It’s 2025. Planet Earth is replete with dinosaurs — media corporations, politicians, movie franchises … They have dominated the world for untold millennia! Yes, the metaphor is tortured, and I hear you groaning, but please note the gargantuan, reptilian bellow emanating from a cinema near you — the only dinosaur franchise with actual dinosaurs is back … again. Dating to the early Cretaceous period (I mean, 1993), Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park series encompasses two complete trilogies, and lumbers back into multiplexes this summer with a seventh instalment, Jurassic World Rebirth.
Partially retconning the canon of the last three movies, Rebirth opens with a ‘seventeen years ago’ flashback to tropical island Saint Hubert, where a sinister biotech corporation has been performing genetic experiments on the recently-resurrected dinosaurs. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Surely it’s not simply a carelessly-discarded Snickers wrapper that results in devastation, death, destruction, and an island overrun by mutant dinosaurs?
Fast-forward to the present, and another sinister biotech corporation (is there any other kind?) has discovered that the blood of the biggest dinosaurs may hold the key to making a vast amount of money. Oh, and also cure heart disease! Enter creepy pharma executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who is throwing huge sums of money around, assembling a team to travel to Saint Hubert (now an internationally blacklisted quarantine zone), and acquire fresh blood samples from the three largest known dinosaurs — on land, in the ocean, and in the air.
First on his hit list is battle-hardened mercenary badass Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), whose initial “Oh, hell no!” response is eventually softened by the seductive lure of a pile of cash and the presence of geeky, bespectacled palaeontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). The ensemble is rounded out with crusty-but-charismatic boat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and the motley crew sets off for a pleasant tropical cruise and a spot of phlebotomy on some enormous man-eating lizards. I ask again: What could possibly go wrong?
Well … all the usual stuff, of course! Let's face it, this is a Jurassic World movie, so we know what's coming: colossal action set-pieces featuring cutting-edge digitally-animated dinosaurs, a family in danger, some nasty gun-toting military-types being eaten alive, and a touch of moralizing about hubris and the fragility of life. Rebirth ticks all of the above boxes, and sprinkles some nostalgia into the mix with a panoply of nods to earlier instalments in the series, and a veritable cornucopia of homages to the franchise's godfather, Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg, in his role as executive producer, was reportedly much more hands-on in Rebirth than in previous installments, and it shows; for example, a protracted sequence of the hunt for a monstrous aquatic dinosaur plays like a note-for-note retread of Spielberg's 50-year-old classic, Jaws. It feels, at times, like Spielberg has assembled a cinematic tribute to his younger self. However, one can forgive such self-indulgence, because, despite its failure to deviate from a thoroughly-explored formula (and some unforgivably blatant product placement on behalf of Mars-Wrigley Confectionery), Rebirth still holds up as a solid two hours of popcorn entertainment.
Recently arrived in the Tri-Cities from Scotland, Damian Beagan is a former freelancer who wrote movie and music reviews for a variety of UK websites.
