Gareth Edwards helms the new Jurassic World film and there’s a lot going on there. Here are some spoilerific thoughts on Jurassic World: Rebirth.
Warning: Spoilers! Obviously.
Jurassic World: Rebirth always had a tough job. It had to rescue a beloved franchise from something of a new low set by Jurassic World: Dominion – it has a 29 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest in the franchise – and give it a newfound sense of awe and glory. Watching Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard battle locusts instead of dinosaurs felt miles away from the intoxicating mix of brutality and wonder in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, and the need for something fresh was palpable.
Enter Gareth Edwards. The Rogue One director brings his blend of practical and visual effects to Rebirth, which is both a nostalgic throwback to Spielberg’s timeless classic and a new start for the franchise. This is your final warning for spoilers, because we’re about to get into what happens in the film and what may or may not come next.
The film itself, then. Scarlett Johansson’s mercenary – sorry, “situational security and reaction operative” – is hired to take pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs (an appropriately sleazy Rupert Friend) and a crew of mismatched experts to an island inhabited by experimental dinosaurs. These are all the critters that were crossbred and experimented on, but didn’t make the cut for the parks.
Jonathan Bailey’s Dr Henry Loomis is the team’s mandatory dinosaur expert and enthusiast. Ever since dinosaurs largely died out (again) after not being able to adapt to Earth’s deteriorating climate, Loomis’ career has taken a downward dip. Also along for the ride are Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid and his ragtag boat crew, who are barely given names. It’s not hard to guess why they’re here; the dinos gotta eat.
In terms of themes, Rebirth doesn’t move too far from the franchise’s usual material. Krebs represents Big Pharma, needing dino DNA to develop a new heart disease medicine, but he’s also practically drooling at the thought of the money heading his way if he succeeds. It’s familiar, but the theme of greed remains an interesting one, even if it’s not really explored properly. Rebirth doesn’t exactly try to reinvent the genre or its broad plot points, but that’s not really why we buy a ticket anyway.
We buy a ticket to watch dinosaurs wreak havoc. And that’s where Rebirth shines.
Read More: Jurassic World Rebirth review | Dino-mite or a saur-y sight?
The film begins with a quick look at a secret lab that has been testing out different dinosaur recipes and one of the outcomes is the D-Rex. We’ve already glimpsed the beast in trailers, and although the creature plays a frustratingly small role in the finished film, it’s a pretty cool new addition to the roster of “big lizards with teeth”.
There’s something Xenomorph-like in the D-Rex design with its bulbous head. The thing walks on four legs, but also has two T-Rex-like arms. The creature doesn’t really come into the equation until the last half hour when the crew reach the site of the old laboratory glimpsed during the film’s prologue, which is a shame.
We encounter a few other mutated or crossbred creatures, but we’re always going to come back to the T-Rex emblazoned on the franchise’s logo. We already knew that screenwriter David Koepp, who also penned the first two Jurassic Park films, was going to be adapting a sequence from Michael Crichton’s first Jurassic Park novel, which sees ol’ Rexy chase our heroes down a river.
The sequence – in which a family is trying to escape the dino on an inflatable life raft – is perhaps the best Rebirth has to offer. It’s here that Edwards finally captures some of the original film’s magic. For the first time in ages, it feels like the T-Rex is properly scary again. The Jurassic World films were guilty of only bringing the T-Rex back for nostalgia, and while there’s more than a little rose-tinted navel gazing in Rebirth, at least the T-Rex is once again a predator rather than just an accessory to a new dinosaur.
After some mild bloodletting and a red shirt death or two, Johansson’s Zora and the rest of the remaining team manage to secure all three samples and head back out to the mainland. Henry encourages Zora to decide what to do with the samples; give them to big pharma or open source the recipe, making a potentially life-saving drug free for all. Zora chooses the latter. This is a family blockbuster, after all.
So, what’s next? It remains to be seen whether people will vote with their feet and wallets enough for Universal Pictures to greenlight another film, but it’s hard to imagine Rebirth completely bombing at the box office. In fact, The Hollywood Reporter predicts the film will make some serious cash over its five day opening week, thanks to the film opening on a Wednesday rather than the traditional Friday.
The film doesn’t immediately set up a direct sequel, but it does open up the possibility of going back to the, ahem, Jurassic world. There’re now three vials of dino blood from the three largest species zipping back to the mainland, so there’s more than enough fodder to keep the franchise going.
It’s a whole other question where the franchise should go next. The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films have always examined the hubris of trying to bring back something bigger than us and assuming we can control it. The later films also introduced the idea of humans and dinosaurs co-existing.
Rebirth largely abandons this idea, acting more as a nostalgic take on the first film. There’s plenty of room for expansion, though. The film begins with the idea that there’s an entire island full of abandoned dinosaurs that were too messed up for the park, but we only see a few of them. We peer at a raptor with two heads in the lab – could future films turn that idea up to 11 and fill the screen with even more bonkers terrors?
If Jurassic World continues to bring dinosaurs to the big screen, let’s hope the next film has some fresh ideas up its tiny, T-Rex sleeves.
Jurassic World Rebirth is in cinemas now.
