Jurassic World Rebirth REVIEW: Corporate Directed Dinosaur Fest

“We don’t rule the Earth. We just think we do.” — Dr.Henry Loomis

Jurassic World Rebirth had red flags all over its production process. Universal fast-tracked the film after receiving the script without allowing the writer to polish or look through it again for any improvements.

They wanted to hire a director who would have no creative input and mindlessly listen to them to shoot the film. Everything was hastily rushed so they could meet the summer release date.

In other words, this is a corporate studio-mandated film. However, even then, I am surprised that I enjoyed this film. Not only that, but I also thought this is the first film to feel like Spielberg’s Jurassic Park films and surpasses the quality of the entire Jurassic World trilogy.

Dinosaurs

The biggest highlight of this film is the suspenseful action it has. For far too long, the Jurassic franchise had become an average Hollywood action flick without any of the horror or suspense of the original. Characters would run around, use weapons to fight off dinosaurs, or employ cheap tricks to make us feel suspenseful when they are not. This film brought all of that back.

The dinosaurs are massive in scale and size. They seem like unbeatable giants compared to the minuscule humans in the film. There are deaths and so many close calls that had my heart beating out of my chest. Even when they had weapons, it was still no match for them, and they were often forced to take cover in dangerous locations like the middle of the ocean or on the edge of a mountain, whilst under attack by dinosaurs.

It creates layers of obstacles where a lot of things can go wrong. That is how you create suspense in a scene. It’s not just having one element to care about, but multiple, with stakes being high in the form of even one of them being wrong; then it’s death.

Another highlight is how the dinosaurs also felt wondrous again. The original film was one of the most astonishing achievements because the characters and we were amazed by the dinosaurs.

The characters could see them in their flesh and bones, while we were experiencing a technical marvel firsthand. That sense of wonder it created was overwhelming, but in a positive way. In the film, we got to experience how terrifying dinosaurs can be, but also the amazement in their beauty.

That combination of fear and amazement is what makes it so wondrous. It is a feeling we barely experience anymore in movies or from the recent Jurassic World films in general. The fact that we can feel something from the dinosaurs is like a miracle.

Characters

Mercenaries

The characters in this film are nothing to rave about, but they are compelling enough to get me caring.

Scarlet Johansson’s character is a mercenary who has a moral code. She protects children and family and ensures they don’t get hurt. Money and the mission are not the main priority; keeping the innocents and her friends safe is what matters most to her. Even if she denies it, you can tell that it is true to her heart.

The film also has a nice character arc in which she gradually comes to see dinosaurs as wondrous creatures, so she decides to share the samples she collected with the world rather than with a single company. It’s a nice change and sheds a new layer of her character.

Same with Mahershala Ali’s character. He is the weapons guy whose child passed away. Throughout the film, his crew was killed off one by one. Each kill only made him more depressed and desperate to leave. Not even Scarlett Johansson wants to abandon the mission, but he straight up wanted to leave.

Each member’s death was the equivalent of a family member dying, inflicting that trauma back on him. That is also why he wants to rescue the family that was stranded on the ocean, even if they were close to the island, because he had a family of his own before.

In the climax, I love how the film uses both characters’ trauma to push them to make unpredictable choices.

Mahershala Ali’s character wants to sacrifice himself so the others can leave, which takes the trauma of his son’s death full circle, where he is saving the family he has now, as opposed to living in guilt and regret for all his life.

For Scarlet Johansson’s character, she desperately does not want him to die because a close friend of hers had already died in her previous mission. She cannot experience something like that again.

The emotions and impact this scene had were powerful, and one that I had forgotten that this franchise was capable of.

Family

The family subplot was the one that gave me mixed feelings. On the one hand, it is always interesting to watch a happy family enjoying the time of their lives, only to be attacked and hunted by dinosaurs. Still, it is frustrating if the plotline has too big a gap with the main plot and constantly detracts from it by simply being there.

The main plot involves a group of mercenaries collecting dinosaur samples with close calls and many deaths. Meanwhile, you have a random family walking around the jungle to find their escape. It’s like two completely different worlds stumbling into each other, but they are never able to seamlessly connect.

I am also quite divided about the direction of this family plotline. The main conflict that they have involves the father and his daughter’s boyfriend. The father has a leader persona who is responsible and takes care of the family. In contrast, the boyfriend is irresponsible, lazy, and always makes up excuses to be lazy.

