The most damning praise I can offer for Jurassic World: Rebirth is that I did not hate it. It does an ok job of continuing the world building from previous films and gets quite a few things right. Those things are often buried and entangled in a lot of errors that give a sense of wild mix of ideas being pressed together. The resulting “soup” is sometimes strange and confusing in its ingredients. It is nearly better to think of it as two separate movies that just happened to be playing at the same time.

Synopsis

(edited from Official Page) Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.

Skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett, contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure the genetic material. When Zora’s operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on a forbidden island that had once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park. There, in a terrain populated by dinosaurs of vastly different species, they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.

Review (Spoiler Free)

There is a part of me that feels deeply like this was two different movie pitches that were both deemed to be insufficient and so therefore got molded into one. There are two plots, essentially, and they fail to fit well together for the entire run-time. Which is a shame, because…I’ll get to it.

We end up left with a movie where a stranded family does mostly their own thing and a team of covert specialists mostly do their own thing and the interactions between the two feel like a clash more than a success. As the story bounces between the two, the viewer is constantly tricked into filling in the gaps while loud sounds and big effects take center stage.

Both subplots practically cry out for space to breathe and to study issues like grief, bonding, and PTSD and neither quite have the screentime to give more than passing glances to the human stories the movie so desperately needs.

If you are into the movies for action pieces? It might work for you. It pulls the same tricks over and over — e.g., having large dinosaurs hide behind relatively minor quirks of terrain — but some of the novel varieties of dinosaur and pterosaur are fun enough. It never really wanders far from the classic Jurassic Park tropes of environment and situation. For some, this will be a blessing. For others, it will end making many decisions feel quite forced.

If you are lucky, you will enjoy it without feeling the need to pick too deeply at all the silliness on show. The candy wrapper that shuts down the entire security system? The “gotta catch them all” Saturday-morning cartoon plot involving “the three most colossal creatures between land, sea, and air”? The dad sailing his family extremely near the place where large dangerous animals are known to live and then being surprised that the creatures exist? Even the strange inclusion of some ancient ruins right in the middle of a cliff-side scurry? Ignore them! Just enjoy the extended candy bar advertisements!

At the end, though, the two plots clash too much and the very reason for the central plot — that “blood” must be taken directly from living dinos rather than from, you know, the DNA files on record — feels too trite to carry the movie past the mostly mediocre mark. I plan on rewatching it again, because I’m a fan of a franchise, but I do not necessarily see it truly carrying the brand forward despite so many possible chances to do so.

Extended Discussion (minor spoilers possible)

To actually tell my thoughts will take a bit of time, and will involve a few very close-to-spoilers. I’ll try and put any real spoilers behind obfuscated text, though.

The First Plot: Science for Hire

The first involves a group of not-mercenaries (who are also not-not-mercenaries) leading a scientist into yet another research station laden island to try and get some dinosaur blood. Well, dinosaur and pterosaur. The movie makes that distinction early but later slightly drops it. Maybe. It’s hard to recall.

This plot is fine, not great. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) makes a fine amalgamation of Alan Grant meets Ian Malcolm. He’s nerdy but also a bit game for the adventure he is on. Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) does a fair job as a not-not-mercenary. Action-oriented but also human. And I especially liked Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid. The boat captain not afraid to push the boundaries of the law but also upholding a sense of teamwork and care.

This trio, as well as the rest of Kincaid’s crew, feels like a classic pirates + tag-along motif.

As far as Rupert Friend’s Martin Krebs: I nearly never care for the inclusion of the classic officious bastard. I understand I am not supposed to like the character but I will do you one better: I do not like the trope the character represents. Friend does fine playing the jackass but I wish the jackass had been left behind in editing.

You might ask, as I did, why they are going to a place where dinosaurs were studied to go after the actual dinosaurs instead of the research files. I appreciate there would be almost no fleeing-a-T-rex style plot but a heist movie could have done interesting things with the concept.

