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Winnipeg Free Press
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rebirth of franchise more like a retread
As the Jurassic Park franchise has devolved from awesome to awful, it's often pointed out that the movies themselves seem to follow the doomed paths of their characters. Like the scientists so preoccupied with what they can do they don't stop to think if they should, the studio keeps creating unnecessary sequels to Steven Spielberg's 1993 original. Like the corporate owners of the dinosaur parks trying to lure back jaded audiences with larger, toothier, genetically engineered monsters, the writers and directors keep making the action pointlessly bigger and noisier. Like the experts who ought to know better but return to the island because they can't resist that InGen money, the stars keep reprising their roles purely for the paycheques. With the word 'rebirth' right there in the title, this seventh Jurassic movie feels like a conscious self-correction after some really dire entries. And, thankfully, the charisma-free pairing of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard has disappeared and the convoluted dinosaurs-among-us plots have gone extinct. Universal Pictures photos Jonathan Bailey, as pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs, extracts dinosaur blood samples as mercenary Scarlett Johansson observes in the seventh Jurassic Park movie. Director Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, the 2014 Godzilla) is new, and he's a confident craftsman who knows how to execute big — like, really big — set pieces. The dinosaur sequences are always competent and occasionally thrilling. Fans of the original novel will be happy to finally get a well-constructed T-Rex river-raft scene. The human beings, unfortunately, fare less well. Jurassic World: Rebirth Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey and Rupert Friend ● Garden City, Grant Park, Kildonan, McGillivray, Polo Park, St. Vital ● 134 minutes, PG ★★½ out of five Scripter David Koepp, who co-wrote the first film with author Michael Crichton, is back, but he's not exactly on form, and the characters and their emotional backstories are flat, predictable and perfunctory. By the end, Jurassic World Rebirth feels like a barely fleshed-out Universal theme-park ride — sort of fun and completely forgettable. The story opens by making it clear that the dinosaurs that have made their way into our world are mostly dying out, unsuited to our 21st-century environmental conditions. Humans are now so blasé about the creatures that a sickly brachiosaurus that's somehow got loose in downtown Manhattan is just another reason for New Yorkers to complain about the traffic. Dinosaurs in the wild survive only in a band of islands around the equator where people are forbidden to travel. Pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs (The Phoenician Scheme's Rupert Friend) doesn't care about the rules, though: he's planning an illegal but lucrative expedition to Ile Saint-Hubert, home to the dinosaur mutations that were too hideous or dangerous to make it to the Isla Nubar park. Krebs wants blood samples from a Titanosaurus, a Mosasaurus and a Quetzalcoatl (and, yes, as junior dinosaur scientists will point out, technically these last two are not dinosaurs but dino-adjacent prehistoric animals). Their genetic material will be used to make a drug that prevents heart disease. Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures Philippine Velge narrowly avoids being eaten in a scene from Jurassic World: Rebirth. Krebs hires Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson, also recently seen in The Phoenician Scheme), who is said to be 'untroubled by legal or ethical complications.' Basically, she's a mercenary, though she prefers the term 'situational security reaction' specialist. Zora teams with an old colleague, Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali of Moonlight). Krebs also brings on a mission scientist, Dr. Henry Loomis (Wicked's Jonathan Bailey), who's running a dinosaur museum that has just been mothballed because of lack of public interest. He wears glasses and says things like 'intelligence is overrated as an adaptive trait.' It's always astonishing to think that these beasts did once roam the Earth and it was this thought that stopped me slipping into sleep. — Deborah Ross, the Spectator It's always astonishing to think that these beasts did once roam the Earth and it was this thought that stopped me slipping into sleep. — Deborah