This creates the conflict where the father hates him because of how big a bum this guy is. Throughout the film, he would gradually grow to understand why his daughter likes him and even accepts him as part of the family. That is all nice and fun, even if I saw it a mile away, but there are some issues.

The daughter and the boyfriend barely interacted in the entire film. The only time they did was when he saved her, and it was a throwaway line for the next scene to happen. If you told me they were friends or siblings, I would have believed you more than them as a couple.

The daughter character does not feel like she had much of a role here. There was a scene where the villain attempted to get her killed, but that was the most she did. It made me wonder why they didn’t just change the boyfriend into his son if they weren’t even going to develop a believable romance between them.

The other daughter is the little girl because these types of movies need kids to generate more sympathy. There is no coincidence that every Jurassic film has a kid involved. I do think she is pretty compelling, as we see a child who hates dinosaurs with all her heart gradually grow to love them.

That wonder of dinosaurs was captured beautifully with her character. They even gave her a dinosaur pet mascot to market with. It is these kinds of things that made me a little mad. That dinosaur pet had no point of being here except to look cute, so why put it in? These little things take the illusion of the film away and make it feel like a corporate product.

Disappointment

A character I found disappointing is Jonathan Bailey’s character. The actor himself gave a charming performance that made the character memorable. If it weren’t for his performance, all you would find is an exposition machine that gives the audience the info they need about the scientific concept.

I did find his character to be necessary. The entire plot is about finding dinosaurs in the jungle. Just like the second film’s plot about saving dinosaurs, you need a character who cares about dinosaurs so we can care too, which that film did not have. Luckily, we have one for this film, and I am grateful for that, but I do think he does become a borderline exposition machine. This is most noticeable when he blatantly ignores the family.

Everyone on the boat is a mercenary or a businessman. They are the most heartless and cold people ever. This doctor is pretty much the only normal person on the boat, but he does not care about this family at all. It is like he doesn’t even acknowledge their presence. Every time a character mentions or talks about them, he either runs off or stays silent.

For a character who is a normal civilian with a sense of morality that cares so much about dinosaurs, you would have thought that he, of all people, would have been the first to save the family, but no, he treats dinosaurs a million times better than humans.

Theme

The thematic idea of this film is the average Jurassic movie theme. You have the greedy capitalist corporation that wants to use some dinosaur-related organ or whatever to make an overpriced drug to make the most money. These capitalist bureaucrats claim to save the world or evolve the human race when we know it’s all about the money.

The film, in turn, is about whether we submit to capitalist greed or share the discovery with everyone. That is what these movies have been about, especially the previous trilogy, and I don’t find this theme to have any issues, but if they overuse it, it will become stale.

Ironically, this film became the victim of its theme, whereby a greedy capitalist corporation wants to make more of these movies to print as much money as fast as possible. The irony, though, goes deeper into the fact that this corporate film managed to be better than the previous trilogy, even though it had an entire team of devoted fans. If corporate businessmen can make a better movie, then you might be the problem.

Visuals

Visually, I feel mixed on the visuals. The visuals had this natural color palette that sticks with its environment. There were some scenes that were beautifully shot. I can frame them on the wall as paintings.

The way the camera was handled was also pretty good. There were nice shots, and the way director Gareth Edwards frames the dinosaurs as massive monsters is perfect for this franchise. I may not like most of his films, but he is good at these sorts of movies.

However, there are also shots where it felt like a totally different director made them. Sometimes, the actors were clearly digitally inserted into a scene. There are shots that feel bland and lifeless, almost as if a studio executive directed them. In certain shots, the issue became so apparent that you wonder who actually made this film.

All New Concept

The dinosaurs in the film are fine. None of them were particularly memorable except for the T-Rex, who appears in every film. This time, they attempted something different by having the dinosaurs mutated. Even though there are millions of dinosaur species at their disposal, they had to do this.

While I don’t hate the designs, the mutant aspect never came as a necessity or worth exploring. It feels like a gimmick implemented by executives so they can sell new merchandise and something to market with.

As I see it, the dinosaurs are the perfect representation of this film. It is torn between having a crew devoted to creating a story they love, and a team of executives inclined to bag a ton of money and revitalize the brand.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Jurassic World Rebirth features some compelling character work and great buildup and execution in its action sequences, but despite all that, it still feels like a film ordered and shot by studio executives, rather than a passionate project someone wanted to make.

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Jurassic World Rebirth is now streaming on Peacock