‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ (review)

I should love this film.

Except…

I am so mad at Gareth Edwards. I am so angry at David Koepp. I am extremely disappointed with Alexandre Desplat. And I hate that I am so angry with the new Jurassic World movie.

Jurassic World begins with one of the most insipid plot devices ever conceived by man. In one of the now seemingly many research and development facilities that InGen has built to create mutate dinosaurs for their parks, a supposedly extremely high-tech and advanced security system, is thwarted by a fucking candy wrapper by the most incompetent scientist ever.

Put in place to contain the experimental dinos they are creating to keep their parks fresh and new, drawing new and returning guests.

I wish I could tell you, Kind Reader, that I almost walked out of the movie at this moment.

Not 10 minutes into the movie, I was already checked out. Only staying to see if the film could redeem itself from this atrocious scenario.

Spoiler Alert: It did not. I can’t say it got any worse. I can also announce that it didn’t get any better either.

Jurassic World: Rebirth tells the tale of corporate greed and genetic experimentation gone wrong. There is a race against time to acquire a special McGuffin, and the procurement of said item will make them richer beyond the dreams of Avarice. There are disillusioned do-gooders, hardened elite soldiers, and an innocent family caught in a situation mostly of their own making. (The resulting horror show the family is subject to is not technically their fault. The overall result is people on a dangerous, forbidden island doing something they shouldn’t be doing in the first place, all with terrible and extremely predictable consequences.

Sound familiar? Well, it should. It is literally the plot of almost every Jurassic Park/World film since 1993. And I am okay with that.

But what follows is two excruciating hours of what I am now calling “The Prometheus of Jurassic Park/World movies,” and I don’t mean that in a good way. Yes, I initially reviewed the 2012 Ridley Scott film favorably, but since then, it has become one of my most loathed films in the 21st century.

So, what do I mean by “The Prometheus of Jurassic Park/World movies” films?

Well, Prometheus is the perfect example of a movie that, after spending the first half of the film establishing the in-universe rules and characters’ personal beliefs, then lazy writing destroys everything that is initially set up. Every character betrays their previously established ideas and intelligence. All for the advancement of the plot, whether it makes sense or not.

Here in Jurassic World: Rebirth, we see the same scenario. There are so many McGuffins. Bad and unbelievable character decisions abound, and some of the most asinine “moments of convenience” that I found myself audibly huffing and saying, “Who wrote this?!” out loud. And I NEVER talk during a movie.

To be honest, I went into this film with no expectations. Not knowing a thing about it other than the million clips that assaulted me while I binged “The Bear” last weekend. I had NO Idea that Gareth Edwards directed it (whom I love), nor that David Koepp wrote it, or that Alexandre Desplat scored it. I went in about as blind as one can in this day of social media and streaming bombardment. I was blindsided by how poorly made the film was. And that makes me sad.

I wanted to like this movie. Seriously.

I saw the original Jurassic Park 32 times in the theater. No exaggeration.

I am a 13-year-old kid when it comes to dinosaurs and dinosaur movies. Hell, I just subjected my poor wife to a viewing of the horrendously bad but amazing Rankin/Bass live action TV movie The Last Dinosaur (1977) starring an admirably drunk Richard Boone and incredibly awful Joan Van Ark. (Look it up. I think it is streaming for free on Plex right now) So for me to not just revel in the fact that this is another dinosaur movie is saying something.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed most entries in the Jurassic Park/World franchise. The first three films are great. They have their issues, but mostly they are entertaining and 100% enjoyable. All I have to say is “Alan!” and laugh in velociraptor. IYKYK

The Jurassic World section of the franchise has been really hit or miss. For the most part, it’s fine. Like Winchester fine, though, not fine like wine. I have a hard time telling you which scene or plot belongs to which one. All those Pratt-Era films blend into a sort of smoothie of dinosaurs, danger, and Chris Pratt being Chris Pratt. Brice Dallas Howard hoofing it through a rainforest in heels didn’t even upset me the way it did others.

More so than the original trilogy of “Park” films, the Jurassic World series is an experiment in diminishing returns. They just keep thinking more is better. That more scarier, more strange, more horrible-looking, mutated dinos are the answer. Honestly, it is just “more” and definitely NOT better.

This is another piece of the “Jurassic Pie”. Jurassic Park: Rebirth is not a Jurassic Park/World movie. It is a monster movie. The Jurassic World films have been slowly but surely morphing the franchise away from the “Should we/shouldn’t we?”, “Nature finds a way”, “Man playing God” aspect of the film, The Jurassic World films are becoming just straight-up monster-light horror films.

Sure, Jurassic World: Rebirth has the skeleton of some of the aspects we come to expect from a Jurassic film; however, all of them seemed forced and shoehorned in. Nothing happens organically. It plays out like an episodic mini-series made for Hulu or Netflix. I can literally see where the commercial breaks for Jurassic World: Rebirth would be inserted within Jurassic World: Rebirth.

