Jurassic World: Rebirth Review

Jurassic World: Rebirth Review

I was lucky enough to see Jurassic World: Rebirth at Regal’s Movie Mystery Monday. It was a cool experience being able to see this film the same night as the world premiere without knowing what the general vibe was surrounding this film. What did I think about the film? Was it any good? Let’s talk about it!

NOTE: There’s some things I wanted to talk about in relation to this film, it doesn’t at all hurt my feelings on the films. But just some extra things to talk about. 

1. It is called Jurassic World but it’s not a sequel to that trilogy. This is a stand alone film, this could be your introduction to the franchise and you’d be just fine. It’s not really following up on any plot points from those films. 

2. There’s no mid or post credit scene for the film. As soon as the credits roll, you can go, there’s no need to stick around. 

The Good

Right out of the gate the thing that I appreciated about this film is Gareth Edwards’ direction is absolutely on display with this film. We’ll talk about this more later but all of his films are flawed but in terms of the visuals his films are really good. All of his films Godzilla, Rogue One, and The Creator all have stunning visuals with these moments that look cool. The island that our characters go to isn’t Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, it’s a new island. The island looks very different even the environments that our characters are in feel different. In the trailer you see multiple shots of Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey in this grassy field, when the sequence starts it’s these gorgeous shots with these wide angles so you can see everything, you can see in the distance all of this detail and more dinosaurs. When it was announced that Edward was going to be directing the film, I knew that regardless of the quality the look of the film was going to be really strong. Even with the ways the dinosaurs look, they have more color and texture to them. I’ve been rewatching the franchise and one thing I’ve noticed is the dinosaurs are super interesting to look at. With this film they look like dinosaurs but also look different. With the cool visuals it really makes you feel like you’re going to a different place. This film is in modern times and we do spend time in New York City, but the island itself feels like a distant place. 

One of the things that I really liked about the film was the usage of the dinosaurs and the ways that people respond to the dinosaurs. Not since the original do I think a film did this good of a job of capturing the sense of wonder and amazement of seeing dinosaurs. Jonathan Bailey’s character is very much designed to be this dinosaur lover. He’s devoted his life to studying dinosaurs and working in museums. When he first sees dinosaurs he’s not scared of them, he’s in awe of them. I feel like Bailey’s character is designed as a response to one of Alan Grant’s quotes in Jurassic Park III. Even the mission that they’re on is to get dinosaur blood and DNA but they don’t want to harm the dinosaurs. So many of the conversations before they go on the mission is to make sure that the dinosaurs aren’t harmed. There’s one character in the film that’s a hunter and wants to harm the dinosaurs and shoot them if they get too close. Everybody responds in a negative fashion because there’s this sense of optimism with the characters in regards to dinosaurs. 

Of course with a Jurassic film you have to talk about dinosaur carnage and fun. This film delivers some super thrilling and exciting sequences. Every dinosaur sequence from the boat, to the raft, to the cave, to the third act are super exciting and thrilling sequences. If I was just evaluating the film on dinosaur carnage, I think this is the best since the original. Every single sequence is thrilling and keeps on adding tension on top of tension. I’ve seen some people say that all of the sequences besides the boat are lackluster. I strongly disagree with that and I’m a bit confused by that because I don’t think there’s a bad sequence in this film. The film also makes you fear dinosaurs. It puts the horror back into the franchise that the franchise hasn’t done since the original. At points the dinosaurs are used as jump scares in the film. I’m not somebody who gets spooked by jump scares. But my audience was definitely reacting during some moments. There’s times where children are put in harm’s way that makes you fear the dinosaurs because a child is involved. There’s something even more horrifying about the sequences because of it. What’s fun about the film is it almost uses the audience’s knowledge of the franchise against them. In the film, there’s a sequence with a raft with a T-Rex. The characters are in the water trying to swim away and avoid the T-Rex. The audience knows if they just stay still the T-Rex doesn’t see them, but the characters in the sequence don’t. It’s just stuff like that where the film in very clever ways is able to use the audience’s knowledge against you. I appreciated that about the film and added something extra to the sequences. 

