The Jurassic franchise has been endangered since just after the turn of the millennium. Now that’s not the case financially — the Colin Trevorrow-guided Jurassic World trilogy that kicked off in 2015 was a box office behemoth. Each of those three films grossed over $1 billion globally, which is certainly an impressive feat. But after meeting a deservedly tepid reception upon their initial releases, that entire trilogy has aged like milk, making a bad thing even worse in less than a decade. The films are forgettable at best, nearly unwatchable at worst, trading all of the magic and awe from Steven Spielberg’s efforts for lab-created dinosaurs, computer-generated messes, and…bugs?
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Nothing about the first three Jurassic World films has stood the test of even a little time, and we have rightly wondered if these dinosaur adventures could ever get back on track. Can we actually recover from Chris Pratt’s Blue Steel raptor trainer and a saga about genetic cloning that consistently referenced its own failings in its plot without even realizing it? Thanks to Gareth Edwards and original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, the answer is a resounding yes. Jurassic World Rebirth is easily the greatest of these dinosaur movies since 2001. Depending on how you feel about the first two Jurassic Park sequels, you could argue that it’s the best since 1993.
Just to be clear, Jurassic World Rebirth doesn’t come close to the wonder and technical mastery of Spielberg’s original. It’s apples and oranges between the two. But Jurassic Park is about as perfect as you can get for a film of that scale. Was anything ever really going to compare?
No, it wasn’t, and Jurassic World Rebirth wisely doesn’t try to compete or even reinvent the wheel. This movie is all about reminding people how much fun this franchise can and should be. Does it have a messy plot that doesn’t make a ton of sense? Yes. Is the dialogue sometimes obnoxious? Absolutely. Rebirth is a flawed film, no doubt about it. The lows, however, are microscopic compared to Titanosaurus-level heights Edwards and the team reach here. At its best moments, Rebirth is exactly as advertised, reawakening a deep love for a franchise we thought was going extinct and giving audience members a childlike nostalgia we haven’t felt often since we first saw dinosaurs on the big screen.
Recapturing that magic is actually a major part of the plot of Rebirth, and one of my favorite elements of this film’s narrative. See, the reality of this franchise post-Jurassic World is one of boredom and apathy. People there find dinosaurs more of an inconvenience than anything to actually behold. There’s almost a quiet disdain for the creatures, who never asked to be brought back in the first place. This mirrors the franchise itself, which returned after decades and hit people over the head with genetically engineered monsters and threw the quasi-science that made the original so special right out the window. It went for big thrills over something more genuine and backfired, like the Jurassic World attraction at the center of the 2015 movie, leaving a more cynical planet in its wake.
Jurassic World Rebirth picks up there with a mission that only sounds sillier the more you think about it. Big Pharma billionaire Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) runs a company that has unlocked a key to stopping heart disease, but in order to make the medicine work, they need the blood of the three biggest dinosaurs — one from land, one from the sea, and one from the sky. Why? Well because they have big hearts, like all dinosaurs do, but these three are special and important for some reason. So Martin hires mercenary and extraction specialist Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to retrieve these blood samples from the animals, who only exist on a chain of islands near the equator that have been forbidden from travel by all of the world’s governments.
They bring on paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to help identify the correct dinosaurs and ensure the samples are taken properly. And Zora gets her right-hand man, Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), to help lead her team. As they head for the islands and their mission really begins, they cross paths with a shipwrecked family (led by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and anchored by a hilarious breakout performance from David Iacono) and do what they can to rescue them. Unfortunately for the family, that means hopping on a boat deep into dinosaur territory. As you can expect, the adventure goes sideways and what was meant to be a simple in-and-out mission becomes a quest for survival.
