‘Survival is a long shot…’
Every Jurassic Park sequel falls into the category of either ‘bad’ or ‘fine, I guess’. None of them justify their own existence. English director Gareth Edwards has made one great film (Rogue One), one film I’ve never seen (his 2010 debut, Monsters) and many bad films that I have unfortunately seen. Screenwriter David Koepp, writer of the original Jurassic Park and the fourth most financially successful screenwriter of all time, has not written a good film in many, many years. Nobody should be surprised that this film is bad…
So, what possible reason could anyone have for returning to an island full of dinosaurs, despite the fact that there have been six previous movies where this has happened, and it always ends in death or destruction? Predictably, the answer is ‘there is no credible reason’. Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a pharmaceutical representative, recruits Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), a… erm… I’m not sure really. She’s good at catching things? It’s never really explained. Anyway. She’s definitely recruited for something. She brings Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) out of retirement for one last job (this isn’t actually stated in the dialogue, but it’s coded that way – we’ve seen this shit a thousand times before), and palaeontologist, Dr Henry Loomis (sigh) also comes along for the ride (he’s played by Jonathan Bailey) because apparently, the population at large have somehow become tired of ACTUAL DINOSAURS, so they are shutting down the dino exhibit at the National History Museum. It’s all complete nonsense and none of it matters. They go to the island because they need to collect a sample from three massive dinosaurs (one each from land, sea and sky – complete nonsense) in order to create a cure for heart disease or some such drivel. It is, and I cannot stress this enough, absolute, complete and total nonsense. There is also a whole other movie going on regarding a family who accidentally become stranded on the killer dinosaur island. I mention it in passing here because they could have been eliminated from the film completely and it would have made zero difference to anything.
What’s particularly annoying is that Johansson is actually great here. She suits this world perfectly. It’s not her fault that everything going on around her is such a shit show. The CGI is fine. It never threatens to be awe-inspiring, but it’s not the CGI gopher in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull either, but the decision to include genetically modified dinosaurs (while true to the books) is completely bone-headed. If you want to go make a movie about genetically modified dinosaurs, that’s fine, go make that movie. It doesn’t need to fall under the Jurassic Park (or Jurassic World) umbrella. And speaking of umbrellas, the final ‘boss’ dinosaur here is more like something out of the Resident Evil franchise or even an Alien movie than Jurassic Park/World. Laughable.
It seemed that Dominion was the nadir of this franchise, and while, to be honest, that film is so bad that it probably still is the lowest ebb, Rebirth runs it mighty close. Unfortunately, it made double its budget at the box office, because people really will shovel any old slop into their grotesque mouths, and so, this will almost certainly not be the last time that the corpse of this franchise is once again raised from the ground and forced to dance to the music while holding a fucking Snickers bar in its mouth (if you know, you know) – truly, truly terrible nonsense.
