Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
Basically every single Jurassic World movie has required a massive suspension of disbelief. The first movie works so well because it takes intelligent characters and puts them in what, at the time, feels like an impossible situation. Once that happens in universe though - it becomes more and more insane to get people to agree to go to an island full of dinosaurs.
Perhaps you could liken it to billionaires taking submarines to the bottom of the ocean or attempting to go to space. I'm sure it can be justified but especially when the narrative pushes the notion that these are not genuine dinosaurs - rather human creations - the idea that scientists or experts would be stupid enough to go to an island filled with velociraptors becomes less and less believable. I recognize that Jurassic Park has become an iconic franchise for children and has purposely wanted to shy away from Crichton's original book but in doing so I have often felt these stories have lost what made them stand out so much to begin with..
Now let me be honest. Universal can make these movies forever and I will still watch them. I enjoy seeing dinosaurs on the big screen, I'm lured in by the classic characters or by the promise of including unused aspects of the original books. Dinosaurs are cool, I just wish that we could hold onto the brains that the original movie showcased.
Jurassic World Rebirth tries to hit the reset button. To make plausible the type of story that has felt implausible 7 movies in. Genuinely, I love the premise here. Needing to siphon samples from these dinosaurs to further medical studies actually gives a very reasonable motivation to all of the characters involved. Even when the writing falters or the need to rush towards the next big set-piece rushes things along you've got a great case here. ScarJo and Mahershala Ali have a particularly great scene together on the ship before things start kicking off. Johnathan Bailey doesn't get a lot to work with here but I really like him. (Like...just put him in everything).
Unfortunately the movie falls off from there for me. I was glad to see the river raft section of the book finally adapted but basically every other dinosaur encounter apart from this brings in more genetically modified dinosaurs. There was a remark, whether in this movie or a previous Jurassic World entry, that kids these days want bigger dinosaurs with sharper teeth. Honestly I really don't think this is the case. The Distortus-Rex, which I don't believe even gets a name in the film, just didn't do anything for me. As a self-proclaimed big kid myself, I honestly think one of the allures of dinosaurs is the idea that they were real. There is a single shot of the D-Rex that blew me away in terms of scale but I wish they had just used that smoke-filled shot to show off a Spinosaurus.
It's fine. It's almost offensive in how fine it is. Just give me the normal dinosaurs and Johnathan Bailey and my next review will be a lot shorter.