Again, this is what really surprised me about this film. Gareth Edwards is known for his socially aware films. From his first feature, Monsters, to his last feature, The Creator, Edwards handles social issues and tough humanistic problems expertly. It is such a bummer that he has made such dreck of a movie. The beginning had so much promise… after the aforementioned terrible Snickers plot device prologue. (By the way, worst product placement ever.)

The modern world is unsuitable for these creatures brought back to life by man’s hubris. This is a fascinating idea. Do we save them? Do we let them die? The whole “it being our fault in the first place” is way more interesting than what we were given.

Now, if it were only the missteps of Edwards and Koepp that would be one thing; however, I would be remiss not to mention how strangely photographed and edited this movie is. The cinematography was jarring and off-putting. Almost all of the composition of shots seemed bizarre to me. I kept asking myself, “Why did they shoot it like that?” or “That seemed like a really odd composition.”

All things that I shouldn’t even be aware of while watching the movie. The cinematography should not pull me out of the experience of being immersed in the world of the film. I always go back to the impeccable cinematography of John Seale for Mad Max: Fury Road. A film that I didn’t even realize was entirely shot “Center-Framed,” meaning all the major action of the film takes place in the center third of the widescreen frame. Seamless.

Here, the focus was all over the place, visually. The focus of the action was unclear and haphazard. I never knew where to look. Now, this could be a director’s choice. Intentionally misdirecting the eye occasionally to create visual tension is one thing. But there never seemed to be a time when the camera settled or had a clear visual idea of what the audience should be looking at.

This is also probably attributed to the chaotic editing and the unclear storytelling in many scenes. Possibly it was the script itself. Things just happen, or appear, or disappear for no clear reason. Or the reason was so out of place it broke even my most focused suspension of disbelief.

One thing you can usually count on from a Jurassic movie is the score. From William to Michael Giacchino, now to Alexandre Desplat, even Don Davis’ additional music to supplement William’s scores in JP III was seamlessly meshed. It all seems like a no-brainer to have Desplat on this film. I love Alexandre Desplat’s scores. He is an admirer of John Williams and cites him as one of his biggest influences and inspirations, so how could I not love him?

His work with Wes Anderson alone cemented him into my heart musically. Then there is Desplat’s terrific score on Gareth Edwards’ own Godzilla. So why does this soundtrack seem so slipshod and out of place? He seems to miss cues for musical enrichment of scenes; his awkward callbacks to Williams’ original Jurassic Park score seem like a missed cue that comes in too early in one scene, where it truly stands out.

Finally, the acting. I know most of the actors in this film. They can act. I’ve seen them act well in some pretty awful pictures. I believed Scarlett Johansson was Black Widow. I believed she was a woman genetically enhanced by a superdrug to use 100% of her brain and then turn into a living computer. Johansson should be stellar in this role. Yet it seems so much of her dialogue is phoned in, and so much of her delivery fell flat. The jokey scenes, at least I am assuming they were supposed to be funny, were so painful to witness that I had a hard time remembering that it was Ms. Johansson at all.

This also applies to Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali. This actor, who was equally phenomenal in Moonlight as he was in Alita: Battle Angel, seemed so out of place and weirdly uncomfortable as the boatman and mercenary, Duncan Kincade. I don’t want to insult them by saying they phoned in their performances; however, it sure presented as such.

If it eventually comes out that Edwards was brought in at the eleventh hour to take over a floundering project to try and salvage it, or that Koepp was hired to punch up and rework a problematic script, then I could give it a little slack. However, from the few blurbs I read, this was a dream project of Edwards. This movie is his baby. Makes sense from the guy who made Monsters and started the 2018 Legendary Pictures Godzilla franchise. This is what makes me so mad. He knows better. Or does he? Now I don’t know. Clearly, David Koepp, who wrote and adapted Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World, should understand what makes a Jurassic World film work.

Look. In the end, this is the rantings of a guy who sat in a cool theater on a hot summer day in 1993 and watched the original Jurassic Park 5 times in a row in his junior year of college. I’m a geezer. More than half the audience at last night’s screener thoroughly enjoyed what they were seeing. They laughed at all the proper places, jumped at all the jump scares, and cheered and applauded at the end.

Meanwhile, I sat with my arms tightly folded across my chest, hurumphing a mighty hurumph. This movie is going to make a bajillion dollars, and there will be a whole slew of sequels bringing back Pratt and Howard, and who knows, maybe even some of the OG cast again. I will, yet again, sit and watch it. I know because no matter how bad it is, it will be a movie about dinosaurs and I will forever be a sucker for the giant, ancient creatures of the past.

*  *  *  *  *
Produced by Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley
Written by David Koepp
Based on Characters Created by Michael Crichton
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey,
Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein