Jurassic World Rebirth
Another fad that had its time like fidget spinners and Tamagotchi, the world has grown tired of dinosaurs, their escape into the wider environment curtailed by their inability to survive, those that have survived retreating to the tropical equatorial regions with few such as the specimen at the New York Zoo, “Bronto Billy,” known for his disruptive escape attempts, persisting where they can be visited by a largely indifferent public.
But science has other interests, Martin Krebs of pharmaceutical bioengineers ParkerGenix having his eye on possible longevity treatments which might be harvested from dinosaur DNA, recruiting tactical operative Zora Bennett and persuading soon-to-be-unemployed palaeontologist Doctor Henry Loomis to join them on a clandestine trip to interdicted Ile Saint-Hubert, promising them significant rewards beyond the trip of a lifetime.
The plan to collect three samples from the leading aquatic, terrestrial and aerial megafauna, the Mosasaurus, the Titanosaurus and the Quetzalcoatlus, the island was home to an InGen research facility abandoned seventeen years previously following an incident, but even before the team reach the island they receive a distress call from a family whose sail yacht has been overturned by a colossal sea creature.
The latest film to spring from Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park, his frequent screenwriting collaborator David Koepp returns to the world for the first time since the second in the sequence, The Lost World, joining with Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One to witness Jurassic World Rebirth, the original tale having been concerned with inserting genetic code while this one requires it to be gathered.
Starring Black Widow’s Scarlett Johansson, Hidden Figures’ Mahershala Ali and Deadpool’s Ed Skrein as the capable Bennett and her associates Duncan Kincaid and Bobby Atwater with Doctor Who’s Jonathan Bailey representing science as Loomis and Companion’s Rupert Friend representing finance as Krebs, as ever the dinosaurs take top billing, the focus on those which have been previously underrepresented while the more familiar Tyrannosaur and Velociraptor make only supporting appearances.
The InGen laboratory having been working on splicing the genetic codes of dinosaurs created in their more-or-less natural forms to create something novel in hopes of maintaining interest in the parks, as the seventh in the sequence Jurassic Park Rebirth could perhaps be commenting on its own position, well produced and acted, as would be expected, structured as an action-adventure quest to Monster Island with occasional moments of wonder, yet with any corresponding sense of danger even less frequent, a coaster rather than a roller.
Another story prompted by lapses in experimental protocol leading to containment breaches and depending on the arrogance and greed of those who enter the animal kingdom unprepared, astonishing after so many previous incidents, if there is anything new in the mix beyond the numerous in-jokes piling up like sediment it is the crossbreeding with Aliens and Predator in the hunting protocols of the hybrids and the mutated boss-level final challenge Distortus Rex, its presence spoiled in a prelude when surprise might have given it more impact.
Edwards a master of blending live action and digital effects in Monsters, Godzilla and The Creator, here the first open sea attack works because of the sheer size and inertia of the menace, the Mosasaurus making huge waves in Krebs’ perfect plan as it surfaces and attacks, but with the actors too-often feeling divorced from the artificial environments of the island the illusion is sometimes as unconvincing as the lack of gore and profanity, Jurassic Park Rebirth never able to forget that it is a family film which must play safe and clean in all circumstances, forestalling the threat of extinction for now but in need of a more radical evolution.
Jurassic World Rebirth is currently on general release
