Review of “Jurassic World Rebirth”

This summer’s movie season has a bumper crop of potential big-screen blockbusters for your consideration.

By now, you are probably quite familiar with the “Jurassic Park” movie franchise. A Google search yields an AI-generated chronological history that dates way back to 1983, when Michael Crichton first conceived the idea for a screenplay about a pterodactyl cloned from fossilized DNA.

In retrospect, considering the incredible longevity and popularity of the Jurassic Park franchise, one might reasonably wonder why the studios expressed little interest back then. Eventuality a studio took the chance, which led to the premiere of “Jurassic Park” in 1993.

Steven Spielberg’s ground-breaking film, with its state-of-the-art CGI effects, a suspense-filled story and brilliant, believable acting kept audiences on the edge of their seats, as they became immersed in a terrifying, pre-historic world where dinosaurs ruled the Earth. The film was a world-wide box office smash hit, grossing over a billion dollars!

That led to the publication by Michael Crichton of a second novel, entitled “The Lost World” which, in turn, led to the second film: “The Lost World.” The franchise was on a roll.

Crichton was not involved in the third film: “Jurassic Park III.” The fourth film was “Jurassic World,” with new characters and a different park.

2018 saw the release of “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” followed in 2022 by “Jurassic World: Dominion.”

The movie experience was vividly brought to life at Universal Studios Hollywood, with the opening of the astronomically expensive “Jurassic Park: The Ride” in 1996. At the time it was said to be the most expensive theme park attraction ever built. It featured animatronic dinosaurs, an 85-foot drop and other dinosaur-themed chills and spills. It was, and remains, a thrilling ride that sends us back to the days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

Through it all, the Jurassic Park franchise continued to break new ground, surprising and captivating audiences with fresh, new and unexpected developments in each installment, made all the more vivid, realistic and frightening with the latest in CGI and believable acting. It was and is best experienced in movie theaters, on the big screen.

And so we arrive at “Jurassic World Rebirth,” set three years after the “Jurassic World” trilogy — where each film had surpassed one billion dollars at the global box office.

Specially brought out to the theater in San Diego for the press preview were two Jurassic Park-liveried vehicles.

“Jurassic World Rebirth” seemed to have all the elements needed to make it yet another smash hit: Executive Producer Steven Spielberg, a stellar cast including Scarlett Johansson, the latest and greatest in CGI special effects that have created hyper-realistic dinosaurs, a remote and foreboding location, and plenty of action. Five years after the events of “Jurassic World Dominion,” according to jurassicworld.com, it is set in yet another new location — this one an isolated equatorial environment with a climate resembling the ones in which the dinosaurs once thrived. It is a place where people are prohibited from visiting. It is “the most dangerous place on Earth” — a shuttered “island research facility for the original Jurassic Park, inhabited by the worst of the worst that were left behind.”

So why does this movie not live up to the rich history of its predecessors? I lay the blame on a rather weak, uninspired story. The adventure needed a potentially calamitous, world-threatening consequence for failure to subdue the threat presented by the dinosaurs. What it got, instead, was a rather shallow, undeveloped opportunity for the characters to bring back to civilization dinosaur DNA, that would enable the medical community to somehow create a drug that would have miraculous, life-saving benefits for humankind. Seriously? Explain to us how that would work, exactly. That is difficult to accept on faith alone.

Furthermore, the only people that were really threatened by the dinosaurs was a family, a few villagers and the crew, which included formulaic opportunists looking to make a quick buck.

Does “Jurassic World Rebirth” entertain? Yes, but it is too familiar, and its story is uninspired. It is not the sort of stuff that keeps audiences jumpy and on the edge of their seat.

Visit the official movie website for trailers, movie showtimes and other information at: https://www.jurassicworld.com/.

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