Pay-to-Prey: “Jurassic World Rebirth"

JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH

Although the movie opens with a prelude set “17 years ago,” it's evident that the majority of director Gareth Edwards' new action thriller takes place in the present day, because we're told that dinosaurs were resurrected 32 years ago – as they effectively were in Spielberg's 1993 smash Jurassic Park. What sets this release in a distinctly speculative-fiction 2025, however, is that human beings, as we're told, have grown bored with, if not downright hostile toward, these majestic creatures. And if the sure-to-be-boffo global box office for Jurassic World Rebirth can be trusted, we real-life humans apparently haven't gotten close to bored. Not all of us anyway.

Speaking for the minority, though … this again? Isn't the three years that passed between Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World Dominion and Edwards' franchise entry not quite long enough to constitute a rebirth? How can we miss something that never went away? As a standalone entertainment that routinely nods toward its predecessors, this latest dino-centric adventure isn't terrible. Edwards pulls off first-rate set pieces, the effects are more consistently impressive than in the last three Jurassic outings, and the employment of 35mm gives the film a visual aesthetic comparable to Spielberg's in the day. It's an adequate time-killer in air-conditioning. What is isn't is in any way distinct, at least if you don't count the “novelty” of a skyscraper-sized prehistoric being that closely resembles H.R. Giger's Alien, and the characters, in their absurdly contrived situations, are frequently so breathtakingly stupid that you're not sure who you want eaten first. (At least four of them, disappointingly, make it to the end credits relatively unscathed.) I didn't hate Rebirth. But I did kind of hate the fact of its existence – some $180 million spent in service of something this profoundly, infuriatingly mediocre. Without Gareth Edwards at the helm, it woulda been way, way worse.

Because all summer blockbusters these days – even bland, non-tentpole offerings such as F1: The Movie – are essentially big-screen video games, Edwards' and screenwriter David Koepp's continuation operates with a video-game mentality: Win three coveted treasures and win the game! As the post-prelude section opens, the public is clearly so over dinosaurs, evidenced by commuters' angry impatience when an unhealthy giant lies down, and blocks traffic, under the Brooklyn Bridge. (A sight begging the question: Where the eff had this thing been hanging out beforehand?) Unsurprisingly, however, Big Pharma hasn't lost interest. And in the personage of the smiling, instantly untrustworthy pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs (an uncharacteristically insufferable Rupert Friend), the ParkerGenix Corp. initiates a plan for a heart-medicine miracle requiring the collection of blood samples from the three largest dinosaurs on Earth: the land-based Titanosaurus, the sea-based Mosasaurus, and the air-based Quetzalcoatlus.

You'd think someone from ParkerGenix would've at least gone to Brooklyn to secure a sample from that poor, downed creature; it certainly looked big enough, and definitely bigger than the Quetzalcoatlus we're told is the size of an F-16 but, when we finally meet the thing, is more in the range of a Kia Soul. But no. A trip to the equator is required, and with it a team that includes Krebs, Jonathan Bailey's paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, Mahershala Ali's mercenary Duncan Kincaid, and Scarlett Johansson's covert-ops expert Zora Bennett.

Let's talk about Zora for a moment, shall we? We're used to the heroes and heroines in these things getting involved with at least some nobility of purpose: Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler; Owen Grady and (in time) Claire Dearing; even Goldblum's Ian Malcolm, in his way. They cared about the missions they were on. At first, it's refreshing that Zora doesn't – she baldly states that she's in it only for the money, and when the $10 million she's offered doesn't quite seal the deal, she successfully strong-arms Krebs into doubling her salary. But it quickly becomes apparent that Zora's situation might be a mirror of Johansson's, as the actor gives a performance of such paycheck-focused disinterest you can't imagine what, beyond the cash, might've motivated her participation. Bailey over-emotes his guts out and Ali seems content to sail through on pure charisma. (Given the limited, tonally awkward nature of Ali's role, there really wasn't another option.) But Johannson goes neither route, and eventually seems to embody every member of the Rebirth public who stopped being wowed by dinosaurs ages ago. She's clipped and smirky and no fun at all, and while Koepp gives Zora some teary backstory about a beloved work partner who perished, it apparently didn't dawn on him, or Johansson, to allow the woman even a few seconds of mourning when another partner is gobbled up directly in front of her.

Nothing about Johansson's role or portrayal makes much sense. But with the arrival of Jurassic Park Rebirth's other set of potential dino-victims, hers is only the fifth-least comprehensible figure around. Because wouldn't you know it, right when the Big Pharma blood hunters are on their way to the dinosaurs' home turf, so is a sailboat filled with impending snacks: Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who just wanted to take his girls on vacation in waters forbidden by law to enter; his 11-year-old daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda); his heading-to-NYU daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise); and Teresa's shirtless stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono).

