Jurassic World: Rebirth Is a Box Office Success, But it Might Be Time for the Jurassic Franchise to Go Extinct
When a film starts with a stray Snickers wrapper bringing a multibillion-dollar secret research facility down to its knees, Final Destination style, it’s your cue to turn your brain off. If you follow instructions and shut down your mental faculties, Jurassic World: Rebirth is a thrilling roller-coaster ride filled with adrenaline-pumping moments, breathtaking dinosaurs, and ample eye candy. On the other hand, if you insist on keeping your brain on, you might notice a few things.
First of all, Rebirth is a soft reboot of the franchise that essentially undoes the events of the previous trilogy. From Jurassic World through Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, the franchise established a new status quo where dinosaurs roamed the Earth freely and humans had to adapt to co-existing with the prehistoric creatures. It was a brave direction for a franchise that was in danger of wearing down its primary conceit. Where do you go from there? Jurassic World could have imagined a world that adapted to dinosaurs and integrated them into society, with industries and secondary markets that revolved around dinosaurs and dinosaur byproducts, similar to how Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim gave rise to a kaiju subculture. Jurassic World could have explored a post-apocalyptic scenario where dinosaurs led to the downfall of humanity, and pockets of human survivors make their way through the dino apocalypse. They could’ve done anything.
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Instead, Jurassic World: Rebirth, written by David Koepp, the same man who wrote the first two films, inexplicably wipes out most of the free-roaming dinosaurs outside the equatorial band. According to Rebirth, the climate outside the tropics was too cold for the dinosaurs, so they died out over a few short years. It’s scientific hokum, as any dinophile knows that dinosaurs thrived in various climates, including cold ones. The result is a practical return to the old status quo, where dinosaurs are confined in remote islands, usually with abandoned laboratories. It’s Isla Sorna all over again.
Not only does Rebirth reuse an old plot, it rehashes the popular dynamic of action hero + scientist seen with Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) from the previous Jurassic World trilogy. They’ve gender-swapped the roles, and it’s Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett who’s the action hero and Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis, the scientist. Sure, Zora is a covert ops mercenary and not a raptor wrangler, but make no mistake — this is just a reskin. Worse, Zora and Henry have even less personality than either Owen or Claire, and Zora’s backstory about losing someone dear to her is alluded to but never actually figures into the plot. In this iteration, the supporting cast is composed of a representative from the greedy corporation (of course); a troupe of black ops mercenaries who, for some reason, have hearts of gold despite taking on a highly illegal and unethical mission; and a Latino family who are inexplicably sailing in restricted waters.
Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson in 'Jurassic World: Rebirth'
Rebirth also makes a half-hearted attempt at mutant dinosaurs, retreading the same ground as Jurassic World when it introduced the designer dinosaur Indominus Rex. The Indominus Rex was a composite of all the deadliest traits of various dinosaurs and even some modern fauna, such as tree frogs and pit vipers. The Indominus Rex was the ultimate apex predator, sitting atop the food chain by design, a creature tailor-made to be as lethal as possible. As ludicrous as the premise for its creation was — just another theme park attraction — the Indominus Rex still managed to be a formidable antagonist, at last something more fearsome than the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex. So, where does Rebirth go from there?
The answer is downhill. It’s simply impossible to top the Indominus Rex, which wasn’t just terrifying, it also looked super cool. In Rebirth, scientists have created the D-Rex or the Distortus Rex, a bizarre, bulbous-headed monstrosity that looks nothing like a dinosaur but more like a Star Wars Rancor from Temu. Say what you will about hybrid dinosaurs, but at least the Indominus Rex looked the part. The D in D-Rex might as well stand for Derpy. The D-Rex appears so briefly in the film and does absolutely nothing different from a regular carnivorous dinosaur that it could just as easily have been a Megalosaurus.
Mahershala Ali, Rupert Friend, and Bechir Sylvain in 'Jurassic World: Rebirth'
The D-Rex is emblematic of Rebirth’s cowardice. Instead of populating the island with entirely new, hybrid species of dinosaurs that move the needle, Rebirth instead uses familiar adversaries and perennial favorites like the T-Rex. It has one other fictional creature, a hybrid flyer that literally could’ve been any other prehistoric flying reptile. There’s a moment in the film that teases a mysterious creature lurking underwater, when a tentacle-like appendage follows the expedition and gives one of the characters a moderate scare. But it never materializes into anything more than a jump scare, and audiences never find out what the creature is. Rebirth is filled with moments like this, almost like the cinematic equivalent of edging, and it never really pays off.
When the audience is introduced to Dr. Henry Loomis, he’s taking down a dinosaur exhibition, lamenting how audiences had grown bored of dinosaurs and no longer visit the museum. It’s a completely bonkers thesis for a franchise that’s still squeezing box office and merchandise profits 33 years later. Five years after the events of Dominion, the world seems to have moved on from dinosaurs, and Loomis is forced to participate in an illegal and dangerous expedition to fund his research. It’s an infuriating and lazy premise that insults its own audience, who are literally in the theaters specifically for the dinosaurs.
Love it or hate it, the previous Jurassic World trilogy at least dared to shake up the status quo, introducing new concepts from hybrid dinosaurs to dinosaur wrangling to a co-existence with creatures from prehistory. Rebirth’s gutless return to the status quo adds absolutely nothing to the franchise aside from the moderately exciting foray into the ocean against the terrifying Mosasaurus. But again, it’s just edging, and Rebirth never really explores the undersea behemoth’s frightening potential. A more grounded film about an expedition to take down the Mosasaur, part Moby Dick, part Jaws, and definitely part The Meg would’ve been infinitely more interesting and heart-stopping than a rehash of Jurassic Park’s greatest hits. The way Dominion ended, it was certainly one of the directions the franchise could’ve taken without having to scrap the groundwork laid down by three Jurassic World movies.
Of course, because this still has Steven Spielberg DNA, there’s a kid thrown in somewhere—which brings us to one of the worst parts of an already unwieldy film: the baby dinosaur. Somewhere along the way, the Delgado family’s youngest member, Isabella (Audrina Miranda), encounters a baby dinosaur that starts following her around. It’s played for comedic and cute moments, but it never actually materializes into anything consequential other than the girl ends up taking the creature home like a pet, which is the most bizarre and irresponsible thing to feature in a post-COVID world. The baby dinosaur makes no sense whatsoever and doesn’t even contribute as a plot device. Even worse than the baby dinosaur is the fact that the character of Xavier (David Iacono), the most unlikeable character in 33 years of the entire franchise, doesn’t die. Xavier is so terrible and lame that he should’ve been killed in the excessively violent way Zara (Katie McGrath) was in Jurassic World. Zara didn’t deserve it, but Xavier’s death would’ve guaranteed cheers from the audience.
But the absolute worst part about Rebirth, more than its rehashed tropes, more than its paper-thin characters, more than the D-Rex, more than the baby dinosaur and the irritating Xavier, is the fact that Rebirth is making bank at the box office. Terrible movies like Rebirth shouldn’t be rewarded by roaring box office returns, but clearly people are still fascinated by dinosaurs, no matter what Dr. Henry Loomis says. Its financial success only guarantees that we’re in for more creatively bankrupt dinosaur movies in the future, and that thought is scarier than any T-Rex.
