Review: Jurassic World Rebirth

At this point, reviewing a new Jurassic movie feels weary, repetitive, and increasingly beside the point. Jurassic World: Rebirth, the latest in Universal’s never-ending dino-industrial complex, lands with a wet thud of overfamiliarity. Directed by Gareth Edwards, whose Godzilla suggested a man capable of awe and grandeur, this latest installment is more about contractual obligation than creative spark aside from a few moments where the director's sense of grand scale is present. The film promises a “return to roots,” but instead delivers a particularly lifeless mulch.

To its credit, Rebirth isn’t as bloated as the last three entries and moves along a lean plot that promises plenty of dino-action. David Koepp (co-writer of the original Jurassic Park) returns with a script that plays like an echo of an echo, faint, indistinct, and barely there. We’re told it’s been 32 years since dinosaurs first came back, and about 10 since anyone gave a damn. Much like the characters onscreen, the audience has grown numb to the spectacle. So the idea of mutated dinosaurs should be an exciting prospect, too bad the movie barely includes them.

Enter ParkerGenix, a pharmaceutical monolith hoping to harvest dinosaur blood for heart medication, because the only thing more fearsome than genetically modified apex predators is a good ol’ race for medical patents. The corporate baddie role is filled with a satisfyingly slimy Rupert Friend, playing Martin Krebs with all the nuance of a boardroom PowerPoint.

Leading the mercenary crew is Scarlett Johansson’s Zora Bennett, a combat-hardened type whose every line delivery suggests she's trying to remember where she left her espresso. She’s joined by Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid, a grief-ridden boat captain who exists solely to grumble nobly, and Jonathan Bailey’s Henry Loomis, a cuddly paleontologist cosplaying as Alan Grant's more anxious nephew. Together, they’re tasked with drawing blood from three dino types, land, sea, and air, in what amounts to a scavenger hunt through an overgrown InGen island. All three characters have just enough background and development to fit in one sentence.

The dinosaurs, of course, are the real draw. And here, Edwards does flex some muscle: a Quetzalcoatlus attack set on a towering cliffside delivers vertigo-inducing tension, while a Mosasaurus showdown adds a splash of marine horror. There is also the inclusion of the famously ditched T-Rex river attack from the original film and novel. But these setpieces are few and far between, weighed down by characters sitting around explaining things to each other like they're pitching the movie within the movie. The first half especially drags its claws, all jungle trudging and emotionless exposition.

More troubling is the unnecessary sideplot involving a sailing dad (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters, and the older one’s boyfriend, whose only function is to remind us how much we miss the days when kids in danger felt urgent and real, not like they were tagging along for a dinosaur-themed influencer retreat.

The central dino threat, Distortus Rex, is as generic as its name, a design-by-committee monster who makes big paw prints and small impressions. That this apex predator doesn’t even get a worthy showcase until the third act is telling. When it arrives, it does little more than swat at our heroes like it’s shooing flies, while the script barely pretends to care. For all the ways the opening scene sets up this mutated baddie, in the end, it barely makes an impact.

Visually, the film has moments of beauty. John Mathieson’s cinematography captures some gorgeous light-and-shadow interplay, and Alexandre Desplat’s score delicately nods to John Williams’ legacy without leaning on nostalgia crutches. But atmosphere alone can’t save a film that never justifies its own resurrection.

Like the fossilized beasts it parades around, Rebirth lumbers along with a sense of mechanical obligation. It wants to roar, but all we get is a whimper, or worse, another scene of people arguing about DNA patents. In the end, Jurassic World: Rebirth lives up to its title only in the Darwinian sense: survival, not evolution. Life finds a way. Entertainment value, not so much.

2.5/5