Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

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Paddock Reviews

Although I'm somewhat of the mind that this is just more of the same, I will give the film a touch of credit for trying a new approach to the concept of nature being messed with, delivering a heavy-handed message about us humans playing God. At the very least, this isn't just about creating a new dinosaur that will wreak havoc (although that's still almost annoyingly present). The central plot aims to benefit humanity by accomplishing something for the greater good. Although greed still plays a significant role.

However, even with some of the new ideas present, I've come to realize sitting through this that nothing comes as a surprise anymore, even with the use of new dinos - one of which is "invented" and whose creature design is one I find quite irksome. It's still people putting themselves in danger for money; it still involves a "search-and-rescue" mission, be it big or small, there's still some awe to it, but at this point, nothing will ever strike us quite like the classic '93 original did. One thing that's 100% fresh and new about this chapter, however, is its cast of all-new characters, which is a breath of fresh air.

The film opens with a brief recap of events since the last 'Jurassic World,' which saw dinosaurs running wild, but mostly involved locusts. I can't speak to the accuracy of this, but I can give the film credit for addressing the fact that, in the present day, the climate has pushed any surviving "de-extinct" dinosaurs towards the equator, as they can't survive in our human-run Earth climate. These areas soon become uninhabitable for the dinosaurs, and travel bans are put in place so no human beings go and accidentally kill themselves. But of course, without such fools, we wouldn't have much of a movie.

Enter ParkerGenix pharmaceutical executive, Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who recruits ex-military covert operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and expert paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to head to the equator for a top secret mission. It is thought that the three largest surviving species of land, sea and air-dwelling prehistoric creatures hold the key to conquering heart disease; respectively, the Titanosaurus, the Mosasaurus and the Quetzalcoatlus. The goal is to collect blood samples from one of each living creature, bringing them home for study and earning a substantial amount of money in the process.

Meanwhile, Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa (Luna Blaise), along with Teresa's meathead boyfriend, Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono) are sailing nearby when they encounter the Mososaur that the team above is after. They all cross paths, only to be separated again: the team, after what they came for, and the family, left to survive on their own. However, a few, namely Zora, Henry and Zora's professional sailor friend, Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), are genuinely concerned for their safety.

While I can give the film some credit for some new ideas, things otherwise get ruined by a few details. The big annoyance is the constant name yelling we haven't seen as bad since 'JP III.' You also have to wonder what the hell the family is doing out that way. Even if it is addressed, there are also travel bans that they are ignoring. To top it all off, the creation of what InGen has dubbed the "Distortus Rex," which is a blend of the Xenomorph from 'Alien' and the Rancour from 'Jedi,' perhaps with a dash of Cloverfield Monster. It looked like they were reaching far too much with this thing, and it felt like a blatant rip-off.

Even with as much credit as I can give the movie, there's not enough here for me to say that I enjoyed it, save for a cool scene or two not involving the "D-Rex." Even the idea of grabbing these blood samples is fine, but the whole way it's done is straight out of a video game and doesn't feel like it should be as easy as they make it look. After this chapter, I sincerely feel like it will take a hell of a lot to get me back into the franchise, which I haven't appreciated at all since 2015's 'Jurassic World.' This isn't quite as bad as some others, but it's definitely near the bottom.

2/5

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