I love Jurassic Park. Steven Spielberg’s 1993 masterpiece is one of my favorite films ever made. Its imagery, themes, and ideas still permeate the cultural zeitgeist to this day. While it’s cliché to say that they don’t make movies like Jurassic Park anymore, I’d say that it’s certainly true in this case.
But like everything in Hollywood, money reigns supreme, and after Jurassic Park made millions at the box office, studio executives started dreaming: “How can we milk this for all that it’s worth?” Well, 31 years after the original came out, they’ve certainly found a way to do just that.
Jurassic World Rebirth attempts to make you feel like you're watching Spielberg’s original gem. From the soaring use of John Williams’ score to the scattered references and homages thrown about, it definitely tries to immerse you in something that’s supposedly magical. It all falls incredibly short of that goal, however, as every time one of those scenes gives a faint citation, I’m just sitting there longing to watch Jurassic Park.
What is the point of all these movies? It’s not the pursuit of creativity and art. Money is probably the main reason; Rebirth opened to an estimated $318 million worldwide as of July 6, with its indirect predecessor, Jurassic World Dominion, making over $1 billion over its theatrical run. But is enormous wealth enough to justify the equivalent of cinematic garbage? In my opinion, no.
Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and the ever-great Jonathan Bailey should not be subjected to acting in such a horrendous product. It’s a feat in and of itself that this trio of actors was put into a movie and such a disastrous result occurred. And let me be clear: it’s not their fault. While Johansson is not at her best, Ali and Bailey are their ever-charismatic selves. Bailey, utilizing an American accent, definitely took some getting used to, but once he settles in and his character (I don’t remember any characters’ names, and I frankly don’t feel the need to fill my brain with that kind of useless information) starts to be more involved in the plot, he begins to shine. Other than that, the character moments are extremely lacking, and every interaction left me wanting more.
The most offensive instance of forced nostalgia comes midway through the film, when Williams’ original theme blares at its loudest while Bailey’s character has a strikingly intimate moment with a modified dinosaur. I’m not kidding.
I won’t bother diving further into the plot. It’s a big nothing burger filled with enough dinosaur slop to keep you somewhat satisfied. Even those sequences of action, while entertaining in the moment, struggle to find their footing. Every instance is just another stop on a journey that, once it finishes, feels, much like the movie it’s in, pointless.
In the end, Rebirth is another installment in a franchise that’s severely lost its way. Calling for the death of the series is probably an overreach. After all, just look at how much money the last several entries in the franchise have made. There’s obviously an audience for dinosaurs. What audiences are tired of is bad scripts. The carnage and chaos that the prehistoric brings can only do so much. Without a good script, a movie is nothing, and that’s where Rebirth finds itself.
No movie in the Jurassic catalogue has provided the magic that the original supplied. Spielberg tried to do it with The Lost World and failed. Every filmmaker and studio should’ve learned the lesson back then in 1997. They didn’t, and now we stand here with seven movies within this franchise: one amazing and six lacking any sort of enchantment.
Drop a (metaphorical) meteor on Universal Pictures. Maybe that’ll teach them.
Final Rating: 2/5
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