Jurassic World Rebirth: Noncommital Monotony

I'm of the opinion that people who are a part of American pop culture throw around buzzwords like revolutionary and groundbreaking without really knowing why they're doing it. Practically every appreciation post for a classic movie will use these words in some capacity, and the thing is, these kinds of people aren't entirely wrong. It's absolutely appropriate to label the original Jurassic Park both revolutionary and groundbreaking, but I'd first call it obvious, and I don't mean that as an insult in the slightest. Hollywood captures our wonder with dinosaurs today, and trips to the moon tomorrow, and it's all, I don't know, a little predictable? Spectacle is one of the basic building blocks of cinema, no matter what form it takes. So, you may ask, why am I bringing this up? Well, I mention this to point out that too many people label original movies like Jurassic Park as "good" because of their "groundbreaking nature," and label sequels like Jurassic World: Rebirth as "bad" because of their apparent lack thereof, without elaborating on their ideas in any meaningful way. And to save you some reading and get to the bottom line, if your pacing and characterization struggle, it doesn't matter how revolutionary and groundbreaking your movie is - not that Rebirth is either of those things.

Think of Rebirth as yet another spin on The Lost World, yet another illegal trip to yet another remote part of the world to accomplish yet another exotic task. Specifically, a team is inserting into an equatorial part of French Guiana in the hopes of capturing three batches of dinosaur DNA to create a life-saving drug, one that they hope to use as a treatment for heart disease - a noble enough task that's little more than a poorly-disguised excuse for man and beast to clash once again. For all of its flaws, Jurassic World: Dominion had some fresh ideas, something that Rebirth knows very little about. Perhaps it knows deep down that it's not doing anything new, which may be why it struggles to commit to its premise. From inappropriately early trauma dumps to long-winded scenes of human-dinosaur encounters that take this movie in circles, Rebirth is borderline disloyal to its own story, unsure of what type of movie it wants to be on the most basic of levels.

Just like it doesn't know what it wants to be, neither does Rebirth understand how it intends to accomplish whatever it's working towards, meandering from one dangerous encounter with dinosaurs to the next. Granted, we know what its characters want - to capture valuable dino DNA - but Rebirth is never in any real hurry to make that happen. It hikes itself in circles, often taking zero notice of its own premise. Still, a couple of heart-pounding and well-staged encounters with carnivorous dinosaurs sweeten the pot, even if Rebirth is nonetheless cooking with stale ingredients. Speaking of which, the characters of this movie are wholly and utterly forgettable. Rebirth never gives its character development the attention it deserves, which might be an unfair complaint to levy against a summer blockbuster. Oh, what the heck. When someone died, I struggled to recall their names and even their faces, as they're treated by Rebirth less as people, more as mere things to accomplish what little it tries to.

For all of its new artificial breeds and variations of dinosaurs, the Jurassic movies are struggling to get away from feeling like old news. And to appeal to those of you who may have liked Rebirth, I understand from the bottom of my heart that this is a movie made for fans like you who want more of the same. But to be brutally honest, this is getting old. My faith in Universal is fading faster than this movie's almost non-existent purpose, and if this franchise finally throws in the towel in the next few years, I think I may respect them for admitting that all good things eventually need to go extinct.

Just as some have become underwhelmed by dinosaurs in the universe of the Jurassic franchise, I've been growing disinterested in the franchise itself for a while now. Rebirth isn't doing any favors for the case that we should make more of these movies. For as many problems as Jurassic World: Dominion had, I can appreciate its occasional flashes of ingenuity - something sorely lacking here. If Rebirth wants to be the start of a new line of stories in this universe, let me tell you that we're off to a bad start. Its genetically modified dinosaurs are a stale non-attempt at trying something new, its characters overpopulate the narrative, and its pacing struggles to figure out what in the world this story is even trying to accomplish. For a movie that needed to breathe new life into a floundering franchise, Rebirth is ironically dead on arrival.

Jurassic World: Rebirth - 4/10

Matthew 15:13-14