Jurassic World: Rebirth Review - A flawed but much needed return to basics

Chase Gifford
Jul 1
5 min read

“Life finds a way.” - Ian Malcolm

For years now, this franchise has been going the way of Fast & Furious. A lot of noise, visual onslaughts, ludicrous plots, asinine characters and perhaps worst of all, it possesses zero heart and no soul. The original is a shining example of movie magic. It makes your imagination soar while watching the impossible become possible before your very eyes. Its plot is simple but engaging. The characters became as iconic as the movie itself. Jurassic Park is the cinematic embodiment of a blockbuster.

What I’m discovering now is that maybe the premise of dinosaurs running loose and eating park patrons is a one and done deal. Now it’s undeniable that certain entries after the first are passable, far from great but nowhere near awful either. But I’m thinking the idea of recapturing lightning in a bottle with this franchise is next to impossible. I think maybe if they went R rated with the next installment it might freshen things up but I don’t see them even considering this especially when I walk near the toy aisle in a Wal-Mart and I see numerous JW products in support of the next release. There’s too much money to consider deviating.

All this disappointment, especially with the last two (lack of) efforts, Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, I was less than thrilled about any new adventures, however inevitable. Fallen Kingdom made me hate dinosaurs. Dominion made me hate nostalgia. And bugs for some unknown reason. It’s why I felt nothing when Rebirth was first announced. To say it’s a new beginning and have it appear to be pretty much exactly the same you start to question if you’ll even give it the time of day.

My expectations were as low as possible. The bar was on the floor in the basement. I expected nothing, if anything, it would be awful. Perhaps a complete disinterest somehow swayed my opinion because much to my surprise I didn’t hate Rebirth. Make no mistake, it has many of the shortcomings of past additions like stupid character decisions, shoddy effects at times, repetitive storylines, and PG-13 restraints. But the one thing it does fix that was so egregiously forced into the Jurassic ethos is giant, genetically engineered locusts. Because nothing celebrates the love of dinosaurs like big fucking bugs. And by fixed I mean completely ignored. Rebirth refocuses the franchise where it should have always stayed. On the dinosaurs. It flirts with some wonky concepts, particularly in the final act but it stays on topic enough that in the moments when it does deviate slightly it doesn’t take away from why we’re watching in the first place.

In the original Predator movie, the setting was deep in the jungle. It lost that simplicity as the franchise carried on, jumping from cityscapes to modern suburbia. It wasn't until 2010’s Predators that the franchise returned to the jungle, albeit with a twist. While it’s still not as good as the original, it was a vast improvement over what came between the first and Predators and what’s come since up until 2022’s Prey which reset the entire franchise getting it back in the win column. With Jurassic World, it has since lost what did work and piled on some seriously audacious story elements that buried the spirit of dinosaurs and where they belong in this line of movies and that’s at the center of it all. Again, at one point we got giant grasshoppers. Why? That’s most rhetorical but kind of, what the hell?!

For all its faults, Rebirth course corrects this glaring mistake and returns the dinosaurs to their mantle at the forefront of everything. And the humans? They return to their rightful place as well at the bottom of this newly reformed food chain where dinosaurs are the apex predators now. Of course the true inescapable horror is that for all their teeth and claws and outrageously angry demeanor, dinosaurs are not the true threat in our modern world. We are and everything is being affected to some degree because of us. In the film a character comments on dinosaurs being dumb but have managed to survive for millions of years. And for all of our pontificating, our species likely won’t see a few hundred thousand years before extinction takes hold.

So in the spirit of dinosaurs just trying to live and humans disturbing that peace at every turn, Rebirth is a celebration of dinos giving mettlesome humans their oh so deserved comeuppance. Also, have you noticed a theme carried out through pretty much every movie in the franchise where a bitchy little billionaire inevitably bites the big one, so to speak? It’s a great tradition I must say and it’s certainly reflective of our feelings as a society towards the wealthy.

Rebirth tells the story of mercenaries hired to escort the aforementioned billionaire, and an introverted, absurdly handsome scientist to the forbidden parts of the ocean where islands protrude from the waters teeming with Mesozoic life. It’s there they hope to obtain DNA samples from particular breeds of dinosaurs that could possibly solve the epidemic of heart disease among other ailments currently without a cure. And as you would expect, all hell breaks loose and these so-called trained professionals are stranded on an island they are not permitted to set foot on. They are, by any measure, on their own. And the local wildlife is insatiable.

Scarlett Johansson is the new lead and she’s perfectly serviceable as the heroic adventurer but does little beyond her beauty to truly stand out. My favorite character is Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid. He is a rebellious spirit with a past that dictates his true nature that inevitably determines the group’s chances of survival. He is a wonderful match to Johansson’s Zora Bennett who together understand their mutual pain inflicted by devastating loss.

Like I said before, my expectations could not have been lower. I thought it would be more of Dominion proving that Hollywood doesn’t learn from its mistakes but rather doubles down on them with a giant middle finger in the faces of their potential audiences knowing full well they’ll get the profit no matter what.

So imagine my surprise when it turns out they actually redirected things back to what makes this franchise work best. Still tripping over itself much of the way, it still provides enough of a thrill, enough of a return to basics to make Rebirth the best in the franchise since the first film that took us from a park to the world of Jurassic. It didn’t have many obstacles to surpass the previous two so take this victory with a grain of salt. Also keep in mind that many I’ve talked to either simply weren’t impressed by it or they outright hated it. It’s all a matter of what you’re willing and unwilling to accept in terms of implausibility, absurdity, and just plain ol’ stupidity. For all that I liked about it make no mistake, it still makes room for stupid. In this case, it was easy enough to take along with all the fun thrills it provides. Now let’s get that R rated Jurassic Park going and shed some blood.