Review: "Jurassic World: Rebirth"

“Jurassic Park” was released 32 years ago. Thanks to writer Michael Crichton and director Steven Spielberg, the world would never be the same.

The book was a best seller. The movie was a blockbuster hit. It was science fiction made plausible with the suggestion that dinosaur DNA trapped in the bodies of prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber might allow modern science to resurrect the towering creatures that once roamed and ruled the world. It was a mind-bending idea.

The movie adaptation in 1993 was a cinematic milestone with its breakthrough computer-generated visuals. It is, to this day, a timelessly enjoyable film. For many reasons, critics wondered if it could ever be topped.

That didn’t stop Hollywood from trying.

‘Lost World: Jurassic Park was released in 1997 followed by “Jurassic Park III” in 2001.  The franchise was rebranded Jurassic World with all new characters in 2015. Two sequels followed:  “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” in 2018 and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022. 

The latest installment is “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” directed by Gareth Edwards. It stars Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett, a female mercenary hired to carry out impossible missions around the globe. In this case, she is offered a sizeable paycheck to take a corporate entrepreneur (Jonathan Bailey) and a dinosaur expert (Rupert Friend) to a remote, sanctioned island where they must extract dinosaur blood from three different, monstrously mutated specimens.  It’s a mission that spans land, sea and air.

The real monsters in movies like this are the greedy corporations who will stop at nothing to profit from whatever can be sampled or learned from non-human creatures, despite the risks involved.  It was the same plot element underlying the original “Alien” movie (1979).

It’s a dangerous operation with a small group of highly trained experts.  You know that some of them aren’t going to make it.  Gruesome deaths are part of the franchise’s formula.

Along the way, the team rescues a father (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his two daughters and a slacker boyfriend who become stranded when their sailing vessel is attacked by a gigantic sea monster.  They go along for the ride, not knowing what’s in store.

For the most part, “Jurassic World: Rebirth” is a technical marvel with big screen, summer movie special effects. Interestingly, it is a little uneven at times (possibly the result of budgetary concerns or production deadlines, one can only guess).

The action is big and splashy and is best seen in theaters with large screens and seats equipped with D-Box vibrating seats.  It’s worth the extra bucks.

The problem with “Jurassic World: Rebirth” is the preposterousness.  Not long after arriving on the forbidden island, the crew loses their boat and their weapons (not that conventional weapons would do them much good against their prehistoric, scientifically modified predators).

At one point, they make their way to a secret abandoned research center, deep in the jungle, where this new breed of dinosaurs was created 17 years earlier.  As is often the case in movies like this, the generators still work, and the entire facility creepily comes to life with lights and recorded music on loudspeakers each night. Flashlights work.  Vehicles still start.  It’s all very convenient.  Despite the silliness.

Also silly and ridiculous, is the cute baby dinosaur that the youngest daughter befriends on her family’s trek through the jungle.  We’ve seen how small, innocent-looking lizards are capable of ripping your throat out in the first “Jurassic Park” installment. 

It’s clear that the target audience for “Jurassic Park: Rebirth” is a younger crowd.  Older audiences can enjoy it too, for the effects and action sequences, but much of the adult violence and gore has been reeled in here.

The original “Jurassic Park” has been a hard act to follow, as they say in showbusiness.  The sequels have incorporated increasingly sophisticated visual effects over the years but have failed to top the showstopping originality and power of Spielberg’s film.  The same could be said of the attempts to follow “Jaws” or “Indiana Jones.”  The originals became the enduring classics.

The jury is out as to whether “Jurassic Park: Rebirth” will crush the competition at the summer box office or whether the new, upcoming “Superman” movie will soar into the clouds of box-office success.  We’ll have to let them slug it out.

“Jurassic World: Rebirth” is rated PG-13.