Ross, the Spectator Rebirth's dinosaurs are everywhere, but the more you see, the less it means. They're good for a scare now and then, but the sense of awe is long since gone — Sam Adams, Slate In a franchise built on the thrill of discovery, this latest entry offers only the comfort of the all-too-familiar, and the sinking feeling that some cinematic wonders are best left extinct. — Peter Howell, Toronto Star The effects are uniformly effective — we believe these dinosaurs, even as we don't believe that any humans could be quite this clueless — and it all goes down perfectly nicely with popcorn, which is all you can ask of a Jurassic movie. — Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times Finally, there's a separate group. Loving father Reuben Delgado (The Lincoln Lawyer's Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is inexplicably taking daughters Teresa and Isabella (Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda), along with Teresa's slacker boyfriend, Xavier (David Iacono), on a small boat through seas known to teem with Mosasaurs, just to fulfil the Jurassic franchise requirement for a child-in-jeopardy subplot. They all end up on the island together and while these characters aren't actively offputting, they don't make much of an impression. This is a talented cast with nothing much to do except run and shout. Zora is dealing with PTSD from a mission gone wrong and guilt about her mother, who died of heart disease. Duncan is haunted by a personal tragedy. The Delgado family is working through some stuff — dad needs to loosen up and Xavier needs to man up. These motivations are outlined in a box-ticking kind of way but barely followed through. Meanwhile, there's the assignment to collect samples from one flying, one swimming and one land-based creature, which gives a Pokémon-like simplicity to the action-adventure plot. After some needlessly complicated Jurassic storylines, this may be refreshing, but it rarely feels original. Koepp makes an early reference to the 'Objects in mirror are closer than they appear' joke from Jurassic Park, but ensuing echoes are not so much clever callbacks as tired retreads. There are mutated dinos hunting humans in a big room with rows of metal shelving. There is a large scary dinosaur about to eat someone and then at the last moment being itself eaten by a larger, scarier dinosaur. Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures From left: Bechir Sylvain, Jonathan Bailey, and Scarlett Johansson in Jurassic World: Rebirth. In Jurassic terms, Krebs has total 'lawyer on the toilet' vibes. Henry, who has studied under the original movie's Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), is given a moment of pure wonder at the sight of a dinosaur herd that is nicely acted but still feels like a pale reiteration of his mentor's. Jurassic World Rebirth isn't egregiously awful, then, but it is creatively underwhelming. It seems to be roaring at the box office, though, meaning that this instalment's cautionary tale warning, which warns that people should matter more than profits, probably isn't going to reach studio executives any more than the franchise's earlier lessons. Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Time Out
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
‘Jurassic World Rebirth' locations: the tropical real-life settings behind the dino adventure
The seventh 'Jurassic' movie, Jurassic World Rebirth is a return to form for a franchise that was looked to be going the way of that ailing Triceratops in the Spielberg original. Props to director Gareth Edwards (The Creator) and OG screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park) for getting back to basics. Their new action-adventure flings terrifying prehistoric critters – swimming, flying and stomping – at a brave band of under-prepared humans on a lush tropical island and pulls it off in often thrilling style. The movie spans a range of suitably exotic locations, from New York to the Atlantic to the fictional equatorial island of Saint-Hubert, Rebirth 's answer to Isla Nublar off the coast of Costa Rica. To capture its spectacular Central American beaches, valleys and waterfalls, the cast and crew travelled to… South East Asia. Here's where, and how, it all came together. What happens in Jurassic World Rebirth? Dinos may be old hat in the world at large, but humanity hasn't given up on exploiting them for financial gain in the new movie. With a potential cure for heart disease in his sight, slippery pharma exec Martin Krebs (The French Dispatch 