If there’s a single franchise in Hollywood that truly embodies ‘diminishing returns’, it’s Jurassic Park. From its wondrous masterpiece of an opener in 1993 came two inferior but serviceable sequels. Then, in 2015, Jurassic World injected a little new life and *a lot* of new money, only to be followed by the damp Fallen Kingdom and then 2022’s Dominion, a legitimate contender for the worst film of the last 10 years. Now, we’re (presumably) starting Jurassic trilogy number three with Jurassic World Rebirth, and it’s not a hugely auspicious beginning. On its own, Gareth Edwards’s prehistoric adventure is pretty much fine, with incredible CG and some great dino designs let down by a poor script, but if the next few entries (as the pattern suggests) are all downhill from here, the new Jurassic era is going to get very dire, very fast.
The best thing writer David Koepp (who did the screenplay for the original all those decades ago) does is fully abandon the ‘legacy sequel’ stuff that proved such a weight on the neck of the last trilogy. Here we have all new characters, split into two concurrent stories. The much better half involves Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), a mercenary hired to extract experimental dinosaur DNA from an old research island, supported by affable ship captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), action-palaeontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), and obligatory corporate slimeball Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend).
While a lot of the writing here is pretty clunky and generic, it is sold by a charismatic, glowingly gorgeous cast, with MVP status going to Bailey. His Loomis has an infectious sense of awe and fun amongst the danger as he gets to live out his dreams and chase dinosaurs around in the wild, and it’s great to see a character in one of these things actually having a good time, something that’s been missing since the original. The same saving graces cannot be found in the second strand, involving a family (dad, two daughters, older daughter’s stoner boyfriend) sailing from the Bahamas to South Africa who get attacked by a giant mosasaur and also end up stranded on the island. These four are horribly written and just as horribly acted, making for some of the most unlikeable blockbuster ‘heroes’ in ages; you’ll almost instantly want them all eaten by a T-Rex.
Speaking of eaten by a T-Rex….Rebirth’s dinosaurs look and sound exquisite. As he proved with The Creator back in 2023, which looked ten times better than any Marvel movie on one third of the budget, Edwards is maybe the current best in the world at putting fake things in real places without any visible seams. The CG work, especially when he’s really showing off in set-pieces out at sea or in ominous fog, is incredible, a major feat for both Edwards and his VFX team.
These set-pieces are consistently fun, though (with the exception of the genuinely tense and frightening opening sequence) not as thrilling as the best stuff found in the original trilogy, a real sense of danger harder to come by than it perhaps should be. Part of this is down to the kills themselves; none of the dinosaur chow-downs, even by the creepy mutant hybrid creatures (the best one being a giant, twisted Rex with extra arms and a skull that seems to be bursting through its own scalp) that dot the island, are very memorable.
After Dominion and its deathly boring story about mega-locusts or something, the only way for the Jurassic series was up, and Edwards has succeeded in righting the ship, an odd achievement that is both no easy feat and also not quite high a bar enough to be a triumph in its own right. These things print money, so I’m sure another couple of sequels are on the cards; let’s just hope they use this foundation to really grow, instead of sliding back down that bafflingly steep hill of forgetting how to make big chompy lizards fun.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 
Good review. Personally, I didn’t care for this movie. I get that the movie is trying to go back to its original roots, but most (if not all) the characters are one-dimensional and forgetful, the story seems lazy, and the overall purpose for the feature is redundant. I think its definitely time for this movie franchise to be put to rest.