Jurassic Park, now Jurassic World, for me is a franchise of diminishing return.
They usually have a great start and then the story telling, character and my interest diminishes with the subsequent outings.
Jurassic World Rebirth for me is a soft reset for the franchise. It manages to move on with the story without the need to embrace what were left behind by the previous trilogy. Also, it is not banking on nostalgia this time round with a completely new story and a set of new characters. With Scarlett Johansson of many fames and Jonathan Bailey of many latest hits as the leads, Jurassic World Rebirth delivered what it was meant to be delivering.
The movie adopted a clever way of redressing the world the characters are living in so that remote locations with hostile fauna can be visited again for legitimate reasons. It is a Jurassic franchise movie, so basically, as soon as a character shows up now, you know whether the character will last till the credit rolls. For me that is how predictable the franchise formular has become, which was a bit disappointing. Also, it is a Jurassic movie, you will always have a kid being put through the wringer to survive. For me, at least this time round they are not as annoying as the previous entries.
The opening set up the motion for the later visit to the location perfectly although you still need to at times put aside logic to appreciate it. There were many occasions I was thinking ‘Huh? How could they not hear anything when something so massive was moving around them?’ Or ‘Huh? How did that thing get there at the same time and why would it go there when there are high profile predators running amok in that place?’ For me, I really need to put aside these thoughts to enjoy the story, as otherwise it will just ruin the suspense and excitement.
The movie was action packed, and along the way characters were packed away, but that’s given in this kind of movie. Character development, unless you are in the main cast, basically do not exist for all the disposable characters, which is fine in the world of Jurassic World. What’s the thrill and excitement if nobody got devoured? As for the main cast, the writer tried to put in as much backstory for them as possible, so they are more relatable. For a movie of a run time for around 2 hours, I think they did a good enough job, as we understood the relationship and experience of both Scarlett Johansson and Mahershalla Ali’s character. We also found out that Jonathan Bailey’s character is more than just a nerd. As for all the members of the stranded family rescued by the group, they provided the much-needed thrill and survival scares as the helpless people being thrown into extreme situations. I was just impressed how so worldly suddenly individual characters of this family became when it was time for each of them to step up.
Without spoiling too much of the story, it is your standard Jurassic Park / World story, so there are no new surprises there. However, I did wonder after the credits rolled where can they go next? Yes, they opened up and introduced new concepts and breeds, but then if they further go down that storyline, the Jurassic franchise will soon lose its roots as what it is about, and I don’t know how you could recover from that if it became a horror Resident Evil type franchise. When a franchise lost its identity, is it still a franchise of its own? Or it became just another irrelevant milking cow until it died within the cultural space? That’s the question I have.
As for now, I still enjoy the movie. If you want 2 hours of thrill, screen and scare with funny dialogues, Jurassic World Rebirth is still your gal.
