinosaurs that could help cure diseases. David Koepp, who wrote Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, returns to write Jurassic World Rebirth.

Jurassic World Rebirth isn't anything special in the franchise. It's in the middle when it comes to the Jurassic Park series. On one hand, it's way better than the last two Jurassic World movies and Jurassic Park III. For the most part, it goes back to the roots of the first three Jurassic Park movies, which in large part is due to David Koepp's return to writing. There is a lot more dinosaur action this time around, and the suspense that was lacking in the previous Jurassic World movies returned. The last time I felt this level of suspense in a Jurassic Park movie was The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The special effects are great, and the dinosaurs look amazing as always. The score done by Alexandre Desplat works well and pays homage to John Williams's original score.

Character-wise, the characters are fine. Besides the group going to the island for the disease cure, there is this family that they save who get shipwrecked. Most of the characters are likable, with only the pharmaceutical executive played by Rupert Friend and the boyfriend to the teenage daughter being the only annoying characters. Friend's character is no different from the various human villains who have greedy, unethical intentions in regards to the dinosaurs. The boyfriend named Xavier, played by David Iacono, comes across as lazy and unnecessary.

Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett, a covert operations expert, is a likable protagonist, but isn't anything special. Her chemistry and banter with Mahershala Ali and Jonathon Bailey work well. Ali plays Duncan Kincard, who leads the team, and Bailey plays Henry Loomis, a paleontologist. The family they save are likable except for the boyfriend, but at the same time feels unnecessary to the movie. It feels like they are there just to have a couple of kids involved in the dinosaur peril, like all the other 6 previous Jurassic Park movies that had the kids in peril trope. Overall, while none of the characters stand out like the original Jurassic Park characters, most of them are handled better than many of the characters from the other sequels who were way more annoying and unlikable.

Jurassic World Rebirth, while it has the best tropes and elements of the Jurassic Park franchise, still has some of the annoying tropes from the previous movies. As mentioned before, the human villain is another greedy jerk with his selfish motivations. The one thing they bring back from the Jurassic World movies is the mutated dinosaurs, which feels old and no longer unique at this point. It's unnecessary for a movie like this that is going back to the basics of the original first three Jurassic Park movies. The idea that people are bored with dinosaurs in this universe, which has been around since the 2015 movie Jurassic World and was unbelievable back then, still is unbelievable, especially when the main characters are still in awe at the presence of the dinosaurs. There is this new main antagonist dinosaur called the Distortus Rex that appears briefly at the beginning of the movie to set the tone, but never appears, is never mentioned again, or even hinted at until the third act. While it has cool action sequences and looks like a dinosaur fused with a Xenomorph from Alien, it also feels wasted. For a dinosaur hyped up as the ultimate dinosaur on the island, they could have built it up better. The story, while not terrible, isn't special either.

Overall, Jurassic World Rebirth at times feels like a rebirth with going back to the roots of the original Jurassic Park movies that fans wanted to see. It has good enough characters who won't stand out, but most of whom are tolerable, except for the antagonist and the teenage boyfriend of the teenage girl in the family. The dinosaurs look great, and it feels like they took criticism of Jurassic World: Dominion seriously, as more dinosaur action is prominent. At the same time, mutant dinosaurs have outstayed its welcome and certain tropes were unnecessary in this movie.  My final grade for Jurassic World Rebirth is a B-. I overall enjoyed this movie and prefer it way more than the last two Jurassic World movies and Jurassic Park III. There was potential for a way better Jurassic World movie, though that felt held back. If you overall enjoy the Jurassic Park movies, at the very least the first three ones, you might enjoy this way more than the Jurassic World movies.

What are your thoughts on Jurassic World Rebirth? Let us know in the comments below.