NFL
By: Matt Overton
When the original Jurassic Park films grappled with the moral dilemma of resurrecting dinosaurs and the consequences of digging up the past, they were tackling an interesting philosophical question. I don’t think anyone expected the modern Jurassic World movies to become the butt of a very meta joke: the studio could move on and try something original for once, or they could dig up the same old IP and continue to squeeze it for all it’s worth. Jurassic World Rebirth is an insult to moviegoers everywhere. The laziest, most unoriginal film I’ve seen all year, this latest remake/reboot/rehash is so uninspired and boring, I was tempted to walk out.
I never thought I’d say this, but I actually miss Chris Pratt. ScarJo is passable as the new lead protagonist, but she is the flattest character. At least Chris had the raptor wrangler background. Zora is a mercenary chasing another check when she is recruited by Martin to extract live samples from the three largest dinosaurs. The samples are going to be used for a life-saving cardiovascular pharmaceutical to be sold to the highest bidder. Zora has no moral qualms about the mission or her employer, nor do any of her compatriots. Dr. Loomis introduces the “radical” idea that life-saving drugs should be democratic and for the masses, which the script really hammers home multiple times. It’s a fun mental exercise: did Universal want audiences to think they are anti-Big Pharma, or did they just want to remind us that modern medicine is for-profit and totally unethical? It’s hilarious either way.
When Jurassic World Rebirth remembers it’s a dinosaur movie, it manages to be serviceable. Gareth Edwards is a renowned filmmaker whose visual effects teams do top-notch work, and they continue to put up some impressive visuals. Interestingly, this film was shot on 35mm so there’s a crisp realism about it, even when there’s computer generated dinosaurs in the frame. Just get used to enjoying what eye candy is available, because you certainly won’t be getting any enjoyment from the plot, characters, or dialogue.
David Koepp has such a wild career as a screenwriter. Just this year, he wrote Black Bag, which had an incredibly tight and thrilling script; he’s also well known for the original Jurassic Park, the first Mission: Impossible, and the first Spider-Man. But sitting in the auditorium listening to what he wrote for this had me wishing he were locked up and never allowed to write again. Honestly, this movie features some of the worst dialogue I’ve heard in a modern blockbuster. Some of the blame might be shifted to Edwards giving some stilted direction, but the lines exiting these actors’ mouths were atrocious.
Jurassic World Rebirth has a serious identity problem. I couldn’t tell you if this was meant to be a springboard for a new trilogy because there’s nothing in the narrative that hints at building a new world of characters, nor is there any indication that ScarJo is here to stay. It’s fully self-contained, but we all know Universal will continue to pump these movies out. They basically print money at this point. This was a thousandth of a decimal better than Dominion, but only because this was actually about dinosaurs and not locusts. Most skippable movie of the year.
