Jurassic World Rebirth Parent Guide

Years after the re-introduction of dinosaurs to Earth’s ecosystem, people have lost interest in the revived reptiles. Most of the creatures died due to fundamental incompatibilities with eons of changes to the atmosphere and climate, but even those that survive in a narrow band along the equator are largely ignored – a flash in the pan that’s come and gone.

Not everyone has become bored by dinosaurs: they still have secrets, and Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) of ParkerGenix pharmaceuticals wants to uncover them. With the help of a former special forces agent, Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and a paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), and a team of mercenaries, he plans to extract samples from three of the largest dinosaurs ever created.

There’s a catch. The only place where all three dinosaurs can be found is an old InGen research lab on a forbidden island where the company was working on creating new dinosaurs, hybridizing different species to create new attractions for a theme park. The new team will need to go to a lab that’s been out of contact for seventeen years – seventeen years for the surviving animals to go forth and multiply…

Not to dive straight into the weeds, but the premise of this film is infuriating. You know how I know that people would never get bored with real dinosaurs? BECAUSE ZOOS EXIST! I have yet to hear anybody at a zoo say “Yeah sure, a grizzly bear is cool, but I’m not coming back unless they crossbreed that thing with a porpoise.” Thankfully, by the time I’d finished having that thought and started paying more attention to the film, I promptly entered a state of boredom so profound that I had little mental energy left to rage against the inanities of the writing. I think this is a protective measure – if you apply your full attention to this script, your brain will melt like a popsicle in a hot car. When the film wasn’t rigidly going through the motions, it managed to dazzle me with a few moments of true, blinding stupidity, but the script couldn’t even keep that up for long.

Jurassic World: Rebirth isn’t quite as long as Dominion, and it didn’t make me want to try and eat my own ears as often, but it also lacked the big moments that the previous film snuck in under the rest of the manure. Weirdly enough, the film hardly even has dinosaurs anymore – a prerequisite, I thought, for a dinosaur movie – since most of the screen time (with a few exceptions) is occupied by these poorly assembled CGI monsters which have no visible resemblance to real dinosaurs. At least the moronic Indomitus Rex from the earlier films looked like a dinosaur.

Scarlett Johansson does her absolute best to bring some charisma to the film, but one hard-working woman can’t be expected to carry the sheer dead weight of the script. Despite her efforts, I’m hoping this film sounds the death knell for this poor beaten horse of a franchise.

Parents with concerns beyond the writing actually have fewer worries here than in the original film. There’s less violence, as well as less profanity and substance use, with no sexual content of any note. A bigger problem is in trying to make a film where the premise is “Nobody cares about dinosaurs anymore”, while simultaneously catering to a huge market of people who, presumably, still care about dinosaurs. As marketing strategies go, that one feels dicey to me.

About author

Keith Hawkes

Keith Hawkes graduated from Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada with a degree in English and History. His interests are movies, American literature, science fiction, almost every kind of music, and museums. He enjoys criticizing films for fun - although he's okay with being paid for it.