One thing that I feel is going to polarize some people that I liked, was the film feel like a love letter and tribute to the franchise. In this review I’ve talked about how there’s a lot of things the film does the best since the original. Even with the ways in which the characters are in awe of dinosaurs while also scared of them feels like some moments from the original. Even some of the sequences in the third act with the shot selection and how they’re structured feel like they are heavily inspired from films. It probably does help that David Koepp who wrote the original two did return to write this film. The cave sequence feels similar to the flying dinosaurs scene from Jurassic Park III. But it’s not copying it, it’s not a one to one comparison but just ways that it feels similar. The plot of the film is a mix of The Lost World: Jurassic Park with Jurassic Park III. This film isn’t a legacy sequel but it does have a legacy sequel vibe of respecting and honoring what came in the past. 

Finally, this film has a fun cast filled with actors that you enjoy. In the lead is Scarlett Johansson, she brings all of her movie star charm and good looks to this film. She’s of course great in big blockbusters like this. The two other leads in the film, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey have more lively fun and personalities. Their characters are designed to have more fun and personality that I had a good time with. I think this film solidifies that Bailey is a movie star to look out for. Between Wicked and this film, he clearly has this movie star charm about him. I’m very excited to see what projects he does in the future. Like I said, his character is designed to be the optimistic of the group so he’s probably the most likable character in the film because of that.

The Bad

Unfortunately, while the actors playing the characters are a lot of fun, the characters themselves aren’t great and pretty one note and shallow. It has the problem of the Monsterverse films where they get a great cast with actors you enjoy but don’t give them any good material to work with. Like I said earlier, the film is written by David Koepp who wrote the original film. One of the things the original gets right is the characters. So many of the characters could have been one note bland characters but he found ways to make them interesting. I didn’t feel that Koepp nailed the characters like he did in the original. They set up a lot of things with these characters that could have been interesting. Scarlett Johansson’s character is the mercenary character who has PTSD from her last mission. You think there’s something they’re going to do with them going to a dinosaur island where a lot of people are going to die. That’s not really the case with it, they don’t do anything with that. Even with Jonathan Bailey’s character they establish themselves as being this dinosaur expert. A character says in the movie that he’s there to provide information on the dinosaurs that will ensure the safety of others. He doesn’t really do that in the film, so they spend an entire scene at the beginning establishing his skill set and they do nothing with it. They also feel like characters where you could get any other charismatic movie stars to portray them and you’d feel the same. There’s nothing about these actors that brings anything interesting to them. The only reason why you remember these characters is because they’re played by movie stars. 

The other problem and I think this is going to be a big talking point when the film comes out, but there’s this family that’s in almost the entire film that was a very weird addition to the film. The film barely even markets them so it was a pretty big surprise just how big of a role they played in the film. My big problem with these characters isn't the character themselves, it's that they took away screen time. To what I just said, our main characters are underdeveloped and if they removed this family and focused more on the main character they’d probably be much better characters. This other family has their own subplot of them trying to get the same location as our main characters. The family is involved with the raft sequence that I thought worked really well. But I almost wish that our main characters were in that sequence and not this random family. They don’t add anything to the plot of the film. You could cut them from this movie and it wouldn’t change at all. It felt like the only reason why these characters were here was so the little girl could be helpful in the third act. I can’t think of another reason in the film as to why these characters needed to be here. 

Finally, I find it frustrating that this franchise continues to go back to the island and not play out a movie in the real world. Almost all of the Jurassic films have our characters go to this island and try to avoid dinosaurs. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ends with dinosaurs being let loose on the world. You get Jurassic World: Dominion that teases dinosaurs on the main land, that’s not what the film is about. This film still has dinosaurs on the main land, there’s ways in which you could tell this story on the main land. But instead we go to an island and the characters deal with a lot of the same issues that they’ve dealt with in the past films. I feel that there’s this sense of wasted potential of telling a story with dinosaurs on the mainland. I did praise the film for the visuals and transporting the audience to a different location. But I can be disappointed that we’re not getting a film on the mainland. 

Final Thoughts: This film seems to be a bit polarizing. There’s a lot of people viewing this as another mediocre and disappointing Jurassic sequel. I’ve also seen a lot of people praise this film and say it’s the best sequel. I enjoy this franchise for being dumb fun dinosaur blockbusters. I went into this movie hoping to be entertained and thrilled for 2 hours and I was. There’s a lot of enjoyment and good elements in this film that overall I had fun with, I was never bored watching it. My audience was pretty packed and they started clapping when the film finished and they were laughing throughout the entire film. 

The Score: 8.3/10 (B)