's Rupert Friend) assembles a team to head to the forbidden, dinosaur-laden Ile Saint-Hubert and extract the blood from three different species. On the team are Jonathan Bailey's paleontologist Dr Henry Loomis, an acolyte of Jurassic Park 's Alan Grant, who will provide the expertise. Providing the firepower are security consultant Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and her team leader Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), plus some extra muscle courtesy of Ed Skrein, But a mishap with a Mosasaurus leaves them, and the shipwrecked Delgado family, ill-equipped, ashore and facing an array of fierce prehistoric beasties – including a few newbies of the 'killer mutant monster' variety. Where was Jurassic World Rebirth filmed? Unlike the original Jurassic Park, which shot its fictional Isla Nublar on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, Edwards turned to Thailand for his Ile Saint-Hubert. Also on the shooting schedule were Brooklyn, a few UK locations and sets, and one of Hollywood's favourite water tanks. Here's where it all happened. The New York dinosaur encounter took place in Dumbo, New York The movie kicks off with Martin Krebs assembling his team in New York. The corporate gun-for-hire gets stuck in a traffic jam caused by a rogue dinosaur. The scene was filmed in Brooklyn's waterfront DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) area. The museum scene was filmed at the University of Greenwich, London Next stop: the work place of paleontologist Dr Henry Loomis (Bailey), a New York museum that, IRL, was actually London's University of Greenwich. Van Dyke's Bar was filmed in Krabi, Thailand Still on a recruitment drive, Krebs, Bennett and Loomis pitch up at Duncan Kincaid's (Ali) waterside bar, Van Dyke's, to persuade the security operative to join the mission. In the story, this sun-splashed establishment, full of Jaws Easter eggs, is found on the northern coast of South America. To film it, a derelict outdoor café was repurposed in a remote fishing village called Bah Gun. The Mosasaurus attack was shot at Malta Film Studios Taking a yachting holiday through dinosaur-y waters, the unfortunate Delgado family encounter a grumpy Mosasaurus in the Atlantic. Luckily, Duncan's boat, The Essex, is on hand to rescue them – although things only get more perilous from there. Those scenes were filmed at Malta Studios' famous water tanks. 'Malta was one nonstop stunt,' remembers Ali. 'We're working on this rig moving in different ways, getting hit with wind machines and water cannons; they made it very easy to pretend you're at sea!' Ile Saint-Hubert was shot in Thailand To create the fictional island of Saint-Hubert, Gareth Edwards and his team scouted locations in Dominican Republic, Mauritius, Panama and Costa Rica (an early option for Spielberg in the 1993 movie). He settled on 'the very primeval' wilds of Thailand, familiar terrain from his 2023 sci-fi The Creator, with a strong lean toward the latter. 'We sent pictures over to Steven Spielberg,' recalls producer Patrick Crowley, '[and] he said, 'We're done! That's the place.'' 📍 Time Out's essential guide to Thailand The Ile Saint-Hubert beach shipwreck was shot at Ko Kradan, Thailand The southern Thailand island of Ko Kradan was the setting for the shipwreck scenes, when the Delgado clan washes up on Ile Saint-Hubert. Other Thailand locations used include Krabi's Khao Phanom Bencha National Park and Ao Phang Nga National Park in Phang Nga. The T-rex rapids attack was filmed at Lee Valley White Water Centre, UK This white water rapids outside of London was originally created to host the canoe slalom event at the 2012 Olympics. Thirteen years on, it was hosting a T-rex slalom as the Delgado family try to escape the jaws of one of the island's apex predators. Shots of the rapids were blended with footage of a flooded quarry in Thailand to create one of the action set pieces of the year. 📍Here's how to visit Lee Valley White Water Centre The ancient temple was shot at Sky Studios Elstree, UK One of the UK's newest film studios, Sky Studios has hosted Paddington in Peru and Wicked in recent years. In Jurassic World Rebirth, its sound stages were used for a spectacular sequence involving a vicious Quetzalcoatlus nesting in an ancient temple, augmenting footage taken in a Thai national park. Scenes of Zora and her team abseiling into the nest were filmed in a Sky Studios backlot. Other scenes filmed at Sky Studios include the gas station, the abandoned InGen complex, and the tunnel network below Ile Saint-Hubert.
