We had Hawk review Jurassic World: Rebirth when it hit the cinemas. Then one of you lovely Outposters also reviewed it. Well, now it’s my turn, as it’s on streaming.
You know the details, Scarlett Johannson, Not Blade, and Rupert Friend etc.
You also know the story. Dinosaur blood can cure diseases, so people plan to extract it. The main issue for me was the plot devices, more than the actual plot.
Off to a Bad Start
The opening of the movie is set 17 years ago, on a secret island, where they were slicing dinosaur genes. I say secret island, so far, there are more islands in this series than there are species of dinosaur.
There is a very complex safety system in the lab, where you have to time a key opening, both sides, give a sample of hair, a rectal scan, and then sing all of Bohemian Rhapsody to open the door. OK, that’s a little over the top, but it’s a state-of-the-art system that cannot be over ridden.
How is it overruled? By a sweet wrapper, I Snickers as I remember. Yes, someone drops a sweet wrapper, which gets in the air vent, which then seems to shut down the entire system. Why? Don’t know, it just does.
Make Sure They Know
My biggest issue with Jurassic World: Rebirth is that everything has to be explained. When Friend’s character is talking to ScarJo about everything, he literally is the narrator of the movie.
There are three dinosaurs they need the blood from, one is a land monster, one is a sea monster and the last one, you’ve guessed it, is an air monster. It’s like three levels of a computer game.
The plot devices then got worse. Why can’t you collect blood from a dead dinosaur? Oh, it’s because of X, Y, and Z. How do we extract the blood? It’s fine, we have a McGuffin that literally takes the blood, shoots into the sky and then lands neatly in a briefcase.
As the story goes on, the script just gets worse. At one point, there is a line:
“If this boat hits the rocks, it’ll sink!”
YOU DON’T SAY! Every minute detail of the plot for this Jurassic World has to be explained, I’m guessing for all the stupid members of the audience, or Americans, as I call them.
The kind of person who is going to enjoy Jurassic World: Rebirth is the same kind of person who got annoyed by the end of Inception. Instead of the movie telling him the ending, people had to use their own brains to work out the ending. They had to, god forbid, think about it!
The New Dinosaurs
They need new dinosaurs, as the old ones are boring. Ironically, it’s movies like Jurassic World that made the dinosaurs boring. Remember how friggin’ scary the T-Rex was in the original Jurassic Park? Well, now he’s as boring as Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers. They aren’t scary anymore; they are now a parody of themselves.
What else was weird was that the new dinosaurs are only in the first 5 minutes and the last 20 minutes. I mean, I think that’s correct, I don’t know my Tyrannosaurus Rex from a DoYouThinkHeSawUs Rex.
Most of Jurassic World: Rebirth deals with a T-Rex, velociraptors, and other dinosaurs that eat the local ‘memberberries.
The new one, I’m going to call it Slappy Head, as it had a huge forehead. It spends most of the time in the dark, and you can barely see it. I didn’t see the point of it at all. It was slow, cumbersome and just dull to be honest.
We Need a Family
The family that should have been a DVD Delete Scene in this movie are there for no other reason than to have a family in the movie. Obviously, the family dynamic of ‘2.4 children’ doesn’t exist anymore. We have to have a single parent and some dude banging the oldest daughter.
From the outset, the guy banging the daughter is an unlikable ass hole. It’s only the daughter who likes him, and it’s not for his personality, because he doesn’t have one. The dad doesn’t like him, so he invites him on the family cruise, obviously.
When they are first attacked, I loved how the sea monster just kind of flips the boat over and then leaves. They still have radios and call for help.
The main cast, the important people, go and save them. I loved how they discussed all of the plans to get blood from killer dinosaurs, on a forbidden island, in front of the family.
“Yay, we’ve been rescued from the monster, by a bunch of people who are going to going to find more monsters!”
Talk about out of the frying pan into another frying pan. The rest of the family’s exploits could have been an extra on a DVD you would never get around to seeing.
Although the one moment I did like was when they are attacked by a T-Rex and advertise the most indestructible yellow dinghy in history.
Edwards Deserves Better
I like Gareth Edwards; I think the guy has a lot of talent. Monsters (2010) is a very underrated movie. I don’t remember much of his Godzilla, but I remember liking it. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was well directed, even though the script was paper-thin.
His The Creator was visually stunning, but again, had a paper-thin story. It’s odd that he wrote Monsters, which was brilliant, and then he wrote The Creator, which was not brilliant.
Credit where credit is due, the direction in Jurassic World: Rebirth is spot on. In fact, some of the photography and shot design is stunning. Edwards really has a good eye for filmmaking, and he deserves a lot better than this drivel.
David Koepp is a solid writer; he has penned some excellent movies, including the screenplays for the first two Jurassic Park movies. He’s done movies like Carito’s Way, The Shadow, Mission: Impossible, Stir of Echoes, Panic Room, Spider-Man (2002), Angels & Demons…the list goes on.
However, to balance that out, he also did Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crappy Skull and The Dial of Destiny.
This movie, for someone with a catalogue of good movies behind him, is like Gordon Ramsey ordering a MaccyD’s from Just Eat. I guess this movie was a pay cheque for him.
Overall
I’m not a fan of franchises! I think a good trilogy is enough, then they usually get past the fourth movie, it’s a franchise, and it’s just content from then on. It’s not the case all the time, but it’s the case most of the time.
Jurassic World should have stopped before they made the first one. Jurassic Park is a good trilogy, and yes, I include the third one. The first movie is a work of art. Now, I know some of you don’t think that, but I do; it deals with the question of messing with nature. You have a great set of characters you can get invested in. It’s one of Spielberg’s best summer blockbusters.
Jurassic World is now content for stupid people because DINOSAURS! It’s the equivalent of watching a child smashing dinosaur toys together for 2 hours.
There was zero interest in the characters in this movie. I loved how, when someone was grabbed or taken by a dinosaur, someone would stand there yelling their name. What bloody good was that going to do?
Jurassic World: Rebirth is more content, don’t think about it, just consume. The fact that it did well at the box office is annoying, as there will be more content on the way. #yawn
