Review: Jurassic World: Rebirth… (Spoilers)

It’s not often that I agree with film critics on something. Most of them are woke, will give crappy shows and movies good ratings for pushing the woke agenda, don’t understand the real-world audience, or are a mix of all three. However, after watching this movie and trying not to fall asleep, I found myself agreeing with the critics, when they were saying that the movie “feels more like Jurassic World: Reheated Leftovers” and is “one of the flattest and most boring movies of the entire dinosaur saga.” Jurassic World: Rebirth, the movie that’s supposed to reinterest us in the Jurassic Park franchise, really made me wonder why we’re still going with this.

#1: The Pros

There’s not a lot of good things I can say about this movie. If you’re a fan of Jurassic Park and are just there for the action scenes and dinosaurs, then this movie is for you, and I can see why it got a good rating from the audience. There’s plenty of action and plenty of dinos. From there, however, it’s not great.

#2: Nonsensical Plot

The plot of Jurassic World: Rebirth is that the dinosaurs are finally dying out because of oxygen deprivation (since our climate is drastically different from that of the Jurassic era) and the remaining ones have all moved to the equator, where temperatures and oxygen levels are higher. Because of this, all travel to that area has been internationally banned because it’s now home to all the biggest, baddest dinosaurs.

However, a guy running a pharmaceutical company working to make a drug to cure heart disease needs DNA from the biggest dinosaur species in order for the drug to work and so hires former mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to extract the DNA. Also joining the crew is a random family that’s randomly sailing around the equator for vacation for some reason. From there, the usual Jurassic Park shenanigans ensue.

This leads to the first plot hole, which is: how did all the dinosaurs not die out sooner? I suppose this isn’t necessarily a plot hole that sticks to this movie alone but really affects the Jurassic World movies that lead up to this one. It made more sense when they only lived on the equator, but when the dinosaurs were released throughout the entire world, how did they not all die out thanks to cold, lack of oxygen, lack of adequate resources, etc. before the events of this movie? Or, conversely, since the motto of this franchise is “Life finds a way,” how did the dinosaurs not adapt to survive their new home?

The second plot hole is: why is there a random family sailing around the equator? If it’s so dangerous because that’s where the dinosaurs live, why aren’t there people patrolling the area to keep things like a random family in a small boat from going into mosasaur-infested waters? It made no sense.

Third, the reason why they need blood from live dinosaurs is so stupid. I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure the blood, even when it’s from a dead animal, still has the DNA necessary for the project. I mean, the entire thing is about how they brought dinosaurs back thanks to an ancient mosquito. So why are we doing this?

#3: Why do I care?

The characters in this movie are incredibly flat to the point that I was rooting for the dinosaurs. I didn’t care about the family; I didn’t care about Zora (whose name I didn’t even know until the end of the movie, and even then, had to Google); I didn’t care about the museum curator guy who was part of the team. Even worse is the fact that I’m supposed to be rooting for a pharmaceutical company. If this was pre-COVID, maybe. But post-COVID, I’m rooting for the dinos.

#4: Invincible Boats and Accessories

This could’ve gone in my list of plot holes, but in one of the scenes with the random family, a T. Rex is chasing them while they’re trying to get away from it in an inflatable raft. The T. Rex quickly catches up to them, the raft flips, the family escapes, the T. Rex picks up the raft, chews on it, shakes it, gives up on trying to catch them, and the raft somehow floats up from the water, ready to use. There are no holes, no chew marks, nothing. The raft was literally made of the most powerful plot-armor the producers could find.

Then the accessories. Somehow, characters are falling, jumping, running, and doing other stunts and their accessories are staying on them, with no damage. While this may seem like a minor gripe, it’s these things that take away from the believability of the plot. In real life, those things would be falling off, getting damaged, etc.

#5: The Heck Was the Final Dinosaur?

The big, bad dino that our main characters must escape at the end of the movie is something called the D-Rex, and when it finally showed up on screen, we weren’t worried for the characters – we were trying to figure out what it was. It looked less like a dinosaur and more like something from Alien. It just looked like a demented beluga whale. Not scary; not aesthetically pleasing; just strange.

Overall, I was not impressed with this movie. It felt like a B-film, I didn’t care about anyone and hated the last dinosaur. It’s only good for background noise.

Until next time,

M.J.