James Whitehead
There are certain properties, certain ideas, that will always grab my attention, despite any past offerings of a subpar nature. Jurassic Park, or Jurassic World, whatever you want to call it, is one of those. Whilst I’ve enjoyed the last two offerings less and less, my excitement and enthusiasm hasn’t dipped for a new entry in the Jurassic franchise. I also appreciate Gareth Edwards greatly as a film maker. Whilst he is yet to produce a film that I can consider, ‘great’, every time I’m seated for a film of his, I’m always blown away by his visual story telling and ability to frame some beautiful looking action. Therefore I was deeply encouraged to hear we would get his sensibilities for the new Jurassic World: Rebirth, and with the news of him teaming up with David Koepp, the original writer for Jurassic Park, it really seemed that this project had all the potential to reinvigorate the franchise.
But now, having seen the film… Creatively, this franchise is now much closer to extinction, than reinvigoration.
What seemed an attempt to return to the smaller, scarier scale of JP, unfortunately resulted in an extremely generic feeling rehash, without any of the depth or development which made the first film so iconic. Jurassic World: Rebirth, asks the question, “What if we reused the formula of the first three films, but made all the characters flat and forgettable?” That is unfortunately the result of this new attempt.
The movie isn’t the worst of the franchise, and it’s certainly not the worst film I’ve seen this year, but to fall from the great height of hope and expectation, I sit here feeling crushed.
Gareth Edwards does use his visual ability to great use; the dinosaurs look great, from the effects to the designs to the scale, he captures them all beautifully and really understands how to build tension and suspense. They’ve turned up the horror in this one and it serves the film well. Unfortunately, whilst Edwards demonstrates some of his best work, he also reminds us of a constant critique of his, subpar writing and character development.
The film is enjoyable because of the talent on screen, but actors of this calibre are neutered with some of the most generic and heavy-handed writing in recent memory. Scarlett Johanson is having fun on screen, but the lazy attempts to make us care about her or any of her crew remove any real attachment to what’s going on. Jonathan Bailey is a nice introduction into the world, but again, lacks any real individuality or personality to make him an adequate narrative insert for the iconic Sam Neil’s Dr Alan Grant. Mahershala Ali does his best and is always captivating when focused, but the heavy handed nature of revealing his traumatic past in another lazy attempt to get us to care about the cast just doesn’t do service to any of these fantastic actors.
Overall, I left deeply disappointed in what was on offer. Further than that, I struggle to see where the franchise goes from here narratively. The promise of a true Jurassic “World” has yet to be seen, and whilst this seemed like the natural progression for the franchise, akin to a Planet of the Apes, instead, they’ve dialled back and made this likelihood of this even smaller. So, where do we go from here? But hey, maybe there’s ANOTHER Island we never knew about? With ANOTHER illicit businessman? Who has to recruit ANOTHER Dinosaur specialist… who knows? Either way, these movies make money so a sequel chance is likely, but without talk of a big change of direction in this franchise, it really could die out slowly…
Have you had a chance to see Jurassic World: Rebirth yet? What did you think? Let us know below and as always be sure to check out the TV and Film News section on the Hits player for the lasts News and Reviews in the world of entertainment.