This was particularly confusing to me in one element (click “jumbled” text to see a more moderate but still slightly minor spoiler): dHz2 izzM AHz NVqqM qR pzcAkQi MQiq5kEc5 kiM AHz2 pHqq5z Aq Iq Aq k cz5zkcpH 5AkAQqi AHkA 5jzpQkVQBz5 Qi qEAVQzc vEAkiA5? dHz5z xqEVM 5zzv Aq Nz jq55QNV2 AHz vq5A jcqNVzvkAQp lzc5Qqi5 qR AHz MQiq5kEc5 Aq AckpK. 3 kpAEkVV2 k55EvzM Rqc k VkcIz jkcA qR AHz 5zpqiM HkVR AHz ziAQcz jqQiA xk5 IqQiI Aq Nz k jVqA AxQ5A kNqEA AHzv xkiAQiI AHz vEAkIzi5 vqcz AHki AHz kpAEkV MQiq5kEc NVqqM. dHz RkpA AHkA AHz2 xqcKzM Qi vEAkiA MQiq5kEc5 NEA AHzi KzjA AHz QiQAQkV jczvQ5z QiAkpA Q5 MzzjV2 5AckiIz Aq vz.

The Second Plot:

The second plot involves a family who are shipwrecked and end up also on the island. By and large, this has little to do with the first plot for a strikingly long amount of screentime.

Note, though (click “scrambled” text to see a kind-of but not-really spoiler): F uzLo xuVDozG V6 ITz IEV-xoVIN-2Y-VYz 2N ITLI ITzq 2YIzuNzWI 6Vu L NTVuI LGVrYI V6 I2Gz L6Izu TLl2Yp L TzLIzc c2NWrNN2VY LDVrI NLl2Yp ITz 6LG2oq LYc ITzY L6Izu ITLI GVNIoq Nxo2I rYI2o ITz zYc ETzuz lzuq o2IIoz ITLI TLxxzYzc 2Y ITLI 2Y2I2Lo GzzI2Yp uzLooq GLIIzuN zQWzxI 6Vu VYz WTLuLWIzu pzII2Yp erNI262LDoq rxNzI LDVrI NVGzIT2Yp ITLI VWWruzc.

This plot could have interesting on its own as Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s Reuben Delgado works with his daughters and his eldest daughter’s slacker boyfriend to survive. There are the classic tropes of “daughter going off to college” and “daughter’s boyfriend does not have the approval of the father” and both of these have been done to death but it feels like a family completely unprepared to survive an island of dinosaurs could have been attempted.

Even in the context of the movie it is unclear how the family is handling food, water, and other basic needs. Giving them more time could have given us as the audience more time to find this out.

Jurassic World: Rebirth and the Problem of Grief

Where this two-head-beast truly flounders is how both subplots are essentially studies of grief and neither are given any chance to deal with their baggage.

Loomis is watching a world fall out of love for dinosaurs. Bennet has lost her mom and a colleague. Kincaid has lost his son. The family is reaching a turning point in their lives. The youngest daughter is dealing with trauma from the resurgence of dinosaurs.

None of this resolved in any meaningful way. The closest we get is some background why some characters are acting more selfless than you would expect given their backgrounds. As the movie goes and more bad things happen, and people die due to various decisions, you rarely feel like the characters — and definitely the audience — are really able to experience any of these emotions.

It is ludicrous that the movie has a “I just have a little PTSD” quip and then exposes that same character who said it to several other similar level events but downplays their reaction to just a few seconds of shock.

Perhaps the biggest mistake in the movie is (again, click on obfuscated text to see, just note this one is a fairly BIG spoiler):

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Why All This Is a Complete Shame

At the end of it, the reason it all feels like a complete shame is because the movie definitely feels like a love story by the cast and crew to the entire franchise and the people who came before.

There are so many easter eggs. Maybe too many, but they all feel like beautiful thank yous. Just a few include:

  • Multiple references to Jaws including some translated text that means, “We need a bigger boat.”
  • Multiple references to the original Jurassic Park including Krebs’ hat in one scene and the fact that Loomis has the same belt-loop shovel as Alan Grant (intended to show he received a gift from a beloved mentor, according to the costume designer).
  • At least a slight shout out to The Goonies (and other Spielberg films) in a later scene.
  • A “Crichton Middle School” school bus.

More than that, there is a distinct feeling that the cast and crew had a lot of fun making this movie. There’s a sense of camp. A sense of enjoying working together to tell a story.

It is a love letter to the people and fans that made it all possible.

It just falls so very flat as a whole.

Credits

The header image is from page 456 of “The Dinosaurs of North America” (1896) by Othniel Charles Marsh. As taken from an upload to Flickr.

The movie poster is by the marketing team and can be found on various websites. The other images are from the official gallery and are used here without permission but to help illustrate the movie.