Review: Jurassic World Rebirth

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

I often extol the virtues of “economical” screenplays: in the most entertaining movies (those that belong to the “blockbuster” category, anyway), every detail is essential and indispensable. Predator: Badlands provides a good recent example of this storytelling discipline: the various obstacles established in the first two acts are eventually revisited during the climax—usually to be utilized as improvised weapons in the protagonist’s arsenal. The setup-payoff structure is simple, but deliciously satisfying—lean, tight, and elegantly efficient.

Jurassic World Rebirth (a title apparently unworthy of a colon) epitomizes the exact antithesis of the aforementioned qualities: its script is utterly wasteful, its conflict inert and devoid of tension, its plot bloated, unwieldy, and directionless. These blemishes immediately emerge in opening scene, in which a scientist watches in horror as her coworker, caught on the wrong side of an emergency lockdown following a containment breach, is gruesomely devoured by a hideously mutated dinosaur, his desperate pleas for rescue falling on deaf ears. You might reasonably assume that this woman’s trauma and survivor’s guilt will play an integral role in her subsequent character arc. You would be incorrect. In fact, she never appears again; the sequence exists only to introduce the secret laboratory setting and the ferocious monster that inhabits it, neither of which is terribly important until the film’s grand finale—almost two hours later.

Such squandered potential occurs with enough frequency to be considered an unintentional running joke. At one relatively early crisis point, a member of our heroic band of morally ambiguous mercenaries unexpectedly sides with the sleazy corporate executive du jour, arguing that they should prioritize the mission at hand rather than investigating a nearby distress signal. Does this foreshadow friction amongst the team—perhaps even a shocking betrayal down the road? Nope: the devil’s advocate is unceremoniously eaten by a Spinosaurus shortly thereafter and promptly forgotten entirely. The presence of the obligatory tagalong family is likewise an egregious missed opportunity: a mild-mannered yet resourceful father and his surprisingly capable children accompanying trained and experienced combatants on their expedition to a remote island populated by prehistoric predators could have created an interesting tribalist dynamic; unfortunately, these distinct groups have barely interacted before they’re quickly separated without overlapping or intermingling (e.g., one of the kids inadvertently remaining in the mercs’ party, or vice versa—y’know, basic ingredients for dramatic stakes and narrative urgency). They don’t reunite until very close to the ending; why bother with the juxtaposition in the first place if it's not going to serve any meaningful purpose?

Ultimately, Jurassic World Rebirth demonstrates what happens when a solid premise is stretched too thin; an excessive number of sequels with increasingly diminishing returns have thoroughly eroded the charm and appeal of the series that Crichton, Spielberg, and Koepp built. Although director Gareth Edwards brings plenty of fresh ideas to the table, he neglects the necessary thematic substance and stylistic panache that would otherwise elevate them; they’re just a cluttered, chaotic hodgepodge of disparate concepts that never quite coalesce into a cohesive whole. Clearly, the once beloved cinematic franchise has fully fossilized, leaving precious little material to salvage—this latest entry has certainly convinced me that the studio should finally quit plundering its grave.