Director: Gareth Edwards
Writer: David Koepp
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Ed Skrein

In cinema’s longest telling of ‘here is why we shouldn’t do some things even though we can’, the Jurassic Park/World franchise has struggled to keep us on our toes. From its strong beginnings in 1993 to its weak continuation through to the twenty-first century, the re-introduction of dinosaurs to the world and their subsequent clones and ‘evolutions’ have somehow kept movie-goers in their seats time and time again, breaking the box office each time, too. Now, we come to some sort of ‘new’ beginning in the franchise, as the title suggests, but are we seeing something fresh (evolved, if you will) from this thirty-odd-year-old series, or is Jurassic Park co-writer and The Lost World writer David Koepp continuing to clone a story that should probably be best left in the past?

Five years before the incident at Jurassic World (so, in 2010), a laboratory on Ile Saint-Hubert experiments with dinosaur DNA and creates a mutated tyrannosaur that escapes and lays waste to the island. In 2027, ex-military operative Zora (Johansson) is hired by pharmaceutical executive Martin (Friend) to extract DNA from three different dinosaurs on Ile Saint-Hubert in hopes of using it to find a cure for heart disease. Along for the ride are palaeontologist Henry (Bailey), Zora’s friend and boat captain Duncan (Ali), and a small family whom they rescue on their way to the island from a capsized boat. Although they know they will have to watch their backs while on the island, they have no idea about the true horror that awaits them.

In theory, it was a good idea to bring Koepp back on board in order to pump some life back into the dying franchise, but in execution it ended up being too similar to what we’ve seen before (people in awe at the dinosaurs? Yawn. Another f-ed up experiment? Snooze). The M.O for the group led by Zora, in that they needed DNA samples for medicinal use, was weak, and the addition of a family on a boating trip who also get caught up on the island seemed like a desperate ploy for an emotional thread to the (already weak) plot. The ways in which Rebirth just managed to surpass Jurassic World was its very Indiana Jones-style adventure and setting, and the horror and creature designs that were reminiscent of Alien, or H.R. Giger in general that created some semi-decent scares. It certainly managed to return to the horror aspects that many people enjoyed from the original film, though the main dinosaur antagonist was criminally underused in spite of making its entrance in one of the best prologues to a Jurassic film.

The production design on the whole was fairly solid. The island had more character to it than the previous islands used to house/research dinosaurs, with something about it being more claustrophobic and isolated than ever before. It’s a shame no animatronics were used for any dinos in this film, as often part of the horror comes from the realism provided by such technology, but for the most part it meant more focus could be put on the human characters trying to survive rather than the dinosaurs themselves. The stunts were also quite well done and provided something akin to an amusement park thrill ride that keeps audiences on their toes, and some of the dinosaurs made a fair impact, but, as mentioned, the biggest threat of all was apparently forgotten while Koepp was writing the screenplay, thrown in toward the end to make a splash but instead drips until the film runs dry.

Johansson does a great job of leading the film, her character Zora being brave and straightforward but showing some heart every now and then. Bailey balances Johansson’s ballsy character with his bumbling Henry, a dinosaur fanboy who, under normal circumstances, would never be in the same room as someone like Zora. Friend’s villainous Martin is clearly that from the off and is really just your stereotypical bait-and-switch fiend, and Ali’s Duncan is used well to probe into Zora’s more personal reflections. The actors portraying the family whose trip goes awry do perfectly fine in their performances, however the characters themselves seem decidedly underwhelmed and hardly distraught or traumatised by events (much unlike the original child actors in Jurassic Park). Iacono’s Xavier provides some much-needed comic relief at times, but were the plot stronger, he would have been less necessary.

Why Rebirth was chosen as the title is strange; there’s nothing revitalising or fresh about this film. It works as a standalone because it adds nothing new to the franchise, rather just takes some characters on a very familiar adventure, and so if there are any planned future instalments, it could be best if they follow a similar trajectory. Trying to reanimate this quickly fossilising franchise is getting more and more difficult, with little left to rinse from it, so as interesting as it would be to see what they come up with next, there’s little hope it’ll be anything new or interesting. In spite of this, the series continues to make a crap-ton of money (though the box office for Rebirth isn’t looking quite as good as this review is published), and so, to paraphrase Dr. Malcolm, life money finds a way; this likely isn’t the last we’ve heard of Jurassic Park/World.

Check out DOTT’s Film Club: Jurassic Park.