Jurassic World: Rebirth (Christian Movie Review)
About the Film
Dinosaurs went extinct once before, but they’ve been remarkably resilient with their second chance at life. Thirty-two years and six sequels after Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park resurrected the prehistoric beasts, they keep chugging along. As the original movie famously mused, however, the ability to bring dinos back and keep them around does not mean that we should. The franchise has been on a clear downward spiral. The latest entry attempts to revitalize the floundering series, and it does so with moderate success. Arguably the best of the batch of unimpressive sequels, Jurassic World: Rebirth finally captures some of the thrills and wonder of the original film, even if it ultimately struggles to justify a reason for existing.
Story-wise, you know the drill – a group of mostly one-dimensional characters are stranded on an island with hungry dinosaurs. This time around, the catalyst involves a mission to retrieve samples from the three biggest dinos to manufacture a new medicine. But let’s be honest. None of it really matters. It’s all an excuse to watch characters run around and try not to become dino dinner. The plot unfolds with the structure of a video game, more a sequence of episodic set pieces than a cohesive story as the heroes traverse the island collecting the samples.
The plot consists of two storylines that only occasionally intersect. One features the Scarlett Johansson-led mercenaries on the sample-seeking mission, and the other follows a family they encounter along the way. The first provides the action, while the second gives the emotional heart, but the bifurcation of the plot into two parallel tracks leaves the film feeling jumbled at times.
The narrative template remains fixed, but there are impactful changes behind the camera. Original screenwriter David Koepp returns for the first time since 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla) steps into the director’s chair. Both make their presence felt in positive ways. Koepp’s storytelling sensibilities result in Rebirth feeling more like a direct sequel to Spielberg’s vastly superior originals than to the later “Jurassic World” era of films. Edwards is also a major upgrade for the series (post-Spielberg), demonstrating impressive camera work and use of lighting (particularly in the final scenes). He returns a sense of awe and reverence for the central creatures (with one giant caveat, discussed below). One scene in which the characters stand in astonishment before some dinos is reminiscent of the original’s initial reveal of the Brachiosaurus and invokes a sense of wonder that has been sorely missing from the increasingly cynical series.
The story is far from groundbreaking, but Jurassic World: Rebirth is a perfectly serviceable Summer blockbuster. It’s predictable, and there is no mystery about what characters exist to carry the plot and which are present merely to be eaten. Still, there are several thrilling action scenes, including a standout river sequence from Michael Crichton’s original novel that was not included in Spielberg’s film.
Now for the caveat. Humor me, but I’m of the belief that the downward spiral of the Jurassic Park series can be traced to the moment Hollywood inexplicably decided that dinosaurs were no longer scary. The T-Rex—one of the baddest dudes in cinema history—has been largely sidelined for decades (he appears in only a single sequence in Rebirth, which is the film’s best scene). Instead, the series has become enamored with genetic hybrids and man-made monsters. For a film that otherwise treats the dinosaurs with reverence, shoehorning in a lazy and unnecessary subplot about genetic hybrids is a swing and a miss. The climax sees the heroes face off against a goofy looking monster that feels like it belongs in another movie entirely and ends the otherwise mostly solid film with a giant whimper.
In the end, the Jurassic Park series is clearly getting long in the tooth, but it shows that it’s still got some fight left in it. The recent sequels have frequently functioned as a meta commentary about how over-exposure to a familiar spectacle no longer brings the same sense of awe and wonder that it once did. Jurassic World: Rebirth shuns such cynicism and attempts to recapture some of that lost magic. It is clearly made as a love letter to the original and is a better film than it has any right to be (or than the trailers make it appear). Even so, a movie about a world that’s ready for the dinosaurs to return to extinction only for greedy corporations to keep them around for financial profit, feels oddly familiar.
For Consideration
On the Surface—(Profanity, Sexual content, violence, etc.).
Language: There are 8-10 profanities ( “s—”, “d—”), and God and Jesus are each used at least once.
Violence: Various characters are eaten by dinosaurs. We hear the screams and see the jaws chomp down, but there is little blood shown. A dismembered arm is shown left behind from one such attack.
Sexuality: None.
Engage The Film
Greed & Redemption
Consistent with many of the Jurassic Park sequels, there is a clear message against corporate greed. In Rebirth, the heartless, wealthy antagonists represent pharmaceutical companies whose desire to produce breakthrough medicine from the dino samples is driven by financial profit rather than benevolent intentions.
Beyond the condemnation of such avarice, however, the film is largely about redemption. Both primary story threads explore this theme in different ways. Scarlett Johansson’s crew is on the mission only for the money. Throughout the film, they are pulled between the money-hungry pharmaceutical agent and Dr. Henry Loomis (a well-intentioned paleontologist) who wants to make their discoveries and knowledge publicly available. In one of the film’s better dramatic scenes, Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali’s characters chat about their broken lives, and one encourages the other that it’s not too late to start doing the right thing and to begin making choices that make a positive difference. In that way, the “rebirth” in the film’s title refers more to the human characters than to the dinosaurs.
It’s not an overly nuanced or developed message, but centering the story on protagonists who are essentially anti-heroes is unique for the series and allows for the presentation of a classic redemptive arc. The film doesn’t explore the theme in a religious context—although a character remarks that to kill a dinosaur would be “a sin”—but the emphasis on redemption is commendable for Christians.
