ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
32 years ago, a tiny low-budget project from Steven Spielberg called “Jurassic Park” was released and captivated (and terrified) audiences all throughout the world.
Since then, there have been multiple sequels (not all of them as successful as the original hit), and the latest entry in the franchise, “Jurassic World Rebirth” has proven the franchise needs to go extinct before it becomes a complete parody of itself (*cough* “Fast and the Furious” franchise *cough*). While I was home for the holiday last weekend, my mom and brother and I trekked to the movie theater in Wellington to see it, and ultimately, I enjoyed the company more than the actual movie.
The movie follows former mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) as she leads a team to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park, to secure genetic samples from dinosaurs whose DNA can provide life-saving benefits to humanity. As the expedition presses on, they make yet another shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world, since apparently literally no one learned a thing three decades ago.
The movie’s problems begin with the story and screenplay. Everything is completely predictable, and there were multiple moments throughout where I either fully predicted what would happen or came close, and multiple eye rolls were elicited. There’s also an entire subplot about the main team finding a stranded family on the way to the island and helping them, and to me, it added absolutely nothing to the movie except more potential snacks for the dinosaurs in the movie. Had the overall plot just stuck to the team working to secure the needed samples, I would’ve maybe enjoyed the movie more since there would be more of a focus. There’s also literally zero character development seen in the movie, and it got to the point where I didn’t even care who ultimately survived because there were just SO. MANY. dumb decisions – admittedly, however, there are a couple characters who become dinosaur chow who truly deserved it, which was entertaining.
There were also multiple moments that were just completely and utterly unrealistic. Reading that, you’re probably thinking “It’s a movie about dinosaurs, what exactly do you expect?” However, there’s a difference between suspension of disbelief and unrealistically absurd – for example, are we REALLY supposed to believe the average life raft is able to withstand being in the jaws of a Tyrannosaurus rex with literally no damage whatsoever and then just pop up EXACTLY where it’s needed? That’s not a hypothetical or rhetorical question, that’s a scene that actually happens in this movie, and my eyes rolled so hard, I’m fairly sure I saw my brain’s frontal lobe. Literally the only good aspect of this screenplay was some messaging about the effects of climate change on the planet, and even THAT was handled terribly, in my opinion. Overall, this movie needed WAY better writers.
I will say, however, the visual effects crews definitely earned their paychecks. The bigger and meaner dinosaurs featured were definitely the stuff of nightmares, particularly the mutant dinosaurs seen in the lab at the beginning and the movie’s big bad, the Distortus rex (or D-rex, as it’s referred to). I also did get a few chuckles at a few scenes where the featured dino of the moment happened to resemble my mom’s pets. The sound effects were also really well done and the dinosaurs’ roars were extremely scary and fierce, so my hat goes off to them as well for all the work they did. Overall, a lot of effort was put toward making the dinos look and sound really cool, some of which should have gone toward the overall story.
In terms of casting, I felt that too was somewhat of a disappointment the cast features stars like Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, and I felt like nearly everyone rather phoned in their performances, and there just wasn’t really that vibe of excitement about being part of a franchise that’s been around for multiple decades already. At least with the previous movies, you could feel some element of fun and excitement, but not this time around, which I thought was rather unfortunate. That being said, there were a couple standouts, including Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Loomis, who’s the only one who seems to legitimately care about the dinosaurs the team is tracking, and he’s able to bring about that sense of childlike wonder the first time he sees a dinosaur up close and personal. Rupert Friend also did a great job as the movie’s main jerk, pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs, and I don’t think there were really too many feelings of sadness when he ultimately met his fate near the end of the movie. Overall, with a cast this strong, I felt the performances could have been way, way better.
While I had my issues with the movie, I did very much enjoy hearing the original theme, and the piano variation of it near the end was extremely pretty to hear, and I thought the rest of the musical score was also very well done.
Overall, I feel “Jurassic World Rebirth” proves the franchise needs to go extinct before becoming an absolute joke, if it hasn’t already, and I would give it a C-minus. For real, how many secret dinosaur genetic engineering labs can exist in the world, and how long does it take for those powers that be to realize it is absolutely not smart to try and play God, especially with creatures from millions of years ago? You’d think they would have learned after multiple failures and catastrophes, and that only scratches the surface level of the issues I had with the overall screenplay and story. However, the visual effects and sound crews DEFINITELY earned their pay and did a great job making everything look and sound really good. I also thought the performances from the cast could have been WAY better, because nearly everyone felt rather phoned in this time around. Overall, if you’re a die-hard “Jurassic Park” franchise fan, you’ll probably enjoy this movie, but if not, you’d do well to probably find another movie.