The Verge
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Jurassic World Rebirth needs some more time in the incubator
The entire point of Jurassic World Rebirth is to get the franchise back into audiences' good graces with a new set of characters and a story meant to tap into the spectacular energy that made the original such a huge hit. All the same ingredients are there — dinosaurs running amok in a tropical paradise, humans running for their lives, and a sizable enough VFX budget to, theoretically, make it all look dazzling on the big screen. But for all of its attempts at being thrilling crowd pleaser, there's a limpness to Jurassic World Rebirth that makes it feel like a film that might have been better suited for one of the streamers. Set a few years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, Rebirth follows as a fresh group of overconfident humans find themselves travelling to Ile Saint-Hubert, an island populated with genetically engineered dinosaurs that refuse to be controlled. Because the world's climate has become so drastically different in the time since dinosaurs first walked the earth, the island is one of the few places that the creatures can still thrive. People generally understand that the island and its surrounding waters are too dangerous to venture into because there are few ways to really fight back against a hulking reptile with an innate urge to chomp at anything that moves. But there is plenty of money to be made from the wonder drugs that can be derived from the dinosaurs' genetic material. That's why pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) is able to convince paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and tactical experts Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) to go on a secret mission that goes sideways. It's far less clear why divorcee Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is so intent on sailing near the island with his daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda), and Teresa's boyfriend Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono). The family is helpless when their tiny boat is ambushed by a group of aquatic dinos that see the humans as a tasty snack. And once the family manages to get themselves onto the shore, they seem not to understand how much easily avoidable danger they've put themselves in. Though Rebirth brings all of its human characters together rather quickly, the movie never does a very good job of tying their arcs together in a way that makes it seem like this is the story screenwriter David Koepp and director Gareth Edwards originally set out to tell. Bennett's team and Delgado's family both feel like groups of people from very different films. They're all riffs on characters from previous Jurassic projects in a way that speaks to Universal seeing this latest installment as something like a soft reboot. That wouldn't be so bad if Rebirth could match its predecessors' energy and present its mutated dinosaurs in more imaginative, exciting ways. But, aside from one stressful set piece on the side of a mountain where pterosaurs nest, the movie plays things surprisingly safe. That safeness underlines how straightforward and video game-y Rebirth's central narrative is. Bennet and Loomis need to take samples from three specific kinds of dinosaurs that each live in different parts of the island. And as the humans collect their prizes, it becomes increasingly clear that they are wandering into a series of death traps. For a while, it seemed that Universal was embracing the idea of putting dinosaurs back at the top of the food chain. Jurassic World was full of promise because it implied that the franchise was going in a new direction that could lend itself to different kinds of big budget spectacle. But Rebirth takes things back to square one, and its flatness points to a tame, relatively boring future for the series. Jurassic World Rebirth also stars Ed Skrein, Philippine Velge, and Bechir Sylvain. The movie is in theaters now.
Miami Herald
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Movie revieW: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth' has few moments of fun
LOS ANGELES, June 30 (UPI) --Jurassic World Rebirth, in theaters Wednesday, has some fun moments but they are never in service of anything significant. The premise is so overcomplicated that even "dinosaurs eating people" becomes mundane. Set several years after 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, on-screen text informs viewers that since dinosaurs escaped captivity, modern climate and diseases largely killed them again. The survivors migrated to tropical climates near the Equator, and travel to those regions has been prohibited. This leads to a fun image of an ailing brontosaurus causing traffic in New York, to which New Yorkers are more upset about the traffic than the dinosaur. The angle of the public losing interest in dinosaurs becomes a major thematic problem of the film. Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) hires special ops freelancer Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to lead his secret, illegal expedition to obtain samples of the largest dinosaur hearts. Krebs' pharmaceutical company hopes to use those samples to develop medication for coronary diseases. They recruit paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to accompany them on the expedition, and hire Duncan Kinkaid (Mahershala Ali) to captain their covert boat. "Running from dinosaurs" is a pretty innate story driver, so the more these films complicate putting people in that scenario, the more tenuous it gets. Medical research is spurious for two reasons. Even if one believes Krebs is developing heart medicine for the greater good, a movie is not going to solve heart disease. If they succeed in the film, we still don't have dinosaur hearts to harvest in real life. Deep Blue Sea used Alzheimer's research as its premise, but at least sharks exist today. Secondly, Jurassic audiences have already bought into extracting DNA from fossilized mosquitos to create dinosaurs. Rebirth is asking them to believe that those dinosaurs can also cure human diseases? Now they're just making stuff up. The notion that dinosaurs have become a mundane nuisance is also at odds with the conceit of making a blockbuster spectacle about dinosaurs. The in-film public has lost interest in dinosaurs, and yet they still made a seventh movie? Of course, in real life, the public never lost interest in dinosaurs, so it is a meta commentary on a phenomenon that doesn't exist. In Jurassic World Dominion, they finally made a movie where the dinosaurs got loose in the wild, and fans should be disappointed they're already walking it back. The team encounters mutant hybrid dinosaurs that In-Gen was breeding to spruce up their theme parks. The idea that people got tired of seeing the existing dinosaurs suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the popularity of this franchise. Nobody ever got tired of seeing Tyrannosaurus Rexes and raptors. They just want to see them again, and see them as well done as Steven Spielberg did them. Stop making up fake dinosaurs. The T-Rex still gets the best sequence in Rebirth. When Rebirth attempts to serve up a sequence of majesty akin to the reveal in Spielberg's first movie, it's only a response to an artificial apathy towards dinosaurs. The mercenaries marvel at dinosaurs in their natural habitat, when the rest of the film should focus on a more organic dinosaur tale. Rebirth adds even more characters when Duncan responds to the distress call of Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), whose sailboat was capsized by a Mosasaurus in the ocean. Reuben's daughters Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa (Luna Blaise) are aboard too, with Teresa's stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono). The script by David Koepp, who adapted the two Michael Crichton books for the first two Jurassic Park movies, can't even commit to the professionals on a mission. It has to throw in a regular family in peril and have them dragged along on the dinosaur mission. In Koepp's defense, by movie seven he's neither adapting a book nor crafting an original tale. He's stuck in a no man's land of corporate mandates and stringing together set pieces into some logical sense. It's a living. The cast appears to be having fun, as if reconciled to the fact that these are the roles available in Hollywood, so they might as well make the most of it. Zora has a way of explaining to men that they are unqualified for a task while letting it be their idea to let her handle the tough jobs. Cursory backstory is given about Zora losing a friend on a previous mission, and Duncan having a family tragedy that broke up his marriage. Director Gareth Edwards may be having the most fun using playful tricks to show the dinosaur action, given that the payoffs to those scenes are created in post-production with visual effects. Dinosaurs approaching behind a character's back can be a misdirect, and a Quetzalcoatlus may fly into frame showing a character's fate in its beak. Edwards even pulls off a dinosaur version of Michael Myers disappearing from view in Halloween. None of these are as effective as the simplicity of seeing glasses of water tremble with dinosaur steps in the original Jurassic Park. Some are blatantly telegraphed when a dinosaur wanders behind a large foreground object. But at least visually, Edwards is bringing a new approach to the franchise, even though it takes a convoluted route to get there. One sequence blatantly forgets its own rules once the story is ready to move on. Zora and Henry go to the trouble of rappelling down an entire cliffside, but once they reach the bottom, stairs of an ancient temple appear so the rest of the group can rejoin them. This shows the rappelling sequence was conceived with no idea how they'd get back up, or the others down. They just filmed the sequence and then decided all the characters had to be together again. Jurassic World Rebirth is not the worst Jurassic movie. That would be Dominion. Still, saving this franchise will require someone with clout and daring enough to remember they're still making these movies because people want to see dinosaurs. Just trust the dinosaurs. Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment. 2025 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
UPI
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- UPI
Movie review: 'Jurassic World Rebirth' has few moments of fun
