Movie Review: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’

Tweet
A new entry in the Jurassic Park/World franchise is upon us, softly rebooting the franchise just three years after the last movie. While the previous trilogy had the dinosaurs roaming freely around the globe, this movie puts them mostly back on an isolated island where humans are forbidden to travel. Jurassic World Rebirth does not cover much new territory and is largely predictable, but it was still a fun movie to watch with beautiful visual effects.

Five years after the events of Dominion, it turns out that life cannot find a way for dinosaurs to survive in modern climates beyond a few isolated islands near the equator. But you can always count on greedy people/corporations trying to make a profit even if it means breaking a few laws. Enter Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend; Homeland), a pharmaceutical rep that recruits covert ops leader Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson; North, Home Alone 3, a few others), her team, and paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey; Broadchurch, Bridgerton) to retrieve three samples from dinosaurs on a forbidden island. Along the way, they rescue a family that gets attacked while out sailing near the forbidden islands before they themselves get attacked leaving the two groups struggling to survive until a back-up rescue arrives.

And that is pretty much the whole movie. I did enjoy the story, the music, and the visual effects. The action scenes were fun to watch. But there was nothing that I found too surprising or all that suspenseful. Everyone that I expected to live did. Even the brief threats to their lives did not have me on the edge of my seat. There were a couple of times the movie tried to play up the drama by making you think a character was dead (without showing a body) and I was just sitting at the back of my seat waiting for them to reappear. The comedic elements were amusing, some more than others. The opening scene took a cue from the Final Destination series, which might be an interesting idea for a crossover.