100% Locust-Free
Gareth Edwards clears a very low bar in a hyper-speed production of the latest in the Jurassic franchise
Jurassic world Rebirth
Director: Gareth Edwards • Writer: David Koepp
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
USA • 2hrs 14mins
Opens Hong Kong July 1 • IIA
Grade: B-
Against my better judgement, especially considering the turd that was the potential extinction event Jurassic World Dominion, I looked at the trailer for Jurassic Park Rebirth and clapped my hands like a damn eight-year-old and yelled, “Dinosaurs!” and got all excited at the prospect. Look at that pedigree: the director is Gareth Edwars, a guy who knows his way around scaly creatures (Monsters, Godzilla), how to work with solid exisitng mythology (Rogue One) and bananas future tech (The Creator). The screenwriter is David Koepp, one of Steven Spielberg’s go-to squad, who wrote the OG Jurassic Park, 2002’s genre-defining Spider-Man and, recently, the way underrated Black Bag. And The Worst Chris, Pratt is gone. How can this go wrong?
It goes wrong the way so many movies like this always do: Too many archetypical characters, not enough stakes, over-reliance on nostalgia yet jettisoning what made the original property so engaging. Does anyone realise it is possible to put a little kid with their adorable merchandising opportunity friendly dinosaur (this time an Aquilops, just US$24.95 at your favourite toy retailer) and actual stakes side by side. One good maiming is all I ask. Despite all that, Rebirth has its moments, almost in defiance of its clunky script; this is Koepp in Mortdecai mode. Considering the first anyone heard of this movie being in active production was June 2024 it’s a wonder there haven’t been more howls of “AI!” in the ether. Thirteen months from principal photography to release is unheard of by modern CGI-heavy moviemaking standards and at times the warp speed shows. The characters, such as they are, are paper thin, the central action set piece is an unmined remnant from Michael Crichton’s 1990 book, and the dialogue is all-exposition all the time when it’s not that aggravating “You’re coming with us…” “Coming with you?!” repetition that stands in for actual humour. But… dinosaurs (claps hands).
Sharks are basically dinosaurs anyway
To its credit Rebirth seems to have an inherent understanding that audiences have evolved (heh heh) from the shock and awe of Jurassic Park in 1993 (that shit still holds up), and so sets up a big bad for the big finale that is unlike any of the dinos previously seen. Like many of the Jurassic films, Rebirth begins with a prologue at a secret InGen lab on a secret island, in which a sloppy scientist gets stuck behind containment doors when the latest genetically engineered beast gets loose (is it me or is Edwards mad for containment doors?). Seventeen years later, dinosaurs have retreated to a habitation band between the tropics and around the equator (what happened to the Biosyn Valley or Isla Sorna game preserves?) that’s a no-fly zone for civilians. Pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), essentially the Gennaro or Burke of the story, hires covert ops specialist Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson, doing what she can to make an abrasive character likeable) to lead a crew to this no-fly zone so he can get blood samples from living dinosaurs and turn them into cash. Naturally they need an Alan Grant type, so they rope in his old student, paleontologist Henry Loomis (Wicked’s Jonathan Bailey) to come along. Off they head to an island (I wonder which one?) 600 kilometres from the coast of Suriname (played by Thailand) on the macho-ly monikered Duncan Kincaid’s (Mahershala Ali, cool as ever, too bad we’re never going to see him as Blade) boat. He’s an old colleague of Zora’s, and his crew of red shirts includes hired muscle Bobby Atwater, navigator (?) Nina and a dude whose character summary is “French”, Leclerc (Ed Skrein, Philippine Velge and Bechir Sylvain).
But wait, there’s more. Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, A Man Called Otto) is taking his daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda) on a sailing trip from Bahamas to Cape Town before Teresa goes to NYU, with Teresa’s lazy boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono) tagging along. Oh no! Isn’t that through the tropics? Faster than you can say “mosasaurus” they need rescuing by Kincaid before getting separated again. Yes, Isabella is a child (ugh) and yes, she’s the key to saving everyone in the final frames. Ugh. At least she’s not a bloody gymnast.
And I say frames because one of the things Rebirth does have going for it is John Mathieson’s (Logan, Gladiator II) bright, rich 35mm film photography, perfectly pitched to match Edwards tropical action instincts. It’s no surprise that the best parts of Rebirth are the ones that riff on Jaws (this often feels like a Spielberg film) – down to the “It’s my charter,” “It’s my boat” exchange between Krebs and Kincaid. As the hunting party approaches the island it becomes the hunted in one of Rebirth’s strongest sequences. It also takes us to a dinosaur habitat (water) we haven’t really hung out in much before. Better still is Teresa’s nearly silent attempt to snare an inflatable raft left by InGen as a Tyrannosaurus rex slumbers nearby. It was a book highlight; it’s a highlight here because the T-rex is still a star, something Universal in its haste to restart the billion-dollar francshise forgot. The continuous ante-upping and conjuring of mutant dinosaurs is watering the brand down. The Indominus rex in Jurassic World was bad enough, but the new Distortus rex, as the prodution notes indicate, is a bridge too far. It calls to mind the rancor in Return of the Jedi; I half expected someone to toss a rock at it. The point is the Distortus rex is a straight up monster, making Jurassic World Rebirth more of a monster movie than a dinosaur movie. I have no problem with monster movies. I have a problem with them when I’m expecting a damn dinosaur movie.
Which, in the end, is perfectly entertaining, despite taking its sweet time getting there. Jurassic Park Rebirth spends its first 45 minutes giving us character backstories as useless as they are transparent – and irrelevant. There’s lots of chatter about motivations, and why everyone accepts the mission, what’s right or wrong. This is horseshit because the franchise has already interrogated the impact of science in unethical human hands, and though it’s an important topic it’s not one anyone cares about in a dinosaur movie. Get me raptors. Now! Especially considering that even with its micro-production window, Rebirth’s mix of CGI and animatronics looks almost as good as the original. It’s too bad there wasn’t more of it. Maybe in another 13 months.