Jurassic World: Rebirth

Avoid this movie like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Then rewatch the original Jurassic Park. You’ll thank me later.

After the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, a film I’m still not sure if I disliked more than this one, Jurassic World: Rebirth confines the surviving dinosaur population to a small batch of areas located along the equator rather than unleashing them upon the world in a way we’ve all been waiting for since the 90s. Discovering that certain large dinos possess biomaterial that can apparently help cure heart disease, the ParkerGenix pharmaceutical company enlists “covert operative” Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to obtain this rare material, who in-turn hires the nerdy but passionate paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), fellow gun-for-hire Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and a handful of other crew members to help them in their fetch quest. Of course, things don’t go as planned. And after crossing paths with a family who for some reason thought sailing anywhere near the waters surrounding a dino-infested island was a great idea for a bonding experience, Zora and company are soon forced to contend with far more dinosaur-related problems than what they originally planned for, making this just another day in the life of dumb humans finding out the hard way whether or not life, uh, will indeed find a way.

Before I unleash my frustration like a Dilophosaurus spitting black goopy shit directly in a stranger’s face, let me point out a few things I genuinely liked about Jurassic World: Rebirth. Scarlett Johansson is clearly having a blast as Zora. Jonathan Bailey is actually great as Henry Loomis. The T-rex river scene is great fun. John Williams’ Jurassic Park theme still slaps. I like dinosaurs.

That’s it.

Now let’s get to a bunch of things I decidedly didn’t like about Jurassic World: Rebirth. The entire movie basically happened because of a discarded Snickers wrapper. The D-rex (hilarious name) has a face that only a dinosaur mother could love. There are way too many thinly drawn characters doing way too many stupid things every five seconds. The plot is nonsensical even by “bringing dinosaurs back to life” standards. The movie barely looks like it was shot on location. There aren’t many “real” dinosaurs in it. I hate the script.

But wait, there’s more.

At its best, Rebirth feels like a rush job that does absolutely nothing for the franchise at large, while failing to implement the few new ideas it does have by populating its story with characters that I couldn’t care less about and stuffing it full of mutated dinosaurs that are just hard to look at. Kicking things off by essentially throwing away the idea of having a fully realized “Jurassic world” where dinosaurs can truly roam free across the globe, Rebirth feels more like a half-assed retread of previous Jurassic stories, and is further let down by some frustratingly safe storytelling that ultimately results in a contrived mess of dino doo doo.

Now this would all be fine and good if the film at least delivered on the dinosaur action we all came here to see. But outside of a few decent scenes like the T-rex river sequence and some of the less-repetitive sea-based action, most of Rebirth’s plot revolves around new hybrid dinosaurs that, in all honesty, all have terrible designs. And don’t even get me started on the Distortus rex or D-rex, this sequel’s new dino creation.

Underutilized throughout, it seems like a no-brainer for Rebirth to have the D-Rex act as a terrifying predator-like antagonist that’s constantly pushing our characters deeper and deeper into danger — you know, kinda like how a proper Jurassic Park movie usually does. Instead, we get a half-assed prologue and maybe 10-15 minutes at the end of the movie that features the D-rex, making it easy for me to care about its inclusion even less.

But wait, I’m still not done.

Whether attempting to rehash old nostalgic moments from franchise history in annoyingly pandering ways, failing to balance its dueling storylines, or simply feeling like it’s treading water waiting for something cool to happen that never actually does, Rebirth doesn’t have many saving graces, with the only reason I didn’t score it lower being because this franchise is unfortunately the only place where I can see dinosaurs get up to some wild shit on the big screen (we don’t talk about Primal War here).

Still, and despite my heavy dislike of this movie, I do want more Jurassic World movies (good ones, mind you), but nearly everything about Rebirth made me actively angry, so I’m not holding my breath for anything anytime soon. I absolutely do not recommend this movie, and if you think it does anything remotely as important or interesting or effective as the original Jurassic Park (or even its lesser sequels), heed my advice, go watch the original again, forget Jurassic World: Rebirth ever existed, and carry on with your life knowing I saved you two hours of your life that you can never get back.