This story does take a little while to get going. The very first scene is an absolute thriller that sets up the danger of Rebirth‘s lone genetic monstrosity (the D-Rex), but it slows down after that and spends 20-30 minutes getting all of its pieces into place. You’ll feel that first act wear on you a bit. The plotting is scattered and the character beats the film tries to instill in those early scenes tend to fall flat. Well, all of them but the ones involving Bailey’s Henry Loomis, who is the shining beacon of Alan Grant/Ellie Sattler goodness in Jurassic World Rebirth. He’s a man who has devoted his life to dinosaurs (even studying under Dr. Grant for a time), only for the public to swiftly lose interest and leave him wondering what to do next. There’s a lot of ties you can make from Loomis to the filmmakers watching streaming and social media attempt to kill the art that used to bewitch us mind, body, and soul.
Loomis is such an old-school Jurassic Park character, reminding you that “war-hero-turned-raptor trainer” was always as lame as it now sounds. That scientists have not only always been cool, but they’ve also been the real heroes from the very start. And boy, does Bailey bring all that to life in ways that I’m confident make Sam Neill proud. He’s the beating heart of Jurassic World Rebirth and his performance towers over the rest of the ensemble. If you thought Bailey was a capital-M Movie Star after Wicked, Jurassic World Rebirth does more than enough to cement that notion as truth. This guy is the real deal, and good on David Koepp for realizing that a character like Loomis — who genuinely believes dinosaurs are the coolest things to ever live — is so necessary to make a Jurassic movie thrive. In one scene, Loomis tells a mercenary, “It’s a sin to kill a dinosaur,” and I had to resist the urge to stand up and cheer. That is how much reverence these movies are supposed to have for the stunning creatures at their center, and that love has been inexplicably lost since 2015.
The return of that reverence — for dinosaurs and for filmmaking — is what consistently allows Jurassic World Rebirth to soar. It’s not concerned with a major plot about the end of life on the planet (it actually mentions such a thing as more of an inevitable fact), or about trying to build a sweeping love story with two characters nobody likes. Edwards knows you came for dinosaur thrills and, once the characters reach the island, he delivers those droves.
There are so many different dinosaurs in this movie, giving fans a cornucopia of prehistoric excitement around every corner. And unlike other Jurassic films, Rebirth doesn’t really have a “central” dinosaur antagonist. As the story rolls on, we move to different set pieces with different dinosaurs. And each of those set pieces is more exciting than the last. Edwards loves to toy with the audience, laser-focusing on the intersection of human awareness and dinosaur instinct that Spielberg used to create incredible moments like the raptor hunt in the kitchen or the snake in the waterfall. These sequences are expertly crafted, specifically engineered to generate the highest level of suspense and joy.
It’s in those moments, and in some key character choices, that Rebirth ties itself back to the original Jurassic Park. There aren’t any major cameos or surprise reveals in this film — Edwards and Koepp learned from the shortcomings of the three previous entries. But there is such a reverence for the craftsmanship and storytelling of the original that bleeds through from beginning to end. Whether that’s in the form of a fantastic child actor (Audrina Miranda) and her kinship with an adorable baby dinosaur, or with an extended T-Rex chase on a river, or using a closeup of an awe-struck scientist to do all of the talking; Edwards is acutely aware of what made Jurassic Park tick and he does his best to hit those same marks with Rebirth.
The result is very in line with The Lost World: Jurassic Park or 2001’s Jurassic Park III (directed by the criminally underrated Joe Johnston), which I consider to be a serious compliment. You will certainly notice issues, especially in the first act, but those problems pale in comparison to the victories. There are moments that’ll leave you breathless, cheering, and thinking to yourself, “This is why we come to the movies!”
Isn’t that what we’re hoping for every time we buy a ticket? I’ll gladly endure a few shortcomings in an imperfect film if it means giggling to myself, allowing my jaw to drop to the floor, and kicking my feet in my chair with the excitement of a small child because I’m experiencing a level of giddiness that I simply cannot contain. Jurassic World Rebirth did that, and I left the theater grinning ear-to-ear.
I only wish it had gone back to the Jurassic Park title, because that’s what this movie deserves. It’s a true rebirth for a franchise that easily could’ve crumbled under its own hubris, and the title is the sole reminder of the frustrating era of the franchise that Gareth Edwards has all but fossilized.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Jurassic World Rebirth hits theaters everywhere July 2nd.
