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‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ is a cold-blooded clone in which wonder has gone extinct

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Prepare to cling onto your water glasses as the storyline of “Jurassic World Rebirth” approaches like a storm. A motley crew of explorers arrive on an isolated island with the intention of exploiting dinosaur DNA, but not everyone makes it out alive. The unique aspect in this seventh edition is the ensemble: Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali portray freelance spies Zora and Duncan, Jonathan Bailey plays paleontologist Henry Loomis, and Rupert Friend takes on the role of pharmaceutical magnate Martin, who plans to cure coronary disease by extracting samples from three gigantic reptile hearts. Judging by the reactions when this sequel has been mentioned, it could have been titled: “This Time, There’s No Chris Pratt.

I ventured to the theater with my heart swelling as vast as a Titanosaur’s. After all, David Koepp penned the original screenplay for the 1993 film and Gareth Edwards, the franchise’s current director, delivered a decent “Godzilla” remake. (Titanosaurus is a real herbivore species and you can see them in herds.)

Oh dear, it seems that Edwards has created another “Godzilla” film. The movie, titled “Jurassic World Rebirth,” is a straightforward monster flick with neither wonder nor sophistication. It appears uninterested in its colossal creatures and barely engages with the human characters either. Scarlett Johansson, along with much of the cast, are left to portray essentially the same traits of resilience and determination. There’s a hint of the 1962 classic “One Million Years B.C.” (remember Raquel Welch in her fur bikini?), but it feels more like a blueprint than a nostalgic wink. The deaths, when they occur, lack any sense of shock since we already know they’re tame even for a PG-13 rating.

Part of this malaise is intentional. The storyline implies that, following three decades of unexpected mayhem, humans have grown weary of managing these unwanted occurrences. Audience members often find themselves echoing this sentiment.

To demonstrate this stinginess of spirit, modern-day events unfold as a traffic jam in Brooklyn due to a dying sauropod on the roadside. This is the same species that turned Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum into childish, vacant-eyed individuals, but now devoid of any grandeur. Regrettably, someone has defaced its backside with graffiti.

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This summer appears robust, boasting blockbuster hits from Hollywood, intelligent independent options, and a good dose of mindless yet tasty entertainment – all essential for a well-rounded summer movie diet.

In the movie’s extended duration, additional dinosaurs are introduced: the soaring Quetzalcoatlus, the water-dwelling Mosasaurus, the Diophosaurus with its elaborate frill, and a small Whoknowswhatasaurus that Duncan, played by Ali, keeps in a bamboo birdcage near his dock in Suriname. However, only the forlorn sauropod, left alone like an abandoned street sofa, evoked any emotion within me.

Moments after, the scene shifts to a dismantled museum exhibit, where workers are discarding their replica of the famous banner that proclaims “When dinosaurs roamed the earth.” The original “Jurassic Park” ignited the imagination of countless children with dreams of scientific breakthroughs. This period seems to be surrendering its ambitions.

The journey embarks on an expansive underwater adventure, showcasing Edwards’ proficiency in navigating fins and producing rhythmic underwater sounds. Alongside our protagonists, they pick up a reluctant shipwrecked group: Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa (Luna Blaise), and Teresa’s unhelpful boyfriend, Xavier (David Iacono). At first, we eagerly anticipate Xavier’s demise, but his humorous antics, such as straying off to relieve himself near a velociraptor nest, become endearing. Despite the peril, Xavier remains oblivious and stands frozen with his hand on his private parts.

After some time, the team successfully lands on Ile Saint-Hubert close to French Guiana, an island where a dinosaur genetics lab was hastily abandoned 17 years prior. In the initial scenes, we discover that a careless lab technician accidentally contaminated a Tyrannosaurus rex breeding project with a Snickers wrapper, triggering a sequence of events within just two minutes that turned the candy eater into the snack.

As a dedicated cinephile, I must admit that product placement is usually something I can overlook. However, in this film, it’s blatant and peculiar. For instance, the scene of a fatal chocolate encounter, or when Isabella strikes up an unusual friendship with a baby Aquilops using red licorice ropes as leashes, feels forced. Even an abandoned convenience store, apparently under dinosaur occupation for over a decade and a half, still manages to keep its snack labels neatly displayed towards the camera. It’s only somewhat amusing that a modified raptor takes a moment to check out its reflection at a soda cooler.

It’s unlikely that Johansson and Ali will find much satisfaction in watching “Rebirth,” if they decide to watch it at all. Their performances are passable, but neither actor appears fully invested. Scarlett Johansson portrays her tough security expert with swagger, while Ali offers a smile, keeping our fondness for them from blaming the movie. In the beginning, the two share a scene where they attempt to communicate in shorthand about the personal sacrifices of a job like Blackwater mercenary work. This feels like a prelude to an uncomfortable journey that’s yet to come.

In this instance, composer Alexandre Desplat makes his debut in the “Jurassic” series, skillfully reinterpreting John Williams’ iconic themes of awe and longing in various forms. For example, a delicate jingle is heard when Bailey’s enthusiastic scientist character envisions encountering dinosaurs not in captivity but in their natural habitat. Bailey delivers an admirable performance as Loomis, who could arguably be the heart of the film if he weren’t competing for screen time. He’s the sole character who genuinely appreciates dinosaurs; everyone else views them either as a financial opportunity or as threats.

The show has grown tired of its recurring monsters, constantly creating grotesque new mutations like the Distortus rex, a creature with a parakeet’s head on a muscular cockroach body. Dinosaurs in this series appear inconsistent in size and lack realism, while the CGI backgrounds seem cheap. Despite these issues, I find myself drawn to familiar faces such as the amphibious Spinosaurs that resemble swimming hellhounds, the carnivorous Quetzalcoatlus that devours people like sardines, and of course, the Tyrannosaurus rex, now sporting stripes and displaying unexpected hiding abilities that challenge the laws of physics but still manage to elicit a chuckle.

The title ‘Rebirth’ seems unusual for a film that primarily focuses on themes of death and decay, perhaps set during the Anthropocene era. Despite uncertainty about where we stand in this epoch, the movie appears to express fatigue with humanity’s rule. Loomis admits, “I doubt if we’ll make it past one million,” hinting at his desire for a peaceful demise in soft sediment to become a fossil himself. With the Jurassic Park franchise seemingly out of fresh concepts, let’s leap ahead to ‘Jurassic Park: One Million Years Ahead.’ In this future, a new species might resurrect us for some twisted entertainment.

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2025-06-30 22:02

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