2 hrs 14 mins, in cinemas from 2 July

⭐⭐

A few great thrills can’t save this latest lame addition to the once-great franchise.

If you were making a list of the world’s most famous directors, you might well put Steven Spielberg somewhere near the top. With dozens of blockbusters under his belt, including adventure thrillers like Jaws and Indiana Jones, he’s proved that it is possible to get you a director who can do both: nail the technical craft of cinematic storytelling while also offering uncomplicated fun. One of the greatest examples of this was the original Jurassic Park movie, which, despite six sequels, still remains far and away the best film of the franchise. Extraordinarily thrilling dinosaur attacks (still jaw-dropping thirty years later thanks to brilliant practical effects) were gracefully enmeshed in a dramatic morality tale of one man’s foolhardy ambition to play God. Add in some wonderfully likeable characters like the charismatic Ian Malcolm and the irascible Alan Grant (played by all-round Antipodean legend Sam Neill), and baby you got a modern classic on your hands.

Perhaps it’s unfair to keep comparing new Jurassic movies to the original 1993 masterpiece, but it’s impossible not to when the franchise is so clearly riffing on the love for the OG (right down to score, sequences and even specific shots that are lifted directly from the original). Not one of the sequels has ever lived up to the legacy or the promise of Jurassic Park. The first Jurassic World came the closest, but that trilogy crashed and burned with the dull, dino-lite third entry Dominion. Rebirth is marginally better than Dominion in that director Gareth Edwards seems to at least remember why we like this franchise: we want to see some giant dinosaurs devouring people on a jungle island. Indeed Rebirth is at its strongest when it masters the big action set-pieces, with some properly fun touches – like capsizing boats, white-water rapids and cliff scaling.

But these sequences are too few and far between and are stuck in a story that’s too pedestrian to be much fun. On paper the pitch is an appealing one: a band of loveable rogues (well, mercenaries) are hired by a pharmaceuticals company to collect dinosaur blood samples that could potentially change the face of medicine. Joining the misfits on their expedition to a distant dino island are the obligatory nerdy professor Henry and the soulless corporate schill Martin. Unfortunately this motley crew aren’t nearly as fun on screen as they could be; their basic backstories might have come from a scriptwriting textbook (dead best friend, dead kid, etc) and they just don’t have enough chemistry or badassery to keep our attention. Mahershala Ali gives the best performance as boat captain Kincaid, leaning into his natural rugged charm, but ScarJo is wasted as mission leader Zora, who doesn’t ever get a chance to show off why she’s earned a reputation for being the sickest mercenary in the biz. Rupert Friend hams it up as Martin, perhaps the most telegraphed villain in cinema history, while Jonathan Bailey, beloved beau of Bridgerton and Wicked, seems miscast as an awkward American. The cast don’t have much to work with as the dialogue is pretty uninspired, with few of the jokes landing well and some exchanges that are truly painful. (See: “It’s just a little PTSD” or “Is this the part where you tell me it’s a crime to kill a dinosaur?” “No, this is the part where I tell you it’s a sin to kill a dinosaur.”) 

Rebirth is also just badly plotted; over a post-film pint my date and I rattled through at least a dozen narrative points or character turns that simply don’t make sense, coming up with more and more questions the more we thought about it: “Why didn’t they expect there to be dangerous dinosaurs on the dinosaur island? Why did the corporate guy even show up to the mission, and why didn’t he hire more people? Why is there a GAS STATION selling MERCHANDISE on a REMOTE RESEARCH BASE!?” Seamless plotting isn’t actually a necessity in cinema, depending on the type of story you’re trying to tell, but there isn’t enough fun in Rebirth to qualify it as a ‘dumb fun’ film. I think some of this problem could’ve been solved by just brutally cutting the film down – Rebirth is 2 hours and 14 minutes long and it feels like it, especially in the first act when there must be at least 30 minutes between dino appearances. I haven’t even mentioned yet the B-plot centring on a family who find themselves washed up on the same island as the heroes and must overcome their differences to find their way to safety. While their storyline includes some feel-good moments (and the child characters that apparently are required in every Jurassic movie), in a film that feels so bloated it’s hard not to wonder why a b-story was added in the first place. 

Rebirth is not entirely without redeeming features; as mentioned above I did find some sequences quite thrilling and I think they’re shot decently well by cinematographer John Mathieson, especially during scenes of at-sea or underwater action. There’s a decent sense of the scale and wilderness of the island, which provides an appealing setting for the second half of the movie (and really made me want to visit Central America). I also (and I think this will divide audiences, some of whom will find this a cloying addition to what is ostensibly an action thriller franchise) really enjoyed meeting the adorable mini-dino Delores, adopted as a pet by the young girl Bella. (Which reminds me to give a shout-out to Audrina Miranda, the actress who plays Bella and who gives one of the more convincing child performances I’ve seen.) 

None of these qualities though can counteract the overwhelming feeling that Rebirth is, far from what its title suggests, simply another flogging of the dead horse that is the Jurassic franchise. If a studio exec were to read this script with all the Jurassic references removed, it’s hard to imagine they’d green-light it for its own merits (much less give it a budget of $180 million). Spielberg was a producer on Rebirth, but for the franchise to right itself there needs to be a marked return to the appeal of his original movie: a great story, with great characters, punctuated by great action sequences.