Jurassic World Rebirth Review – Scarlett Johansson Leads Revival of Revamped Dino Franchise

What a comeback.  The Jurassic World film series appeared to go extinct after two increasingly catastrophic instalments of franchise content: Fallen Kingdom in 2018 and Dominion in 2022.  Against all odds, these dinosaurs have received a brand refresh: a brighter, breezier, funnier, incomparably better-acted and written film, with shameless allusions to past summer successes, that makes sense of the dino-spectacle moments that earn their place. 

Screenwriter David Koepp and director Gareth Edwards have been brought in to take us back to basics with a new story, all but retconning the drama with a "17 years previously" flashback at the start that completely (and thankfully) ignores the tiresome, convoluted, dullness of what has recently happened.  Then we get to the current day, when dinosaurs are accepted in the wild but have mostly died off, except on and around the lush fictitious Caribbean island of Île Saint Hubert. 

A creepy firm (is there any other kind?) has realized that dinosaur blood has the potential to be a profitable treatment, therefore nasty big pharma smoothie  Martin Krebs, played by Rupert Friend, assembles a crack special forces team to collect blood samples from three sorts of dinosaurs: land, sea, and air.  Scarlett Johansson plays Zora Bennett, the show's ex-military leader; Jonathan Bailey plays bespectacled palaeontologist Dr Henry Loomis; and Mahershala Ali plays the easygoing boat captain Duncan Kincaid.  They and the rest of the crew run into a family at sea. 

We get all the iconic moments, including the famous Jurassic slow turns: a cast member will be doing something, hear a dinosaur behind them (which we can see), and then, aghast, execute a slow swivel, followed by a funny closeup of their suitably stunned countenance.  We also have a classic Jurassic security person (played by Ed Skrein), similar to a Star Trek redshirt, whose duty is arrogantly shooting at dinosaurs and who meets an unmistakable end. 

Johansson and Bailey have amazing rom-com chemistry.  Johansson's Zora appears to have a soft spot for this bashful intellectual, similar to the crush her character Natasha Romanoff had on Mark Ruffalo's cerebral Dr Bruce Banner in Avengers: Age of Ultron.  It's a very different performance than Bailey's in Wicked, but he almost steals the show with his cute high-mindedness.  Dr. Loomis wishes to die in a shallow sea and be coated in silt, presumably because it is better for fossilisation.  And he has an intriguing point about how intellect is overrated in terms of survival; dumb dinosaurs lived for 165 million years, whereas smart people have only lived for 300,000 years. 

This new Jurassic adventure isn't much different from the previous popular models, and I could have done without the absurd brand synergy product placement for certain types of chocolate bars.  However, its Spielberg parody, massive dinosaur-jeopardy moments, and use of thrills and laughter make it feel casual and assured.  Perhaps the series can't and shouldn't continue indefinitely: we need new and creative concepts.  This one would be fantastic to go out on.