It’s not exactly stale, but “Jurassic World Rebirth” feels very, very familiar.
“Given that the ‘Jurassic’ franchise is more than three decades old — and the original, which still holds up, remains the best — it wouldn’t be hard to let sleeping dinos lie.”
But, cynically speaking, there’s money to be made, and as long as fans flock to theaters to see these films, more will be made.
As for the latest entry, it does what it has to do – it entertains. It’s the summer, so that’s not unwelcome for an escape.
By now, the “ooh-and-ahh” spectacle Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) described about seeing dinosaurs in the wild for the first time is gone for us and the characters in this movie as the reptilians have become a daily part of life and are no longer an oddity. In fact, they are dying off in areas north of the equator.
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey start in “Jurassic World Rebirth,” opening in theaters Wednesday, July 2.
So, what’s left to do to revive the franchise? Get a director who helmed the best Disney-era “Star Wars” movie ever, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” Gareth Edwards, to lead the charge. Next, sign an A-list cast that includes Scarlett Johansson and two-time Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali and add in a capable supporting cast that includes Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Netflix’s “The Lincoln Lawyer”) and let them play in the land of the lost.
What’s the difference in this “Jurassic World” story? Not much.
At their respective hearts, all of the films are about several things, the arrogance of humanity, how nature always finds a way and corporate greed.
That’s been narrowed down to two here because, let’s face it, humanity will forever be arrogant and corporate greed is a byproduct of capitalism.
And that’s the starting point here as the corporate bigwig from a pharmaceutical company, Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), hires Zora Bennett (Johansson) and her team, led by Duncan Kincaid (Ali), along with museum professor Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to go to one of the seemingly many islands where dinosaur experiments were done to collect samples from live dinos. That means the biggest and the baddest (because of course).
A family trip interrupts that mission when whale-like creatures capsize the boat carrying Reuben Delgado (Garcia-Rulfo) and his family, forcing their rescue. After that, it’s game on as the combined crew is forced to land on the island to save their lives.
Left to right: Rupert Friend as Martin Krebs, Mahershala Ali as Duncan Kincaid, and Bechir Sylvain as Leclerc in “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
Of course, they’re going to be dino-bait. It’s just a matter of who gets chomped down upon.
What’s interesting: David Koepp’s script, his third in the franchise after having written or co-written the first two, brings a fresh perspective after 28 years. Instead of relying on that straight forward dinos-hunt-humans perspective, he splits the group on the island providing an accessible story — one from a family’s perspective and the other from that of the mercenaries.
Edwards takes both plotlines and runs with them. It helps that he has a cast that allows him to do so. There exists a surprising amount of character development between the principal players and Johansson, Ali, Bailey and Garcia-Rulfo take their respective moments in the spotlight.
What Edwards does is take what could’ve been a completely rote experience and elevate it enough to make “Jurassic World: Rebirth” enough of a thrill ride to take.
George M. Thomas covers a myriad of things including sports and pop culture, but mostly sports, he thinks, for the Beacon Journal.
Review
Movie: “Jurassic World: Rebirth”
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Running time: 2 hours 14 minutes
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, bloody images, some suggestive references, language and a drug reference.
Grade: B-
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Did Gareth Edwards just revitalize the ‘Jurassic World’ franchise?