johnke.meJurassic World: Rebirth
The first Jurassic Park film was a formative cinematic experience for me. The last Jurassic World film, Dominion was a firm DNF. A heck of a drop-off in a series.
So I’m happy to say that Jurassic World: Rebirth takes us back to the high highs of being about as good as Jurassic Park 3. Which is still objectively not great, but it’s infinitely better than movies 4-6. It story is about a world where people aren’t interested in dinosaurs any more and they’re dying around them and it’s hard not to read this as a meta-commentary on what happened to the franchise in the bombastic-but-dull Pratt years.
In fairness to Gareth Edwards, the film looks mostly gorgeous. A lot of the outdoor shots felt genuinely expansive. I can’t remember the last time a blockbuster hasn’t felt entirely volume-y or soundstage-y. A couple of times, Edwards even manages to capture some of the Spielberg magic. Even without the explicit callback of someone standing in the bow rail of a boat and shooting at a monstrous fish, there are parts here that nail the vibe of Jaws, which is an impressive feat. Another part of the film even captured the vibe of Aliens, of all films. People sometimes complain that Edwards makes films that are too cold and too clinical, but I feel like he’s finally proved them wrong here.
The real problem with Jurassic World: Rebirth that the script is total shite. We get an “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear” reference right after the cold open, which felt like a punch in the gut destroying whatever positive expectations I had. It’s when I realised this was going to be a film more about callbacks than anything new. Like buying a toaster from Amazon and then the algorithm constantly recommending you toasters. Remember the bit where they first see the brachiosaurus? Here it is again but with 100% more tail (and, somehow, not substantially better graphics? One of the exceptions I was thinking of when I said “mostly gorgeous”). Remember the “they do move in herds” bit? Here it is again but instead of 10 dinosaurs, the herd is 100 dinosaurs. Remember the flare bit? Remember? I understand there’s probably a lot of complicated franchise maintenance involved in a film like this and a certain amount of fan-service but the dial feels way, way off here. The original Jurassic Park had some absolute banger lines that have stuck with us for 30 years, like the entire “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could” speech. Rebirth gives us - and I’m not kidding here - “You don’t see that every day!” Absolutely atrocious work from David Koepp.