1 of 5 | The T-Rex is still the best part of "Jurassic World Rebirth," in theaters Wednesday. Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment LOS ANGELES, June 30 (UPI) -- Jurassic World Rebirth, in theaters Wednesday, has some fun moments but they are never in service of anything significant. The premise is so overcomplicated that even "dinosaurs eating people" becomes mundane. Set several years after 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, on-screen text informs viewers that since dinosaurs escaped captivity, modern climate and diseases largely killed them again. The survivors migrated to tropical climates near the Equator, and travel to those regions has been prohibited. This leads to a fun image of an ailing brontosaurus causing traffic in New York, to which New Yorkers are more upset about the traffic than the dinosaur. The angle of the public losing interest in dinosaurs becomes a major thematic problem of the film. Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) hires special ops freelancer Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to lead his secret, illegal expedition to obtain samples of the largest dinosaur hearts. Krebs' pharmaceutical company hopes to use those samples to develop medication for coronary diseases. They recruit paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to accompany them on the expedition, and hire Duncan Kinkaid (Mahershala Ali) to captain their covert boat. "Running from dinosaurs" is a pretty innate story driver, so the more these films complicate putting people in that scenario, the more tenuous it gets. Medical research is spurious for two reasons. Even if one believes Krebs is developing heart medicine for the greater good, a movie is not going to solve heart disease. If they succeed in the film, we still don't have dinosaur hearts to harvest in real life. Deep Blue Sea used Alzheimer's research as its premise, but at least sharks exist today. Secondly, Jurassic audiences have already bought into extracting DNA from fossilized mosquitos to create dinosaurs. Rebirth is asking them to believe that those dinosaurs can also cure human diseases? Now they're just making stuff up. The notion that dinosaurs have become a mundane nuisance is also at odds with the conceit of making a blockbuster spectacle about dinosaurs. The in-film public has lost interest in dinosaurs, and yet they still made a seventh movie? Of course, in real life, the public never lost interest in dinosaurs, so it is a meta commentary on a phenomenon that doesn't exist. In Jurassic World Dominion, they finally made a movie where the dinosaurs got loose in the wild, and fans should be disappointed they're already walking it back. The team encounters mutant hybrid dinosaurs that In-Gen was breeding to spruce up their theme parks. The idea that people got tired of seeing the existing dinosaurs suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the popularity of this franchise. Nobody ever got tired of seeing Tyrannosaurus Rexes and raptors. They just want to see them again, and see them as well done as Steven Spielberg did them. Stop making up fake dinosaurs. The T-Rex still gets the best sequence in Rebirth. When Rebirth attempts to serve up a sequence of majesty akin to the reveal in Spielberg's first movie, it's only a response to an artificial apathy towards dinosaurs. The mercenaries marvel at dinosaurs in their natural habitat, when the rest of the film should focus on a more organic dinosaur tale. Rebirth adds even more characters when Duncan responds to the distress call of Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), whose sailboat was capsized by a Mosasaurus in the ocean. Reuben's daughters Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa (Luna Blaise) are aboard too, with Teresa's stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono). The script by David Koepp, who adapted the two Michael Crichton books for the first two Jurassic Park movies, can't even commit to the professionals on a mission. It has to throw in a regular family in peril and have them dragged along on the dinosaur mission. In Koepp's defense, by movie seven he's neither adapting a book nor crafting an original tale. He's stuck in a no man's land of corporate mandates and stringing together set pieces into some logical sense. It's a living. The cast appears to be having fun, as if reconciled to the fact that these are the roles available in Hollywood, so they might as well make the most of it. Zora has a way of explaining to men that they are unqualified for a task while letting it be their idea to let her handle the tough jobs. Cursory backstory is given about Zora losing a friend on a previous mission, and Duncan having a family tragedy that broke up his marriage. Director Gareth Edwards may be having the most fun using playful tricks to show the dinosaur action, given that the payoffs to those scenes are created in post-production with visual effects. Dinosaurs approaching behind a character's back can be a misdirect, and a Quetzalcoatlus may fly into frame showing a character's fate in its beak. Edwards even pulls off a dinosaur version of Michael Myers disappearing from view in Halloween. None of these are as effective as the simplicity of seeing glasses of water tremble with dinosaur steps in the original Jurassic Park. Some are blatantly telegraphed when a dinosaur wanders behind a large foreground object. But at least visually, Edwards is bringing a new approach to the franchise, even though it takes a convoluted route to get there. One sequence blatantly forgets its own rules once the story is ready to move on. Zora and Henry go to the trouble of rappelling down an entire cliffside, but once they reach the bottom, stairs of an ancient temple appear so the rest of the group can rejoin them. This shows the rappelling sequence was conceived with no idea how they'd get back up, or the others down. They just filmed the sequence and then decided all the characters had to be together again. Jurassic World Rebirth is not the worst Jurassic movie. That would be Dominion. Still, saving this franchise will require someone with clout and daring enough to remember they're still making these movies because people want to see dinosaurs. Just trust the dinosaurs. Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
