Directed By Gareth Edwards

Starring – Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali

The Plot – Five years post-“Jurassic World: Dominion”, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, bloody images, some suggestive references, adult language and a drug reference.

Jurassic World Rebirth | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

For a franchise in its seventh installment over a thirty year lifespan, originality comes in small doses, however the self-proclaimed rebirth for the franchise does elicit some refreshing turns to its plot that makes this feel like an entirely different film creatively all together from its predecessors, offering popcorn thrills aplenty within a world that has been ravaged by mutated dinosaurs with a thirst for vengeance. For starters, the plot’s primary mission of extracting DNA samples from these rare dinosaurs appraises this as a heist film of sorts, with a balanced group of scientists and missionaries working together for the better of the world. This legitimately gives the characters a reason to be on the island that feels believable to the justification of the audience, but beyond that helps conjure some underlining social commentary to the world’s greed for pharmaceuticals procedures that proves it has its heart in the right place, feeling like the only instance where the worlds of fantasy and reality are merged seamlessly, in between some pretty intense direction for Edwards during a versatility of action set pieces. Because the mission of this group involves three different species that make up land, air and sea, it not only appraises a variety of set pieces, each offering something uniquely complex for the characters invested in them, but also channels intensity and tension inside of the confines of thick urgency, vulnerability, and especially inevitability that make Edwards’ intriguing shot compositions. With immaculate framing instilling a wink and nod to the audience of what lingers in the distance of these characters’ blind vantage points, Edwards draws out the pacing of each distinguished sequence so that we the audience can revel in the thickness of the dread for a bit longer, and with surprisingly tangible special effects work breeding every kind of heft and influence to the properties that they continuously devastate with destruction, Edwards ratchets the dangerousness of these missions that typically end in lesser members among the team, with Edwards taking a page out of his “Godzilla 2014” book, in which less depiction of the dinosaurs elicits more allure and wonderment for their depiction. Another welcome change to the franchise is in the audible entrancement of Alexandre Desplat’s thunderously triumphant score, both with gut-wrenching original tracks that effortlessly breed underlining anxiety to so many of the aforementioned action sequences, but also so much respect and adoration for John Williams’ original score for “Jurassic Park”, which are utilized to capture the spectacle and wonder of witnessing these creatures walk the Earth once more. Desplat’s rendering of these timeless themes go a long way in maintaining the identity of this cherished franchise, but with instrumental updating that allows the composer to make the work his own, despite Williams’ essence being present in every captivating tone, and with the movie’s sound designs equally ratcheting memorability to the depths of its own prestigious history, with creature noises here emulating some of those iconic ones within the first three movies of this franchise, there’s proof aplenty that the production took every chance towards articulating its fondness for the irreplaceable impact that it has had on the cinematic landscape, with subtle callbacks that will pay off the biggest fans of it with the same nostalgia allure that sees it entering its fourth decade of cinema. Aside from all of this, the performances from this charismatic ensemble imbed a lot of personality to the respective characters, despite their outlines leaving much more to be desired in fully realizing them as living, breathing entities. Scarlett Johannson continues to show off her resiliency in a role dominated by physicality, while Mahershala Ali candidly taps into the heart of his tremendous range, which balances his own bravado with humbling humanity that constantly beats on the surface of my favorite character in the film. Nothing mastered here hardly reaches for the best that either actor has to offer, but their impeccable timing and traces of melancholy lingering just beneath the surface of their rugged demeanors, does play into a tortured history in the distance that we unfortunately only experience in small doses, with each of them providing consistent energy to the portrayal that made this feel like an opportunity that both of them emphatically explored.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, while “Rebirth” is my favorite installment in the franchise since 1997’s “The Lost World”, it does still feel plagued by the same problems that have condemned previously uninspired efforts, beginning most especially with the paper thin characterization that make it difficult to invest in a single one of these characters during battle-tested times. After an opening act full of long-winded expositional diatribes that doesn’t feel especially natural or believable, I expected more to eventually materialize out of the evolutions of these characters, but their pasts are never mentioned again throughout the film’s duration, instead opting for these one-dimensional outline types that even a preschooler can accurately read as “Rich people bad, everyone else good”, while leaving such a void of emotional impact whenever one of them is shuffled off unceremoniously by one of these predatory pursuers. While it can be argued that nobody watches these movies for humans, I can equally argue it with the fact that they’re who we spend the overwhelming majority of the movie’s runtime with, so it would be nice if the movie didn’t sell them as celebrity personalities outside of film, rather than people we’re growing with inside of the film, with anything in the way of thorough development or uncovered revelations that could make them even accidentally fascinating to follow for over two hours. This leads to my second issue with the film, in which its pacing feels every inch of the 130 minute runtime, as a result of a split structure between respective protagonist groups that the script pursues with unmitigated focus along the way. This is certainly nothing new for Jurassic Park or World films, for that matter, as a majority of them split up their protagonists as a means of achieving vulnerability in lesser surrounding numbers, but here the script’s inability to focus on them simultaneously, and having to experience every second of their various explorations, does become a bit perilous in maintaining the momentum that the movie starts to attain for itself, at the beginning of the second act, with so many prolonged scenes and sequences in use of a second trip inside of the editing room, in order to keep them flowing with the kind of urgency that Edwards attains in the air of his direction. Finally, my biggest disappointment came from the movie’s tone, which I heard brought back more of the horror elements present in “Jurassic Park”, but instead felt cluttered by comedic dependency meant to keep the atmosphere airy and approachable for youthful audience members. This won’t affect everyone, but I prefer a more adult oriented Jurassic product, especially considering the series pertains to dinosaurs wanting to rip human invaders apart, and therefore get a little queasy in the stomach at cheeky observational gags and cutesy, cuddly little dinosaurs meant to serve as a companion to the cute little girl in the movie. While I completely understand and remember that the original movie had softer dinosaurs of its own, I never felt like they compromised the integrity of the movie’s tone by their inclusion, and these instances completely level these scenes of intensity and life-ending circumstance, each time one of these characters stops to deliver a gag almost directly to the camera, leaving me longing for the darkness of the Michael Crichton novel, which still feels like the single biggest difference in print to screen.

OVERALL
“Jurassic World: Rebirth” breathes new life into a franchise nearing extinction, with Edwards’ enthralling direction and a colorfully charismatic cast serving as the sizzling starch that pops the kernels in summer popcorn cinema. While nowhere near the fun or ferocity of its original two installments, with impropriety in tonal choices and flat characters floundering the movie’s suspense factors, the film still manages to capture the wonder and spectacle of one of cinema’s most grandest franchises, with two hours of high stakes thrills that continuously bite with bedlam.

My Grade: 7.1 or C+