The running storyline of the Jurassic World movies notes that audiences got bored with the original revived dinosaurs, leading scientists to create bizarre and dangerous mutations to maintain the public interest. Would that the films themselves had taken such radical steps to battle franchise fatigue; even with Chris Pratt gone, this series continues to chase the dragon of the landmark 1993 film, with original screenwriter David Koepp phoning in stock characters and a plot that never captures the imagination.
While Koepp may have saved the good stuff for his exceptional Black Bag screenplay earlier this year, he does craft a number of perilous situations that bring this movie — and, it would appear, director Gareth Edwards — to sporadic life, churning up the kind of adrenaline and white-knuckle tension that represents the best a Jurassic movie can offer. It’s a shame that these moments come far too late in the movie, following scene after numbing scene with barely-there protagonists.
They include Rupert Friend as a shady Big Pharma executive who wants dinosaur DNA for a new heart medication, Jonathan Bailey as a scientist who’s never seen the big creatures up close, Mahershala Ali as a soldier of fortune battling private grief, and Scarlett Johansson as a world-weary, battle-scarred mercenary looking to make one last big score. Johansson is an extraordinary actress; her turn as an alien making her way through a confusing human landscape in Under the Skin ranks among the greatest cinematic performances of this century. She is capable of playing many kinds of roles. At no point, however, is she remotely believable as a world-weary, battle-scarred mercenary looking to make one last big score.
This crew (along with some sidekicks we barely get to know, so of course they will be the first fed to the dinosaurs) treks to an equatorial area where the last of the planet’s dinosaurs have migrated to get away from climate change, pollution, and pesky humans underfoot. It’s supposed to be a big deal that they’re making this journey, since every government on the planet has barred people from going there. But apparently, no one informed Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer), who’s sailing across the Atlantic with his family; their ship is overturned by swimming dinos, and when they’re rescued by Ali and company, they’re none too thrilled to learn that they’ll be sailing toward, and not away from, even more big lizards.
Those big lizards, lest we get too jaded, remain extraordinary cinematic creations — sometimes lumbering, sometimes soaring, they continue to loom large in both size and impact. I felt a little of the 1993 awe in a moment where two mating dinosaurs sweep their long, thin tails around themselves like ribbon dancers as the human characters made their way past them. But such chest-flutter moments are rare.
Jurassic World: Rebirth doesn’t go anywhere particularly unexpected — besides being a big-budget, corporate-backed franchise film advocating that medical advancements should go public rather than be patented by drug companies — but the cliffhangers are choice. Edwards traversed similar territory with his 2014 take on Godzilla, but this time he nails the human-monster interactions, working with his Rogue One editor Jabez Olssen to find every close call he can for his characters. These tense moments also allow acclaimed composer Alexandre Desplat to break free of the familiar John Williams Jurassic Park themes, which otherwise tend to litter the aural landscape.
If Universal and Amblin are going to keep this franchise alive, maybe they should think about some mutations of their own. A low-budget lean-and-mean version? A musical? An auteurist take from Barry Jenkins or Vera Drew? Somebody needs to mix up the DNA, because déjà vu has long since set in.
Director: Gareth Edwards
Screenwriter: David Koepp, based on characters created by Michael Crichton
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein
Producers: Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley
Executive producers: Steven Spielberg, Denis Stewart
Cinematographer: John Mathieson
Production design: James Clyne
Editing: Jabez Olssen
Music: Alexandre Desplat
Sound design: Tim Nielsen, sound designer/supervising sound editor
Production companies: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment
In English
134 minutes
