I had a lot of fun at Rebirth. I'm not sure I can say it's a good movie. There are issues, which I will get to, that keep it from being great. But pound for pound this is one of the most fun Jurassic movies in the series.
Okay lets get the bad out of the way. The script stumbles... a lot. Especially in the beginning the movie is so eager to get to its main plot that it really cuts corners on the development of characters and situations in the first act. Throughout there are a lot of oh-come-on-now moments like Johansson cutting the wire on a fence to climb through despite the wires being far enough apart any human could climb through. The characters are drawn paper thin and the plot is completely borrowed from JP3 and JW Fallen Kingdom but who's counting? Finally I bet you can guess who lives and who dies after the first 20 minutes of the film. It's all quite predictable.
Okay, now that's out of the way let me talk about why I had a good time at Rebirth. The film, more than any previous instalments of this series, leans into its monster-movie roots. From the cold open, which is scored like a 50s science fiction b-movie, the film lays out what it is, a monster mash up, and it doesn't give up on that. The film is one scene of dino carnage after another and despite the predictability I mentioned, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. The film doesn't spend time worrying about plot details or believability. It is wholly focused on mayhem and I am here for it.
Rebirth also pays loving tribute to what's come before. There are not too subtle references to the original Jurassic Park (an early shot of a car review mirror with the "close than they appear" text, the famous museum banner that centred in the first film's money shot) and even some lifted dialogue. No this film never reaches the heights of that classic but perhaps it is better not to try and to instead just gives us a fun story, even if it doesn't always make much sense, about running from dinosaurs.
And if we weren't convinced of the film's total embrace of its b-movie aesthetics, the end has the group facing off against a mutated dinosaur that looks like nothing something that would have evolved. It had rancor-monster from Star Wars written all over it.
I'll give the movie one more credit and that's how it refused to shoehorn in a needless romance. Other than a teen couple (who were already dating before the story begins) no characters are flirting or falling in love. They are just trying to survive and maybe becoming friends. It is refreshing when these films don't feel the need to shove a false feeling romance sub-plot in where it isn't needed.
Jurassic World Rebirth
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writer: David Koepp
