Jurassic World Rebirth review: All-sprinting, all-leaping Scarlettsaurus bites back in winning revival

Irish Independent

a day ago

'Six zeroes' is what she's promised by way of pay packet, seven if you count the '10' at the front of the number on the cheque.
Watching one of the most celebrated actors of her generation booting a Quetzalcoatlus in the face is quite a sight, and that's taking into account a cinema universe where spectacle is the foundation for everything that matters.
Besides claiming to be a lifelong fan of the franchise, ­Johansson of course has form in the action-adventure arena and was never going to look especially out of place here. But who knows, maybe art does imitate life somewhat in that opening scene, as one of the world's highest paid actors is enticed into uncharted professional waters by way of a chunky dangled carrot.
Cynicism aside, maybe this is all perfectly logical. In another blurring of boundaries in Gareth Edwards' film, society has become so dinoed-out that shady boffins in a secret research unit have turned to hybridisation to dream up gnarly new species so that the masses might be kept interested.
No prizes for spotting a slight mirroring with Brand Jurassic. They might make zillions in box office receipts and merchandising, but the films themselves have seemed like an ever-tiring exercise in scouring for ways to keep its revived reptiles alive.
One solution has been to simply unleash a bigger, meaner monster on ticket holders, an ­Indominus rex or ­Giganotosaurus. Another way to refresh things, however, might be a major star of Johansson's wattage to anchor everything. ­Jurassic World: Rebirth reaches for both implements in the toolkit and, by and large, it's worked.
Firmly in the 'one last job' boat, Zora could do with a few mill to retire early on and help her get over some previous unpleasantness in the field. Martin Krebs (Friend) wants her to lead a crack team to a remote island, the last place where dinosaurs from the Jurassic World experiment have not yet succumbed to the ravages of climate and starvation our own species has caused.
If she can help nerdy ­palaeontologist Henry Loomis ­(Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey) collect blood samples from three of the biggest behemoths, Krebs tells her, Big Pharma will develop a cure for heart disease.
The island region is now an ­international no-go zone, however, so Zora brings in ­Mahershala Ali's tropical ­smuggler to help get the team in and out in a ­jiffy. Meanwhile, in nearby seas, a father (Manuel ­Garcia-Rulfo) is bringing his two ­daughters (and the most useless ­boyfriend in ­cinema history) for a ­trans-Atlantic voyage in the ­family yacht when they are capsized by a peckish ­Mosasaurus.
The merciful mercenaries respond to the distress signal and suddenly the adventure has some Spielbergian civilians to humanise the unfolding adventure. In one of many subtle nods to the Alien films, the rescue mission also serves to bring out the amoral corporate weasel in Krebs. When the two parties get separated during a lively landing, we are gifted an extra strand of dino-jeopardy to thrill at.
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Will good old reliable T-rex or some new-fangled Uber-rex be any match for Johansson's sassy smirk? Not a chance. The all-sprinting, all-leaping ­Scarlettsaurus turns out to be the most formidable of them all, and money well spent for a franchise that we can all agree was in dire need of a breath mint.
It's not perfect by any means. There are moments where character backstory and stakes are hurriedly shoehorned in, and the plot makes no attempts to innovate three decades on from the seismic first instalment.
More pleasingly, this is a straight-up 'best of Jurassic' that leans into the textures, sounds, and sheer floor-to-ceiling spectacle of that unstoppable mid-'90s heyday Spielberg executive produces and co-devises along with original screenwriter David Koepp.
Above all, the fantastic beasts and the island where we find them look incredible, with ­Edwards (Rogue One, ­Godzilla) pulling off precisely what he was hired to do – sci-fi sweep and grandiosity with canny human foregrounding. Get those things right, you're reminded, and the extinct will live long.
Three and a half stars