It's rare I see films on their opening day, opening weekend is relatively common but - as I'm otherwise engaged this weekend, I decided to see "Jurassic World Rebirth" on a Wednesday evening. I wish I could say it was because of enthusiasm for the series, but that has largely been beaten out of me at this point. I wish I could say that Rebirth was a film that reignited my love of the franchise but, whilst it's fine, it's largely another retread.
Dinosaurs have proven ill adjusted to the climate of most modern countries, with those that have survived clustering around the equator. Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) representative of ParkerGenix believes that genetic material from three live dinosaurs will help with the research into heart disease that his company are planning. He hires Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johannson) and Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) as lead and scientific expert of his expedition, and they head to the island of Ile Saint-Hubert. But the island was InGen's genetics experiment hub, abandoned following an incident years earlier.
To stress, I didn't think that "Rebirth" was a bad film. I thought the central performances were good and I liked the chemistry between Johansson and Bailey and the endless charisma of Mahershala Ali. I thought the film looked really good Gareth Edwards is a great visual film maker and has plenty of experience with large scale creatures.
The problem is that it's essentially 'another' Jurassic movie and feels like its plot is cribbed almost entirely from existing elements of the series. The stranded family from "Jurassic World 3", the experts from "Lost World", the really dangerous 'final boss' creature from "World" - with a nod towards the jails underneath Jabba's palace.
Without any sort of new angle the word I kept coming back to when thinking about the film was 'inessential' and, once again whilst this was fine, I do feel like the whole franchise could benefit from a lengthy break.