I know we're meant to find this crew endearing, and the film wouldn't be a Jurassic if it didn't put children in mortal danger. But sheesh … they truly are a pain. Reuben is obviously an idiot for taking his kids and that dipstick hanger-on a trek – an illegal one! – to a locale that everyone in the world knows is teeming with dinosaurs. Yet Teresa is petulant and surly from moment one and barely changes even when the plotting requires her to. Sweet little Isabella lost all empathy, at least from me, when the initially traumatized girl fell in love with a baby dinosaur that she cutely named Delores (or maybe Delaurus … ?) and smuggled around in her backpack Dora-the-Explorer-style. And yes, it's sweet that boneheaded Xavier jumps into the water to save his girlfriend from either downing or a Mosasaurus attack. Does that really excuse the “hilarious” moments in which he refuses Reuben's request for steering assistance because he's “so tired” and asks the 11-year-old whether she likes to get high?

For my money, after they landed on the same dino-infested island as our money-hungry adventurers, I would've been happy to see the whole Delgado-plus-one clan served up as monster meat. But because the Jurassic movies are now, and have always kind of been, “family movies,” we know such deserved ends aren't in store. That's why it's such a relief that Edwards mostly stages his prehistoric attacks and scenes of extended baity tension with elan; he gives you plenty to look forward to even when you can barely look the film's humans in the face.

As he directed the 2014 Godzilla reboot that most viewers enjoyed way more than I did, it was probably inevitable that Edwards would be hired to shepherd a Jurassic one day. I'd prefer to think, though, that what scored him the gig was instead 2023's The Creator – a fantastic, down-and-dirty sci-fi that demonstrated what Edwards could do with a relatively paltry budget (only $80 million!), and that showed his acuity at making extraordinary visual effects part of the landscape rather than the whole package. True, he doesn't appear able to inject life into the tired character conceits and occasionally moldy scenarios that Koepp has strapped him with. (He didn't do much for the ones he had in Godzilla or the Andor inspiration Rogue One, either.) His staging and compositions, though, suggest that Edwards has a keen sense of where to place the camera for maximum impact – especially Spielberg-ian impact, and of a sort reminiscent of both the original Jurassic Park and, blessedly, Jaws.

In the most delightful shock of the movie, we see one of Zora's expedition crew newly arrived on the shore after a major battle with some aquatic Spinosaurus. What we didn't realize until that moment, at least if we aren't dino-nerds of the type I was when I was eight, is that these water beings also resided comfortably on land. Consequently, we watch, with giggly dread, as this victim-to-be goes about her business completely unaware that a Spinosaurus is lurking behind her, and Edwards pulls off a similar doozy of an assault sequence when hapless Xavier is absentmindedly urinating while his assured death is prevented by a dino-on-dino battle he's never privileged to see. These scenes are both scary and funny – better, to be sure, that anything produced in the last three Jurassic Worlds – and get to the heart of Edwards' facility. He keeps us aware that what's going on in the background is, in general, far more arresting than what's going on in the foreground.

It's rare to see a movie in which just about the only thing to commend is the direction, because if the direction is great, usually the rest of the movie is, too. That's not, however, the case with Jurassic World Rebirth. The performances, when actors are even bothering to give performances, are largely crummy. Koepp's narrative is deeply contrived and maddeningly formulaic, and his dialogue is even worse – a bunch of random wisecracks blended with ungainly sentiment and the sorts of hectoring “nature will find a way” moralizing that has plagued this series from the start. And even when everything should theoretically be going right, you'll be thrown out of a moment by the sheer dumbness of what you're watching.

There's a moment here in which Loomis, who has been lured into participation by the chance to see, at long last, his beloved dinosaurs in their own environment, gets said chance. And what he witnesses should indeed be magical: a pair of Brachiosaurus (I think) nuzzling as they traipse through a gorgeous field of green. But the effects are among the rare instances of irritatingly obvious CGI work, and nothing that happens is fundamentally different, awe-wise, from the sight of an exhausted dino napping under the Brooklyn Bridge. What about this moment makes Loomis – who must have seen dinos in the flesh prior – gaze with Laura Dern-esque fervor and whoop with glee? While gazing, is he somehow also hearing John Williams' soaring theme music in his head?

But then I think about the first Mosasaurus assault with the Delgados – beautifully shot by cinematographer John Mathieson, admirably realistic, and enticingly suggestive of both the masterful Jaws and Jeannot Szwarc's underrated Jaws 2. (Laugh if you must; that sequel does have its perks.) I think of the legitimately spectacular sequence of the Delgados and that handsome half-wit Xavier trying to outrun and outsmart a T. rex, the initial reveal of our most adored of series adversaries being a classic. I think of the super-obvious yet irresistible scene that echoed the famed kitchen attack on the original Jurassic Park youths. I think of the unholy hybrid the Distortus rex (great name) whose just-enough appearances don't bring to mind Spielberg so much as Ridley Scott. And I think that Gareth Edwards is the best thing that could possibly have happened to the middling, you-made-it-to-diverting Jurassic World Rebirth. More of these installments will no doubt be on the way. I'm just complacent and bored enough – not by dinosaurs, but by summer-blockbuster season as a whole – to hope more of 'em will be just like this one.