The Paw Print

By Charles Zimmer, Staff Photographer and Chief Digital Officer

Photo taken from Fort Hays University, located in Hays Kansas, courtesy of Charles Zimmer

Jurassic World Rebirth is the seventh installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, but with the current state of Hollywood, I doubt it will be the last. The movie is a mediocre experience that, in part, serves as a representation of how much this franchise has fallen from grace. It is important to note, however, that it is far from the worst film in the series.

The plot centers around two mercenaries and a paleontologist taking on a job given to them by a pharmaceutical representative. The job involves travelling to a remote island located in South America to retrieve genetic samples from the planet’s largest dinosaurs. The representative’s company can then use the samples to create heart disease medication. One major issue with the film’s plot is that it retroactively ruins the events of the previous film. The reason why the characters have to go to South America is because it is one of the only regions on earth where dinosaurs can survive. This was caused by the earth’s increasing climate, which killed all the dinosaurs that were not living in any equatorial areas. This means that all the work that the characters from previous films did to preserve these animal’s lives went to waste since most of the dinosaurs just died between the events of this film and the previous one. 

Another problem with the plot is that it is very generic and forced, feeling more like a video game mission than an actual plot. The paleontologist character says that the three samples they are retrieving “need” to come from dinosaurs that are land, sky and ocean based. The film never states why it has to be these three animals specifically, begging the question of why the characters do not just collect three samples of the passive land-based dinosaur to avoid the two other species that are much more dangerous. It just makes it feel the plot is structured this way to add more artificial tension, without putting in the effort to create more naturally placed action sequences. 

In terms of tension, the film does a decent job, with a runtime of around two hours and 16 minutes, being most comparable to the first Jurassic Park film in terms of runtime alone. Even though it is a bit longer than most conventional movies, it never feels like it drags. with its runtime since the events move along pretty quickly, making it so that it is never completely wasting the viewer’s time.

The film also does a pretty bad job when it comes to characters as well, with a lot of them being underdeveloped, generic and derivative of the previous films. The two mercenaries have a very similar problem when it comes to having a struggle established in the first act that never gets brought up again until the very end. Zora Benett, played by Scarlett Johansson, struggles with grief due to losing a friend on a previous mercenary job, this struggle never comes up again until the falling action of the film where she thinks her other mercenary friend died before the film reveals that he actually survived. Duncan Kincaid, played by Mahershala Ali, also struggles with grief due to losing his son, never comes up until the climax where he feels the need to protect a young girl who was part of a family the crew ran into on their journey to South America. Although it is better that these two characters’ struggles were revisited, they were handled in a sloppy way. Zora and Duncan never show any sign of overcoming their past grief; they merely experienced them in a new way without getting any closure. 

The paleontologist character, Henry Loomis, played by Jonathan Bailey is the most well-written of the main cast. He is shown to be extremely passionate about science, which is why he does not want the genetic samples to be given to a pharmaceutical company. He believes science should benefit everyone and not just corporations. Because the pharmaceutical representative character dies by the climax, the film ends with Henry being happy that the samples will be used for a positive scientific purpose. He is essentially the only main character who gets a proper conclusion. 

The pharmaceutical representative character, Martin Krebs, played by Rupert Friend, is the main antagonist and a very lack-luster one at that. With him fitting the evil rich character archetype that this franchise already has too much of. There is nothing interesting about his personality. He is not funny and has no noteworthy motive and is barely a threat to the other characters.

In terms of the action sequences, the film does a solid job, even though they aren’t placed well within the plot, they are still fun on their own. Most of them do a really good job at building suspense and tension, which is helped by the fun set pieces. Notable examples include a scene where a family is getting attacked by a swimming T-rex in a river and when the main cast is attacked by a flying reptile, a quetzalcoatlus, in an ancient structure on the side of a cliff. 

The dinosaurs themselves are also a net positive for the film. The most notable examples are the mosasaurus, quetzalcoatlus, titanosaurus and spinosaurus. The movie doesn’t feel bloated with too many dinosaurs and because of that, the dinosaurs it does show are given enough time to shine within their respective scenes. 

One aspect of the film that does not work when it comes to the dinosaurs are the D-rex and the mutdadons, which play a bigger role in the climax of the movie, with none of these dinosaurs ever existing in real life. These fictional dinosaurs show a blatant misunderstanding of what made the first Jurassic Park film special. Part of the reason for why the first movie is so iconic is because it helped the general public become more interested in dinosaurs and paleontology as a whole. The film does a great job of showing how interesting real dinosaurs are, regardless of the outdated scientific information that was presented. On the other hand, Jurassic World Rebirth feels the need to include two completely made-up dinosaurs that make up nearly one-third of the film, as if the filmmakers thought the viewers would not be interested in viewing real dinosaurs on the big screen.

Overall, the film is not the worst this franchise has to offer, but the few good elements it does have only pushes it above the last two films in terms of quality. It has better pacing and is less bloated than Jurassic World Dominion and it has better character writing than Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. However, the film is still very mediocre, with a poorly structured plot, underdeveloped characters, events that make the events of the previous films pointless and a lack of understanding of what made the first film so iconic. It shows that this franchise is better off being laid to rest or dare I say, extinct.